Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!nike!ll-xn!mit-amt!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Common mis-definition of "evolution".
Message-ID: <599@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Sep-86 12:24:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.599
Posted: Fri Sep 26 12:24:45 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 00:36:07 EDT
References: <5160@decwrl.DEC.COM> <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU> <194@BMS-AT.UUCP> <20852@styx.UUCP> <209@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Lines: 28

> stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman)

> The whole concept of evolution
> is interesting: we are evolving to higher and higher states.  This
> implies some 'high state' toward which we are moving.  There must be
> some ideal to which we achieve closer and closer appoximations.  Where
> did this ideal come from?

Well, since in Darwinian evolution there is no such reference to
"evolving to higher states", the answer is that in Darwinian evolution
the ideal didn't come from anywhere, since it doesn't exist.

This "definition" of evolution as directed towards "higher states" is a
common misconception.  Darwinian evolution is talking about adaptation
to environment, not change directed to some "ideal form".  And even if
there is an "ideal form" that is "perfectly suited" for some
environment-or-other, Darwinian evolution is *NOT* directed "towards"
this ideal, but rather *AWAY* from less-adapted forms.

Please, folks, if you want to find flaws in evolutionary theory, attempt
to find these flaws in the real theory, not in a straw man disguised as
evolutionary theory.

--
Optimization hinders evolution.
                                --- Alan J. Perlis
-- 
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw