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Amaros -> RE: Evolution Thoughts (4/8/2006 8:32:21 AM)
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Although not widely accepted, there is theorized to be a sort of "virtual teleology" at work from certain perspectives. The evolution of an intelligent, tool using, bipedal generalist (humans) is theorized to be an inevitability in any ecosystem that is around long enough - for the simple reason that there is a niche available for such a creature, and eventually, something will evoleve to fill it. The teleology at work here is along the lines of "nature abhors a vacuum" - i.e., if a given niche exists, something will eventually evolve to exploit it - because it's there.
Consequently, it is likely that should extraterrestrial life exist under roughly similar conditions to Earth, there will likely be a roughly analogous counterpart to humans. Similarly, extraerrestrial life will likely be carbon based and not too disimilar to terrestrial life - a simple function of the probilities of physics and design efficiency - if the stressors are similar, the successful adaptations of lifeform to those stressors will also likely be similar.
This functions as sort of a virtual teleology, in the sense that certain traits are neccesary to exploit certain niches - bipedalism is the most efficient form of locmotion, and a more efficient means of regulating body heat is neccesarry in a nomadic, bipedal predator who must hunt by running down prey - Apes don't have sweat glands, and the spread of this particular mutational adaptation was key in success of human morphological adaptation.
In fact, it's the gathering side of things that likely stimulated neural and social development in humans, as it requires extensive and minute knowledge of seasonal changes, edibility, location, etc., stimulating development of episodic memory and cognition, while communicating these things to ones offspring or compatriots requires increased efficiency in mimetic, lexical and grammatical memory, i.e., language.
There is even a theory that the outsized human brain originally evolved as a "radiator", to dissipate heat, and that changes in cerberal complexity are only peripherally related to changes in brain size - in fact, complexity and brain size are only peripherally related: are cats smarter than birds or men smarter than women? No, cerberal efficiency is related to the density of the neural net and the complexity of the external folds that channel neural impulses.
All that is required are stressors to increase selection pressures for inheritance of these mutations or marginal enhancements, and rapidly changing climatic conditions formed those stressors in this instance.
Finally, there is what might be called "teleolgical" theory of social evolution, which posits that cultures will evolve toward more social and just systems - this isn't really teleological in the design sense, but rather a statistical function of games theory: given that all members of an organized human cutural system benefit from social cooperation, and given that contrarily, competition in this system will result in unequal distribution of resoures in that system, this stressor will cause the system to nevertheless evolve toward more democratic and just forms for the simple reason that the "have-nots" are always going to outnumber the "haves" and the promotion of social justice will always be to their individual advantage.
It's this statistical probabiliity that has perhaps presented some observers with the illusion that there is a "logical positivism" at work, and to associate it with religion, since religion happens to be one of those institutions that tend to focus consensus on social justice, and even acelerate it's promotion - when it isn't doing the opposite.
"Eventually", is of course, a relative term in evolution, physical or cultural, and it can mean decades, centuries, or even millenia, and may happen faster among some cultures than others, there being a number of diferent social proccesses at work.
I find it interesting that you can be a creationist and an evolutionist at the same time. 8,
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