Razib and GNXP writes about polar bears, concludes with an interesting thought
"If the polar bear goes extinct today, what will happen when the next Ice Age opens up more opportunities? Likely the "polar bear" will reappear, assuming that human intervention does not forestall such evolutionary responses. In fact there may be an eternal recurrence in the cases of bears and sticklebacks over the past few million years of Ice Ages whereby cold adapted morphs emerge, and go extinct, repeatedly. What would happen if all non-African populations were exterminated? Likely Africans would resettle the rest of the world, and de-pigmentation and Bergmann's would produce lighter populations all around the temperate zones within 10,000 years. The specific details might vary, consider how light skinned populations in Britain and Japan are rather different. It illustrates how evolution is both contingent and deterministic."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
"Perhaps a modern man can understand the Christian idea best if he takes it in connection with Evolution. Everyone now knows about Evolution (though, of course, some educated people disbelieve it): everyone has been told that man has evolved from lower types of life. Consequently, people often wonder 'What is the next step? When is the thing beyond man going to appear?' Imaginative writers try sometimes to picture this next step – the 'Superman' as they call him; but they usually only succeed in picturing someone a good deal nastier than man as we know him and then try to make up for that by sticking on extra legs or arms. But suppose the next step was to be something even more different from the earlier steps than they ever dreamed of? And is it not very likely it would be? Thousands of centuries ago huge, very heavily armored creatures were evolved. If anyone had at that time been watching the course of Evolution he would probably have expected that it was going to go on to heavier and heavier armor. But he would have been wrong. The future had a card up its sleeve which nothing at that time would have led him to expect. It was going to spring on him little, naked, unarmored animals which had better brains: and with those brains they were going to master the whole planet. They were not merely going to have more power than the prehistoric monsters, they were going to have a new kind of power. The next step was not only going to be different, but different with a new kind of difference. The stream of Evolution was not going to flow on in the direction in which he saw it flowing: it was in fact going to take a sharp bend...
Now, if you care talk in these terms, the Christian view is precisely that the Next Step has already appeared. And it is really new. It is not a change from brainy men to brainier men: it is a change that goes off in a totally different direction – a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God...
Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognizable: but others can be recognized. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognizable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of 'religious people' which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other people, but they need you less..."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Nice post. I think the evolution is is partly deterministic, but what is the proportion on contingency and determinism? I also wonder as christian, is there any intelligent goal seeking processes involved in some parts of evolutionary process.
Post a Comment