Tell HN: PG revises 3 essays
PG seems to have revised a couple of his essays from 2006, labelling them "rev August 2009":
http://www.paulgraham.com/6631327.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/randomness.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/whyyc.html
It's interesting to read this in the context of _The Selfish Gene_. Mary Midgley (who wrote a scathing attack on the book[1]) once suggested that she probably found it hard to appreciate its virtues because she'd read the ideas in it so many times before -- by the time the book came out they hardly seemed novel to her.
[1]: http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/article.php...
"So if you want to discover things that have been overlooked till now, one really good place to look is in our blind spot: in our natural, naive belief that it's all about us. And expect to encounter ferocious opposition if you do."
Peter Singer is a good case study in this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought
Lamark’s main works were from the turn of the 19th century, as was Cuvier’s work on extinction, and Darwin’s uncle Erasmus’s descriptions of “metamorphoses”. Paley’s Natural Theology, which originated the famous “watchmaker” analogy for God, was from 1802. The Vestiges, published anonymously in 1844, sparked massive controversy that was the talk of “educated” people throughout the world. Indeed, when Darwin finally published the Origin in 1859, the scientific/religious debate had been widespread for 50 years, and in the general public consciousness for at least a decade or two; Darwin himself had been well aware of it as a young man.