(January 13, 2015 at 3:19 pm)Esquilax Wrote: They aren't random: each mutation is set on a scaffold of those that came before, and the environment in which that mutation takes place. Those mutations that persist are the ones that gel with the previous mutations in other generations, and with the environment. That's a set of conditions, meaning the mutations aren't purely random.
Quote: Secular humanism preaches that the human species came to be by reproducing successive generations in a progression of unguided evolution as an integral expression of nature, which is self-existing. Thus, random evolution is the deriving agent of the human behaviour.
Not random, and not unguided either; natural selection is the guide.
I think you are abusing the word mutation, and next you will forced to tell us that the Hackney is a mutation of the Belgium horse as we know them today. There is such a thing as selective breeding that can be done by design as seen from the outside.
Then if you consider that all sentient beings are divided in their own mind it does not take much to figure out that they can be selective on their own so they can stand out and be seen, which then is what the pecking order in herd animals is all about.