My box was rattled last night, yes evolution is a fact, and there might be some shuffling around the edges, but if the world is real that is how it works. However there is a presumption that admittedly has not been mentioned on this thread, but has been implied on others, and that I come across often, and it niggles me, because it is used to justify ways of thinking and actions that I find anathema.
Survival of the fittest. There is a presumption that as we are highly evolved creatures, that slogan means the highly evolved are at the top of some pyramid and are the best. Thus we seem to get from this strong man theories and those of racial superiority. This is of course all bollocks. If a creature is successful and fitted to its environment there is little impetus to make its species change, thus it survives. If however a creature is having a hard time surviving so that only the most able of its offspring survive and the pool of creatures it can reproduce with is small any slight changes are going to have a pronounced affect. Looking at evolution this way we see that the successful, the fittest, is actually the species which has to adapt the least. Thus if there is a claim to being the dominant life-form the award has to go to Bacteria, or viruses, we are descendants of generations of animals that only just managed to scrape by.
Survival of the fittest. There is a presumption that as we are highly evolved creatures, that slogan means the highly evolved are at the top of some pyramid and are the best. Thus we seem to get from this strong man theories and those of racial superiority. This is of course all bollocks. If a creature is successful and fitted to its environment there is little impetus to make its species change, thus it survives. If however a creature is having a hard time surviving so that only the most able of its offspring survive and the pool of creatures it can reproduce with is small any slight changes are going to have a pronounced affect. Looking at evolution this way we see that the successful, the fittest, is actually the species which has to adapt the least. Thus if there is a claim to being the dominant life-form the award has to go to Bacteria, or viruses, we are descendants of generations of animals that only just managed to scrape by.
