PaulSacramento wrote:Audie wrote:PaulSacramento wrote:The adaption issue is a fascinating one.
If random mutations occur in living organisms BECAUSE of environmental factors ( and they do), then this can be viewed as the organism ADAPTING to it's environment.
Not all biologists see it that way however and, IMO, it is because they do not want to see evolution within any contact that can lead to see "goal orientedness" or "purpose" of any sort.
That is a mistake of course because natural selection, by its very definition, implies some sort of goal orientedness in nature.
Some view the adaption part of evolution from the perspective of the living organism using it's "new found" traits to adapt to a new environment (or even an existing one that is changing).
They view that this approach leaves evolution still as random.
I disagree and think that they do this simply to NOT see that there is a purpose or direction in the function of evolution.
I think its a logical and factual absurdity to see evolution as having goals.
Its all just trial and error. What happens to "work" this time, and maybe not next time.
If a blind cave fish were a goal, why go thru stages that involve sight first?
Only if you see the goal as having to be (A) as opposed to simply BEING goal oriented.
I say that evolution is oriented towards a purpose in the since that evolution HAPPENS as oppose to it NOT happening at all.
In short, there is NO reason for mutations to occur UNLESS living organisms are able to mutate and for that there has to be something in their genes that allows for mutation to happen AND there is something in those genes that also "naturally selects" the mutations that somehow are deemed "beneficial".
See, people that want to keep evolution as "goalless and purposeless" and YET claim that natural selection works are basically saying this:
Evolution serves no purpose and has no goal, it simply random happens for no reason and, somehow, living organism are able to take advantage of some of these mutations and those mutations are, somehow and with no purpose or goal, selected and based on to future generations, for no reason whatsoever, no goal and no purpose.
See the issue here right?
Try this. We've a vast barren plain of dirt. Then the rain falls on it. There is a great element of randomness, tho every sq meter averages out to the same number of cm of rain. More or less, you know.
There being some unevenness to the terrain, and some slope, the water gathers and moves with gravity downslope.
As it goes, it carries particles, (more randomness there), and we see rivulets form.
its all very mathematical. Streamlets will move along, "trial and error" first rushing here, then filling a depression as the main current finds a better way, abandoning earlier routes, cutting and widening the new.
Then there will be a whole drainage formed, with tributaries, tributary capture; braided channels, cut banks, meanders, riffle and run, perhaps cut off oxbows, incised meanders, distributaries, delta, evaporation pan...all very mathematical, all in response to, well, environmental pressures, physical laws.
Obviously it is simpler, but in what
fundamental way do you think this is different from the progression in evolution?
