Being a creationist is pretty dumb, true. However, "directed evolution" at
least sounds plausible, and merrits some attention. Further, the idea that
it's not all evolution, that something else important might be going on
which we can't see yet, that merrits attention too.
I think it's a worthwhile thread. We assume natural selection most of the
time; it's good to try defending it/breaking it down every now and again.
Emlyn
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mlorrey@datamann.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 1:47 AM
Subject: Re: That (not so) idiot Darwin
> Frankly I fail to see what all this debating about Darwin has to do with
> Extropy. Its of even less use than the great dreaded G*ns topic. At
> least with one in your pocket you can be more extropic. Being a
> creationist is decidedly entropic and doesn't belong on this list. Its
> like being a communist reporter at the Wall Street Journal or an oil
> futures analyst at the Sierra Club.
>
> CurtAdams@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > In a message dated 1/13/01 7:06:15 PM, johnmarrek@yahoo.com writes:
> >
> > >Hah! A blow for Darwin! He thanks you.
> > >I'm still not a creationist.
> >
> > I suspected you weren't. But creationists *do* love to quote Darwin out
> > of context on the eye business, and they've done it so much most people,
> > even evolutionists, don't realize Darwin addressed the issue directly
and
> > well.
> >
> > Darwin was a pretty sharp cookie. He certainly got some things wrong,
> > like the nature of heritability. But in the case of sexual selection,
he
> > turned out to be right (that traits can be favored solely because the
> > other sex likes them), and biologists in general didn't accept that for
> > almost 100 years. The jury's still out on his origin of life (warm
shallow
> > pond). I think he was wrong on that, but his ideas have won out over
> > better minds than me...
>
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