But besides that, personally i love the concept of evolution. It is so nifty. And it isn't just limited to biology. I don't clearly understand why some people try to see evolution and natural selection as seperate concepts. Evolution is the consequence of natural selection. Personally i like the redundant truth behind the idea of natural selection. Those beings which are better adapted to survive - survive. Those that are not adapted to survive - die. This is not a law of biology, this is a law of physics, of reality.
Lets take an example in culture. Suppose a people decide that the only way one can lead a moral life is to cut off your testicles to reduce your sex drive? After 70 years the culture dies out from a lack of children. And incase there are those of you who want to see the otherside of that coin. Suppose a people decide that sex should be the only other activity besides things required to continue survival - food, shelter, ect. They pay no heed to safe sex, and all die out from sexually transmitted diseases - although this is not really guarenteed since people can f**k a lot sooner than is acceptable in this culture, and it is possible to breed fast enough to out survive sexually transmitted disease. They wont live happy, but they will continue. Present example? Africa.
Think of all the groups of people(clubs, political parties, social arrangements) which don't exist anymore because they became obsolete, or unpopular, or wouldnt adapt?
Ever heard that video killed the radio star? Well that is a bit of an exaggeration, radio adapted, but there really arent radio stars any more.
Pretty much the entire world can be understood through the context of evolution. And while it would be foolish to try to create morals based on it(IE, the strong deserve to survive, so you dont have to feel guilty about crushing the poor under your heel), it does allow you predict more reliably the path and future of all human societies.
The one that really interests me is that the next level of evolution may be conscious manipulation. When i say this, others always point out that we could f**k up conscious manipulation and kill us all. But that is the naturally deselected option. There ALSO exists the possibility that a species which alters its own genes consciously could become more adapted to survive than the species which doesnt.
And the reason why this actually deserves a new level is because evolution in its own is based on adaptation of currently existing models, over the course of millions of years a lot of the bugs get worked out, but ever see those fleshy fingers on cats arms which seem to do nothing? That is probably because the ancestor to cats have that many fingers, but now the arm of the animal is simply better adapted to not have that finger further down. But the genes for that many fingers are still in there. It was just that the genes that control placement have been adapted.
Natural evolution is effective because literally what it does is zillions of trials and errors. Creature number 1 has alteration A - it dies, Creature number 2 has alteration B - it dies, creature number 3 has alteration C - it lives. Except think in terms of millions and billions.
Humans have a problem solving technique that is not as thorough, but much quicker. Inductive reasoning. And using this we could make changes in our genes which otherwise could not have occured - or occured so quickly - due to the methods of natural evolution.
So i think this is all very exciting.
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And as always, these are simply my worthless opinions.
My body is a channel that translates energy from the universe into happiness.
I either express information, or consume it. I am debating which to do right now.
24 Jan 2006, 1:31 am
, I've debated this in a number of other places at WP. Or you can just look at the title underneath my name.
