Did Radiation Affect Evolution?

[untermensche]

And? If you raise a stone then drop it, you've changed outcomes, since there wouldn't have been a stone to fall in that position. Yet its fall is determined by gravity, not by a mind.

What evolutionary outcome has changed because you dropped a stone?

You have sped into outer space.

At the bottom, it's a pretty damn religious view you're holding, putting them in such a special place.

You have no argument.

There is Evolutionary change that has no mind involved.

And there is change made with a mind that involves goals and trying to meet goals using planning and foresight.

Two separate things.

To say they are the same thing is a strange form of blindness.

 

[Jokodo]

And? If you raise a stone then drop it, you've changed outcomes, since there wouldn't have been a stone to fall in that position. Yet its fall is determined by gravity, not by a mind.

What evolutionary outcome has changed because you dropped a stone?

A gravitational outcome has changed.

Saying that selection pressures in an environment that is - to a smaller or greater extent - shaped by human actions are not subject to evolution is no different from saying that a stone dropped by a human is not subject to gravity.

 

[steve_bank]

Part of evolution is random events/

A human ancestor with a beneficial mutation goes left instead of right and gets stepped on by a mastodon. End of mutation.

 

[bilby]

Part of evolution is random events/

A human ancestor with a beneficial mutation goes left instead of right and gets stepped on by a mastodon. End of mutation.

The definition of 'beneficial' in the context of genetic mutation and evolutionary theory is 'a mutation that increases your chance of successful reproduction'.

If the mutation doesn't prevent being trodden on by a mastodon in an environment where mastodons are present, then it wasn't beneficial, by definition.

To assume that a trait is beneficial based on ANY criterion OTHER than successful reproduction of individuals with that trait, is to misunderstand how evolution works.

A human ancestor with a (potentially beneficial) mutation goes left instead of right and gets stepped on by a mastodon. End of mutation. Conclusion - the mutation was not beneficial to that individual, nor to the population of which it formed a part.

 

[untermensche]

And? If you raise a stone then drop it, you've changed outcomes, since there wouldn't have been a stone to fall in that position. Yet its fall is determined by gravity, not by a mind.

What evolutionary outcome has changed because you dropped a stone?

A gravitational outcome has changed.

Saying that selection pressures in an environment that is - to a smaller or greater extent - shaped by human actions are not subject to evolution is no different from saying that a stone dropped by a human is not subject to gravity.

That is so twisted I'll just leave it.

The issue is between Evolutionary change and change made with planning and foresight and goals.

To say they are the same thing is just stupidity.

 

[untermensche]

Part of evolution is random events/

A human ancestor with a beneficial mutation goes left instead of right and gets stepped on by a mastodon. End of mutation.

That is called a contingency.

Evolution is countless contingencies. Contingencies on contingencies.

There is no plan or planner.

It is not like what humans do with their minds at all.

 

[Jokodo]

Part of evolution is random events/

A human ancestor with a beneficial mutation goes left instead of right and gets stepped on by a mastodon. End of mutation.

That is called a contingency.

Evolution is countless contingencies. Contingencies on contingencies.

There is no plan or planner.

It is not like what humans do with their minds at all.

99.99% of what "humans do with their minds" is contingencies.

 

[untermensche]

Part of evolution is random events/

A human ancestor with a beneficial mutation goes left instead of right and gets stepped on by a mastodon. End of mutation.

That is called a contingency.

Evolution is countless contingencies. Contingencies on contingencies.

There is no plan or planner.

It is not like what humans do with their minds at all.

99.99% of what "humans do with their minds" is contingencies.

Planning towards a goal is not a contingency.