Dear John et al.:

First, congratulations to you and especially Daniel for his success as a writer and in anticipation of his forthcoming release. If he'd like another reader of the text and might be interested in additional comments from "others" for the jacket, please extend my invitation to review the work accordingly. To be fair, there's always a great deal of "interpersonal and social tension" between the generations, so I'm confident that I'll agree with the premise - but would need to see the arguments and evidence to comment helpfully on this particular work. I mention this because the research demonstrates consistently that each generation has a degree of narcissism and close-mindedness about the value of their own contributions, the challenges that they've been able to overcome, and the "kids today..." thesis. There's a tendency toward conservatism in the most general sense due to the shared narratives and experiences that define each generation, as well as the connectedness that requires FAR less energy expenditure. For example, if I say to you, "Geez, I'm feeling old these days. 'Do I dare to each a peach?' ", many on this listserve would be fine with such a reference. Or, if I talk about hiding under my desk during the air raid drills of the 1960s, many of us would nod knowingly. In contrast, a couple of our 20-something kids were home last weekend and were amazed to learn of that fact. And then, as the conversation continued, I had to explain about my grandmother, a real-life Rosie the Riveter who was one of only two women in Fort Worth to fasten rivets right up until the end of the Second World War. 

In contrast, they couldn't imagine a world without the internet, or one who's lifelong best friend was someone online whom he'd never met in person. And while I grew up listening to the Beatles, they are quick to remind me of the value of contemporary forms of music (yes, including rap and hip-hop) -- and one classically trained musician in the family (who wrote a symphony at age 17 that moved his music teacher as well as my mother to tears) who mainly writes electronic music and stuff that sounds almost nothing like what I imagined music to be in my youth. But, of course, it goes much deeper, to the heart of technology (e.g., "digital natives"), how we organize the rhythms of our lives, and what are aspirations and imaginations are for our lives -- and how different that is generationally. And every generation had tensions linked to the cultural & technological changes that defined their eras.

As to your broader point, i.e., that our own list here may be " 'victims' of our misunderstanding of the basic elements of life in our ambiguous origins and use of deception to cope with them," that's a rather grand, er, "indictment." If you're suggesting that it's a good idea to consider new ideas and evidence in an effort to better understand the nature of life, variations in biologically-based behaviors, and the implications for the psychological and cultural aspects of being "human beings," then I fully concur. This is a conversation that can and should be had regularly. If we operate in good faith, then there's no reason why we shouldn't consider different viewpoints, paradigms (yes, I still read about superstring theory even though I'm not a convert!), and research to try to build knowledge and enhance understanding.

Yet, as with any knowledge-building endeavor, one has to be prepared to have disagreements and work through the different justifications for why we believe what we believe. Including science. If it were "obvious," then we'd have figured things out long ago. I liken it to the Supreme Court debate. How can it be the brilliant legal minds, some of the best and brightest, nevertheless disagree at such a fundamental level and in such predictable ways such that you have consistent, routine splits in terms of who sides with whom? There's more happening than just the "facts" of the case. Simply the contrast between "strict constructionism" and "judicial activism" highlights a critical difference in the frameworks for reasoning. Who's "right"? I certainly don't know, but I can explain why they argue what they do based on their particular perspectives, justification logics, and social locations.

Finally, even if we understand "the nature of things," or can explain the mechanisms at play and why things (whatever "things" we might be referencing) work the way that they do, none of that solves the Humean "is-ought" divide. In fact, I have yet to see a convincing argument that effectively bridges the is-ought divide. If i understand cell-cell communication as John Torday does, or if I consider that Torday fellow "nuts" (I don't, btw!) and buy into conventional thinking, what does any of that tell me about solving personal problems, or "social unrest and strife"? Unless someone can explain things differently than anything I've ever heard or read previously (and I'm open to that!), then I don't know how to translate scientific knowledge or knowledge about how things "work" into "therefore, here's how we should organize our society". I mean, I understand that I'm missing about 3cm of cartilage in my right knee and that I could get a knee replacement,  but should I do that? There's no "obvious" answer, unless I link the question to some predetermined use-value or other standard by which I hope to evaluate the quality of my decision in response to scientific explanation of what has happened to my knee. And we have a ton of knowledge about the atom nowadays, with a great deal of nuclear energy powering things in Ontario. But should we be relying upon nuclear energy? Again, an entirely different question that requires that we invoke different evaluative standards.  At least, that's my current understanding.

Best to one and all, -Joe