From: Steve Drew (sd014a6399@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Sun 08 Dec 2002 - 21:09:51 GMT
> Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 07:02:00 -0800
> From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
> Subject: evolution
>
> The problem of talking about evolution as you guys are is that you seem to
> assume it is a single thing that applies to all of life on earth when in
> fact it is billions of things taking place over eons as individual animals
> fight for existence in a niche of their own. The crocks in Australia seem
> to have found one they can exploit forever.
Indeed. I was not assuming that evolution was a single 'thing', but I was
taking issue with the idea that we can use the idea of progress in
association with it.
>
> Most of the rest of the animals on earth are not so lucky. But "evolution"
> only describes the general process of change that shapes the animal to its
> environment or lets it die if it can't change fast enough. Most species
> don't really die, though. They just become something unlike what their
> ancesters were.
Not sure I totally agree with you wrt not really dying out, though I get the
idea of your argument
> The 'junk' DNA we carry in our genome contains the ghosts
> of our ancestors back to the bacterial stage of our climb to our present
> stage of existence.
I thought a lot of the junk DNA has been ascribed as being freeloaders
inserted by viruses (though not all)
>
> They are not gone. They were carried forward but burried in a complex set
> of code that reflects where we came from and what we went through to get
> here. And although we don't know exactly where we're going, like the man
> driving down the road to no specific destination, we can see a short way
> through the darkness ahead using the headlights of science and logic.
>
> Grant
As a species I would suggest that we are walking along a mine strewn raod
with a bag on our heads. As individuals we believe (and I mean list members
etc) in science and logic, but I do not see a lot of it lighting up the
world in general.
>
>> At 01:23 AM 8/12/02 +0000, you wrote:
>>>
>>>> Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 21:46:02 +1100
>>>> From: Jeremy Bradley <jeremyb@nor.com.au>
>>>> Subject:
>>>>
>>>> SNIP.......Steve:
>>>>> Also,implicit in your statement seems to be the idea that social
>> evolution
>>>> has a
>>>>> destination? Society changes, and good or ill are relative to the
>> society of
>>>>> the observer.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve.
>>>>>
>>>> Jeremy:......... Hi Steve
>>>> In my study of narrative form I developed a theory that the linear
>>>> rhetorical form of outcome based narratives, such as we all grew up
>> with,
>>>> normalise the notion that outcomes and destinations are the inevitable
>>>> result of existence.
>>>
>> Steve:
>>> The notion you talk about would appear to be correct for any society
>>>
>> Jeremy's reply:
>> The 'goal' of many pre-colonisation peoples was to maintain a status-quo.
>> This is discernible in their narrative patterning. Australian narratives
>> were cyclical, like their notion of time. A story typically starts with
>> locating the story in the land, language and the people, thereby
>> establishing the status-quo. It then moves to the problem. A solution is
>> found with the assistance of nature, magic or a 'spirit' intervention. And
>> the status-quo is thus restored (apologies for the simplification).
>> As you can see this is significantly different to our traditional narrative
>> structure.
>>
>>>> Jeremy........cont.:
>> In my memetics, subtle cultural notions such as these are part of a coded
>>>> sets of information ( culture memes which form a complete 'strand', or
>>>> cneme, for want of a better word) which constrains the production of
>>>> culture so that evolution can't happen outside of previously set
>> perameters.
>>>> It is the 'cenemes', of which I have only mentioned one, which make
>> memes
>>>> appear to be good or bad to different peoples (as our current
>> case-study
>>>> clearly shows).
>>>> Like the mapping of the human genome, the mapping of a cultural cneme
>> is
>>>> possible through the analysis of the most enduring elements of that
>> culture
>>>> - - its narratives and their form.
>>>> 'owzat Steve?
>>>> Jeremy
>>
>>
>> Steve:
>>> I don't have any qualms as such, I just tend to note when people tend to
>>> ascribe a direction to evolution. It occurs (evolution), and only humans
>>> ascribe good or ill (and a direction) to it.
>>>
>>> Not a cricket fan thank god:-) and I hope I've faired better!
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>> Jeremy:
>> The Australian Estuarine Crocodile has existed, in its present form for at
>> least 50,000,000 years. The toxic ticks that I catch for anti-vemom are the
>> most dangerous animal in Australia and have been unchanged for longer. Both
>> of these animals are perfectly adapted for what they do. I therefore
>> suggest to you that the process of evolution is not ongoing. IMO it stops
>> at some stage, perfect adaptation.
>> In the case of pre-invasion indigenous Australian societies, that stage of
>> cultural evolution arguably arrived many millennia before our forebears
>> emerged from their caves; let alone before they ceased to be ruled by
>> inbred, syphilitic, drunken, war-lords with a desire to consume the
>> possessions of others. IMO colonising Europeans were the true uncivilised
>> savages. The very fact that our linear cultures are still evolving is
>> evidence of their inferiority. (controversial stuff eh Steve)
>> I'm not a great cricket fan either and I didn't mean to rub any salt into
>> the wounds caused by the unmerciful flogging of your National team in its
>> latest foray to the antipodes.
>> ;~)
>> Jeremy
Regards
Steve
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