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Date:      Mon, 9 Sep 2002 13:50:59 -0700 (PDT)
From:      "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
Cc:        Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net>, <dave@jetcafe.org>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Why did evolution fail?
Message-ID:  <20020909133707.S1838-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan>
In-Reply-To: <3D7CF512.ED0C4E8B@mindspring.com>

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On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Terry Lambert wrote:

> > So what is the criteria for determining "fitness"?  Those who
> > survive?  But then this just leads us into a logical tautology,
> > whereby the mechanism for evolution amounts to "the survival of
> > the survivors."
>
> "The survival of those best suited to survive", actually.

It is still a triviality.  Of course those "best suited to survive" will
survive.


> > How is "fitness" determined?
>
> As an attribute of an organism, it is determined by suitability
> to its environment.

I don't really have a problem with adaptation, per se when limited
to within species.  What really strikes me as absurd though, is
the idea that chance mutations can give rise to new functionality,
for that functionality is not functional until everything is plugged
in and working.  What possible purpose could a partially evolved
sex organ have, for instance?


> > > > Why is the reification of nature justified in order to save
> > > > evolutionary theory?
> > >
> > > Nature *is* concrete, *not* abstract.  There is no reifying of
> > > nature happening here.  You can only reify an *abstract* thing.
> >
> > Sorry.  Wrong word.  What I meant was "personify."
>
> You probably meant anthropormorphise, as in "endow it with attributes
> normally associated with humans".
>
> The answer is that nature is not anthropomorphised (or personified)
> by having the power to select, so long as it does not exhibit will
> in the process.

But does this not present a difficulty?  With no will to do the
selecting, "the power to select" is completely unintelligible.


> > > > "Selection" implies intentionality,
> > >
> > > To people without a complex vocabulary.  Perhaps it was a bad choice
> > > to use the compound word "natural selection", since it permits those
> > > people to make this mistake.
> >
> > Actually it is an oxymoron invented by natural biologists to obscure
> > the fact (from themselves, as well as others) that evolutionary theory
> > implies an absurdity.
>
> Your internal logic is almost endearing.  8-).

Why, thank you!  8-)


> > > With theologians still able to claim that God controls chance, of
> > > course.
> >
> > Actaully theologians would never admit to such an absurd concept.  If
> > controlled by God, it is not random at all.
>
> Alternately, they would claim that everything was controlled by God,
> and that randomness is an absurdity.  As you have done.  8-).

Yeah, exactly!
8-)


Neal



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