I've finished Chapters 3 and 4 of Hoffman's CASE. I'm getting very strong indications that he's not concerned with disclosing aspects of the reality that human, fitness-oriented senses cannot disclose. His main concern seems to be for countering the dominant opinion that human senses endow their owners with a selective advantage. Future chapters may address what this does or does not alter about humans' place in the evolutionary chain of being.
Two interesting quotes I may use in the future:
The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual world as in the physical. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.-- Thomas Henry Huxley.
This accords with some of my perspectivist essays regarding the freedom to make choices depending on particular circumstances.
There is, as we have discussed, genetic drift -- the chance spreading of a neutral allele, which has no effect on fitness, throughout a population. This is more likely in smaller populations. Such drift, some claim, accounts for most of molecular evolution. It is possible that today's neutral drift might, as niches change, become tomorrow's game changer. -- Hoffman, p.71.
If one extends the principle of the "unexpectedly useful allele" to that of the "unpopular philosophical concept" or "obscure literary trope," one could make a good case for a scientifically supported take on "the stone the builders rejected."
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