On Jul 6, 2006, at 10:56 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Destroying your species runs counter to evolution. I'll rephrase
> that: everything that happens in nature is by definition in
> accordance with evolution, but those species that destroy
> themselves will die out, while those species that don't destroy
> themselves will thrive. Therefore, there will be selection for the
> species that don't destroy themselves, and eventually those species
> will come to predominate. When you think about it, the theory of
> evolution is essentially a tautology: those species which succeed,
> succeed.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
>
As a biologist I can't let this go - this is a common
misunderstanding of the theory of evolution. It contains a lot more
than just "those species which succeed, succeed". From EvoWiki:
"Grabbing one statement out of the whole evolution argument and
calling it a tautology is like looking at a mathematical proof where
the statement (a+b)*c = (a*c) + (b*c) is used, then denouncing the
whole proof on the basis that (a+b)*c = (a*c) + (b*c) is a tautology.
Tautologies are true. Therefore one can draw true conclusions from
them. What is wrong with that?"
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Sat Jul 08 2006 - 10:45:02 PDT