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From: heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Why are Humans as Smart as They Are?
Message-ID: <3058@blia.BLI.COM>
Date: Thu, 6-Aug-87 11:58:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: blia.3058
Posted: Thu Aug  6 11:58:46 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Aug-87 14:03:59 EDT
References: <1041@ttidca.TTI.COM> <1253@aecom.YU.EDU>
Organization: Britton Lee, Los Gatos, CA
Lines: 31
Summary: Assumptions, assumptions

In article <1253@aecom.YU.EDU>, werner@aecom.YU.EDU (Craig Werner) writes:
> 
> 	However, the phrasing reveals a common misconception of evolution,
> that it in fact has a reason for everything.  The pressures of evolution
> are mostly negative.  Unfavorable traits are weeded out, even if their
> status as "unfavorable" are only relative to a changing environment, or
> "superior" competitors.  There is very little positive selection.

I have to disagree with this!  Another way of saying that unfavorable
traits are weeded out is to say that favorable traits succeed.  A
tiger with claws will succeed over a tiger with no claws.  You can either
say that the claws are selected for or clawlessness is selected against.
If claws were useless to tigers, they probably wouldn't have them since
the energy required to grow and maintain claws wouldn't give the tiger
any advantage.  If a strain of animal develops a trait that makes it
compete more effectively, that trait will be selected for just as
surely as a negative trait will be selected against.

The primary competition in the human evolutionary niche is from other
humans.  Humans use their brains to compete with one another for
resources.  Clever, dextrous humans are more successful in human
endeavors than dull, clumsy ones.  Our cleverness was necessary earlier
in human evolution to compete against large predators, kill game, and
survive through the ice age.

It's also possible that evolution is preprogrammed to some extent, like
the flowering of a plant.  At which point our cleverness could be a
growing towards an end we can only dimly envision.

Heather Mackinnon
Just an avid amateur