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Re: Grand Revelations
Ryan wrote:
> Doesn't evolution at least connotate some kind of progression?
No. It simply means change. In its definition, it's a value-neutral
statement. When the word became associated with biological evolution and the
origin of species, people who wanted to see humans as the end product (rather
than part of an ongoing process) as well as utopians with respect to Social
Darwinism, put a spin on the word by adding the assumption that evolution would
always lead to improvement. They took "survival of the fittest" and spun it so
that "fittest" also meant "best", when in the technical sense, all it means is
"that which has the characteristics necessary for survival". It doesn't mean
more complicated, more intelligent, more moral, or any of that, it just means
it had whatever it needed to survive long enough to have children. Any
creature alive today is just as "fit" as human beings, from an evolutionary
perspective, since they have survived. From amoebae to tumbleweeds to sharks.
Again, all that is just considering the bare definition of the word. It
certainly *can* be used to mean a progression, but that's not the basic
defintion of the word, as it's used by scientists.
When astronomers and physicists use the word, they just mean the progression of
a system's variables through time. A star starts as a ball of mostly hydrogen
and some helium, pressure builds, fusion kicks in, heavier elements are
created, the star explodes. That's one pathway for "stellar evolution". It's
not saying the former state is better or worse than the latter.
> Change over time could be a digression into chaos, couldn't it?
Yup. And that would still be an evolution of the system. In fact, the gas
spewed out in a supernova is much more chaotic than a living star, so stellar
evolution *is* a digression into chaos!
Hope that helps,
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
"Poppa... The more you talk, the more I don't hit the ball!" - Maddy Hordinski
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