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From: anthro@ut-ngp.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Challenge to Humanist/Materialists
Message-ID: <626@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-May-84 03:45:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.626
Posted: Sat May 19 03:45:40 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 20-May-84 00:40:20 EDT
References: <779@akgua.UUCP>
Organization: Comp. Center, Univ. of Texas at Austin
Lines: 31

..

      Man is the current end product of this progressive process
      , at least in our corner of it.


I've been reading a lot here and in net.origins about the 'progressive'
properties of evolution.  Evolution is change, not progress.  It is 
attractive to look at the development of organisms thru time, and note
'progress' from the one-celled organism to complex plants and animals,
but another interpretation is that life expands to fill available niches.
Until there were one-celled organisms, there was no niche for multi-celled
organisms. The complexity of life forms matches the complexity of the
available context.

The notion that Homo sapiens is the apex of a long evolutionary path is
a simple expression of species focus.  There is little difference in the
evolutionary success of H. sapiens and A. stephensi, indeed they are
related.  You will have to look at criteria other than evolution to 
'deify' man.

Mike Fischer,    anthro@ut-ngp