Re: Are we "special"?

Tom Clarke (clarke@longwood.cs.ucf.edu)
7 Dec 1996 23:31:56 -0500

lsayre@en.com (Lawrence Sayre) writes:

>In message <589uu1$c5d@news.cc.ucf.edu> - clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)6
>Dec 1996 20:16:01 GMT writes:
>:>
>:>In article <19961206151400.KAA21511@ladder01.news.aol.com> chessonp@aol.com writes:
>:>>In article <586ume$92p@news.cc.ucf.edu>, clarke@acme.ist.ucf.edu (Thomas
>:>>Clarke) writes:
>:>

>:>>You need to work on your logic.

>:>OK. Where is the argument wrong?

>For reasons which I assume to be foreign to your thinking, you are actually
>correct in your conclusion! Take another example:

>1. Birds are animals subject to evolution.

>2. Birds among animals are unique in their ability to fly.

>3. The evolutionary circumstances of birds are non-special.

Yes this is a precise analogy to the statements I made regarding Homo sapiens.

>Using your logic: It seems that 3 together with 1 imply that 2 is false.
> Therefore, I (using your logic) conclude that 3 is false.

Yes, I would conclude this as well. In fact I think I said this
somewhere else on this thread or another related thread.

>Actually you are correct in that 3 is false in each case. Special
>(environmental) circumstances must be present for random selections (I.E.
>evolution) to lead to the end result of item 2 in each case. Therefore 3 is
>false! This is a great vindication for evolution, which contends that external
>circumstances must be present for which random evolutionary changes happen
>purely by accident to provide the benefit of greater survivability amidst the
>presence of said special external circumstance. Take away the special external
>circumstance, and the random change (mutation) may not provide any benefit
>which would lead to greater survivability, and therefore breed itself into the
>general population.

Isn't that what I said?.
Number 1 is evolution.
Number 2 are the unique characteristics of a particular animal.
Number 3 are the "special external circumstances."

I was just trying to strip the argument to the bare essentials.

Now that I have been cogitating for a minute, the case of birds may
not be so unique or special. Mammals evolved a well adapted flying
variant (possibly twice according to something I read). Could
the "special external circumstances" be similar for bird and bat?
I don't know, but the question occurrs to me.

I don't go further and lump in flying insects since they are not vertebrates
and thus the evolutionary starting point would have been vastly different.

Tom Clarke

-- 

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

                                     Hamlet - Shakespeare