Directionality in evolution without intelligent guidance

[robvalue]

Yeah. I know what you mean. Personally I think that to say we are altering evolution is to assign some sort of natural goal or rules to evolution, that it's meant to only happen a certain way.

The way I look at it, evolution of life on earth is just a subset of everything that happens in the universe. So for something to "alter" evolution, from my point of view, would take something actually external to earth. Like aliens coming down and screwing around. But in that way, evolution has changed only in as much as our sphere of interest was too narrow to take in the universal change.

Maybe science doesn't look at it that way, I'm not totally sure. Maybe I'm making totally pointless points, hehe. I don't deny that humans appear to fuck with "evolution" like never before, but it depends on the precise meaning of the words. And I guess you could take either stance. But to say we alter the evolution of other species... is to just say that we altered what would have happened were we not here. Which is the same deal for any other form of life which inadvertently affects such evolution.

I agree, we are probably the only form of life capable of being aware of evolution happening.... my brain hurts. I hope I got my point across

I guess I'm saying evolution is just a description of what happens. To say it has "changed" is to have assigned it some sort of path ahead of time.