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Re: Grand Revelations
On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Don Smith wrote:
> 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.
Well put.
> From amoebae to tumbleweeds to sharks.
Oh, tumbleweeds. That's almost on-topic, that is. :)
> > 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!
Kind of like how the food we digest "digresses into chaos" as it is torn
apart in our stomachs, but then it gets reconstituted into the cells of
our own bodies, perhaps?
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
"I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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