Kate I'd suggest that it's only a paradox if you make it into a binary proposition, that this persons conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. Why couldn't they just be interdependently arisen, with reciprocal causality, like a chicken and egg, chemicals and all.
Actually, if you read the whole article, he doesn't reach a conclusion as such. He points out the paradox, then describes the lab experiments that have flowed from it, and ends by saying something along the lines of 'more science is needed'.
The paradox itself, however, is something of a rejection of the idea that the two functions could have evolved, even interdependently, because they each depend on the other to exist. At least that's how I took it.
I think, too, he was somewhat acknowledging that reciprocal causality was the answer....it just wasn't there as an answer....yet. :) |
