(March 16, 2014 at 10:26 am)Heywood Wrote: The banks guide the river to a particular destination.
And in turn, the river alters the course of the banks. It's a symbiotic process in the interdependent sense. Neither of the components controls the other. In evolution, natural selection (among other filters) 'selects' for the individuals best suited to survive, reproduce, and pass on their traits - or more properly, 'selects' against those unable to do those things. Neither 'side' in this attritional war - the development of biological traits and the selection process - controls the other. Instead, they act together, interdependently, to generate weird and wonderful 'solutions' that are far more intricate, efficient, and unexpected than even the most intelligent designer could possibly think of. If there is a deus ex machina, where would it need to intervene? And why?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
