Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA19872 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 10 May 2000 12:38:48 +0100 Message-ID: <39190496.FB88F688@mediaone.net> Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 07:41:26 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? References: <200005100757.IAA00674@faichney.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Robin Faichney wrote:
> The effects of evolution appear improbable to us, but they occurred
> on a timescale that is beyond our ken. As I'm sure Wilson, Dawkins
> and Dennett would all very readily agree, given enough time, almost
> anything is possible. And if such events were *really* improbable,
> why did they happen? Divine intervention?
I am sure that Wilson at least would definitely not agree with this statement,
nor would a lot of other students of evolution. The gross application of
statistics that allows people to come up with the "anything is possible" is
usually just a conceptual stopgap. For example, species usually only last a
maximum of x million years (I think it's an average of about 7 million, but I
can't recall for sure), so the time period itself is not infinite. This kind of
anything-can-happen statistical scenario has been used to project an x
probability that there is intelligent life in the universe that is within our
sensing range. That seemed quite reasonable - except that someone recently
noticed that there are vast areas of the universe where there are no planets
that could have deveoped complex species because meteor showers continually
interrupt the possibility. The earth just happens to exist behind some big
planets that suck in the meteors before most get here.
If you had suggested a year ago your same logic, I might have agreed (although I
was always a bit suspicious of the argument). But when I thought about all the
improbable events that had to happen to actually create the human species in a
specified and relatively short period of time like 7 million years, I found
myself in agreement with Jay Gould and others who say that evolution is not an
all-things-are-possible proposition. I do wish that God had been more orderly,
but I guess he has to do what he has to do.:)
>
> --
> Robin Faichney
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 10 2000 - 12:39:08 BST