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stars upon thars (was 'Grand Revelations')

don is brilliant, and all, but i'm trying to understand all this between 
sorting vhs dubs, routing paperwork, and figuring out airline tickets.

and i don't know if anyone explained exactly this point i'm wondering about: 
  how exactly would we have evolved from stars?  maybe i am 
misunderstanding.  but i'm certainly curious-

and can someone answer me in simple college-grad-majored-in-the-arts speak?  
i ain't no astrophysicist.  :)


-melanie


>From: Don Smith <dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu>
>Reply-To: Don Smith <dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu>
>To: Over-the-Rhine at actwin_com (Over the Rhine List)
>Subject: Re: Grand Revelations
>Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 12:07:05 -0400 (EDT)
>
>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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By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, 
penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, 
whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.

- Teilhard de Chardin


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