On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:12:52 -0500, Denys Beauchemin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> If you really wanted to compare the spontaneous construction of a
> Boeing 747 to the evolutionary progression needed to "build" a human
> being, you would definitely not start with parts of a plane in a
> junk yard.
>
> The corresponding start would be piles of raw material scattered
> across the landscape (just to make it easy.)

Which is, in fact, essentially what happened,although not in the
direct manner you demand. Humans were the necessary catalyst, a not
uncommon requirement for many advanced forms of chemistry. And it
took about 250,000 years to effect the reaction, more or less,
starting from the appearance of modern humans, or about 4.5 billion
years from the formation of our solar system, or about 11-13
billion years from the formation of the universe (aluminium has to
be made somewhere and apparently that somewhere in in the heart of
a very old star).  But, let us not dwell overmuch on mankind's
inability (or unwillingness) to fathom time in spans much greater
than their own lives.

I begin to see that the difficulty that some people have with
evolution is the inconceivably large number of minute intermediate
steps needed to traverse from origin to end.  Creationism is
attractive, therefore, in that it simplifies cause and effect to a
trivial extent and provides the sense of immediacy that humans find
so intensely emotionally satisfying.  It provides still another
form of emotional satisfaction from its presumptive exaltation of
humankind over the rest of existence.  It is, in the end, all about
us and our self-images.

And yet, is not the construction of a jetliner capable of carrying
hundreds of people thousands of miles at speeds that no living
thing can otherwise approach not a similar imponderable?   Even the
creationists concede that humans have been here thousands of years.
 Since the capacity to do so is clearly inherent in human beings
why then did it take so long to effect?

Is a jetliner a miracle? Evidence of divine inspiration? Infernal
machinations? Or, is the existence of a jetliner simply the
consequence of an improbably long series of developments and
insights that collectively, and without direct cross-reference,
permitted the development of powered flight and the evolution of
larger and larger craft over time?

It can hardly be convincingly claimed that the creators of the
internal combustion engine had, in their minds, the vision of 800
people traveling in aluminium clad craft at speeds in excess of 600
kph at altitudes of several dozen kilometres.  Not to overlook the
contributions of the printing press, itself consequential to the
development of written language, itself dependent upon symbolic
commuunication. Therefore postulating directed human agency in this
respect seems a bit dubious to me.

Aircraft are clearly designed but, equally clearly, their designs
are contingent upon myriad human effects, few of which can be held
to have occurred with the purpose of enabling powered flight.  Did
the developer of the method of cheaply refining aluminium do so to
create aircraft?  Did the discoverers of electricity and the
developers of generating capacity have aluminium smelting in mind?
And yet, without these where would aircraft development be?

The interesting thing to me is that the deeper implications of
evolution theory for life on earth are not, to my understanding,
yet widely appreciated.  Evolutionary tendency is towards
monoculture within each environmental niche, a temporary advantage
for one species diminishes the survival prospects for all others
within the same niche.  Over enough time a small percentage of
persistent relative advantage necessarily culminates in complete
domination of the environment by one.

Mankind, through advances in technology and transport, has
effectively closed the earth and made it into a homogeneous system,
imperfectly as of yet but the tendency is unmistakable.  The growth
of knowledge allows mankind to enter environmental niches that were
formally closed to our species.  At the same time, our pervasive
global presence denies the environmental segregation necessary for
the effects of natural selection be be made readily visible.

Thus as the effects of evolution are probably speeding up, it is
becoming less evident, at least to most of us who are the natural
agents of this development.  The tremendous loss of species in the
present age is ofttime remarked upon but I do not think that
serious science yet considers these effects possibly a product of
evolutionary theory in operation. The tendency is still to see
ourselves as somehow "above" all that and that this extinction
event is unnatural in some profound sense.

Yet, the day is already here where microbes are employed to further
human interest, whether making beer or cleaning up oil spills.
Grasses provide the bulk of our energy and displace all else in
their path.  Our livestock takes precedence over non-domesticated
rivals.  Our cities bury the very rivers that their existence
requires. These modifications and intrusions upon the environment
have long been a part of the human condition, and are unremarkable
for that very reason.  But, now we can actually move genes directly
between lifeforms and generate new characteristics to order.  This
is no more than a change in degree, not of kind, but it displays
the way evolution works.  It does not matter whether a genetic
mutation is engendered or random, it only matters that it happen.

As time advances and our knowledge accumulates then human inroads
into other environments will expand and eventually dominate the
lifeforms that we permit to exist.  This is no less natural
selection than that observed in human-free environments simply
because humans are themselves no less natural than anything else in
this universe.

Our species too, forms part of the natural environment and are not,
as some would wish, superior to or removed from it.  Some of our
actions may be sentient and directed as opposed to unconscious and
random, but the root cause of those actions is identical in all
life forms. We will exploit our environment to the greatest extent
of our capability.  A capability that in humans, unlike other
creature we have encountered, is continually extended by our
increasing knowledge regarding the physical universe and the
environment we inhabit.  The effects on other species will be
consequential, not intended, but disastrous and fatal for most
nonetheless.

However, our expansion is in itself quite unconscious.  We do not
decide to rid the landscape of ferrets, we simply turn prairie into
farmland.  Nor do we seek to eliminate birds, instead we clear the
forests that provide habitat. In like manner, we (mostly) do not
seek to destroy microbes, we simply wish to exploit their
capabilities to our advantage, narrowly conceived.

However, the choice to the promote one microbe necessarily enforces
a decision against others, the sources of energy for life on earth
being, as yet, finite. A minuscule advantage, however obtained,
over time becomes an insurmountable one. The number of species
extant are thus necessarily diminished as our life form comes to
dominate, through proxies I admit but to our advantage nonetheless,
each and every environmental niche we can find a toe-hold or a
whisper-thin fissure to exploit.

I do not foresee a day when mankind is alone on the planet, but I
can envisage a future where not much remains that is not bound to
our service.  However, the effect of the latter, from the
standpoint of evolutionary theory, is not far removed from the
former.  Then indeed will we have achieved the age old promise of
Genesis, we will have created a god in our own image.

--
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