[ExI] Anti-transhumanist crap on Kuro5hin and related.

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 10/11/2007, Kevin H <kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/8/07, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > It is a personal pet peeve of mine that people anthropomorphize
> "evolution"
> > into trying to propagate genes to the next generation.  Evolution has no
> > such goals.  In reality, the cause and effect are reversed.  Creatures
> > undergo random mutations or pursue random acts with no clear goal toward
> > propagation.  It is by sheer statistics that those changes less likely to
> > survive tend to die out while those changes more likely to survive
> increase
> > in number.  But this should imply no motivation to the creatures involved
> to
> > actually reproduce.  They are usually just rutting beasts that are focused
> > on their short-term goals rather than long-term goals.
>
>
> I just wanted to say Thank You!  It's a pet peeve of mine also, mainly
> because people come to all sorts of invalid views based on said
> anthropormization: namely, that evolution proceeds towards some kind of
> goal, like a pre-established or pre-determinable state of "fitness".  But in
> reality, evolution is nothing but another word for "change": it doesn't
> imply that what it changes into will be better, more complex, more extropic,
> or anything else; we really have no idea where this tumbleweed will blow off
> to next.

That is so, but it is a slightly different point to the one Harvey was
making. It is possible that organisms may propagate their genes better
as a result of insight into the processes whereby their genes are
propagated. But this does not mean that evolution works towards a
state of greater intelligence or greater anything. For example, it
could turn out that bacteria are more successful in a particular
ecosystem than organisms lumbered with large brains.





-- 
Stathis Papaioannou