Re: look out! long-haired gun loon! | natural balances

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Thu, 18 Dec 1997 19:03:25 -0800 (PST)


>> Things evolve for a purpose. If you look at any living thing
>> you can clearly see that. Perhaps they did come to be just to
>> replicate, but I think the idea that they came about as a
>> natural means of controling population is just as feasable.

No, it's not feasible at all, because "purpose" and "means"
requires the existence of a volitional being to have a purpose
and to choose means. To assume that evolution has a purpose
is a contradiction in terms: it is theism. Evolution, when
understood correctly as simply an inevitable mathematical
consequence of certain initial conditions, explains precisely
how their can be such wonderfully conplex things as people
and viruses which /appear/ to be designed for a purpose
without requiring the existence of a designer or purposes.

It's really not that difficult a concept once you put your
mind to it. Dawkins is, of course, one of the best explainers,
but it really was Darwin who made the important conceptual
leap that made it possible once and for all to get rid of the
silly ideas of "God" and "nature" that kept us in the dark.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC