Words Poorly Used #75 — Evolution

We make way too many assumptions about the nature of evolution, without questioning true, false, or irrelevant.  I will talk here about three:

— humans are the focus of evolution.  Not!  In probability, as Verbal Vol wrote here, the water bear (http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/tardigrade/index.html) can survive far beyond homo sapiens, but there is no clue as to what it will become, or even in which direction.  Evolution is a random process.  In a complex organism, such as man, there are random genetic and mimetic changes that may result in one effect or another.  It is not a compliment to say a human is “evolved.”

— the same rules apply to human behaviors as to human organisms.  We’ve seen the work of evolution physically.  Examples are the duckbill platypus, and elephants — truly odd contraptions.  And, as well, we’ve seen the work of evolution behaviorally.  The process that built the platypus, also built war, the Macarena, and Congress (and legislation).

— this is the best of all possible worlds.

There are many more that may expand the list, or be in subsets or supersets of the matters on this list.

— Kilgore Forelle