[UA] The Godhead, the IC, the Way things work and the Initial Relevance of this Conversation

[James McGraw]

>>> menzi212 at yahoo.com 06/08/01 02:17am >>>
>     Reread your Darwin.  Natural selection only takes
>place when the population is under an evolutionary
>pressure.  That means without food shortage or lack of
>space, or worse than usual environmental conditions,
>such traits are not relevant to natural selesction. 
>In oder for such a change to take place in a few
>generations, even a few tens of generations, there
>need to be very extreme evolutionary pressures in
>their environment.

Extreme evolutionary pressure is provided by the normal life of a blue tit. Darwin called this the "struggle for existence". His first observation was that organisms tend to produce more young than is necessary for propagation of the species.
(Also, if your knowledge of evolution comes primarily from Darwin, you may need to do some more reading, as the theory has changed significantly since his day. May I recommend "Something Like A Whale" by Stephen Jones and "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "The Selfish Gene" both by Richard Dawkins).

ObUA: So... when's WEEP coming out, then?

james the cat

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a
really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually
change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.  They
really do it.  It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists
are human and change is sometimes painful.  But it happens every day.  I
cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or
religion." 
                -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address



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