Re: * makes hubey
Ralph L Holloway (rlh2@columbia.edu)
Sun, 26 Nov 1995 01:03:22 -0500
On 25 Nov 1995, H. M. Hubey wrote:
> Liberal democracy is an evolutionary idea what has triumphed
> over monarchism, despotism, fascism, collectivism, theocracy,
> and a few others. Does this mean that it's not the end result
> of an evolutionary process and should it have occured a zillion
> times more in the past?
In what way is "liberal democracy" an "evolutionary idea" that has
"triumphed over..."? I look around the world and I don't see one hellofa
lot of "liberal democracy". I get the impression that the majority of
humanity live under political systems other than "liberal democracy".
Why throw in political idealogy into this supposedly biological
evolutionary thread? I think I know the answer.
> >4) A test of Hubey's large-brain-is pre-determined hypothesis:
> > The Plant Kingdom is at least as old as the Animal Kingdom (perhaps even
> >older by some phylogenist's reckonings). There is not a single plant with a
> >centralized "data processing" area. If intelligence is inevitable, why did
> >the Plant Kingdom get the short end of the stick?
Here comes my favorite, for it shows just how much Hubey really knows
about evolution:
> That's why they are dead-ends of evolution. They stayed where they
> were, the animal kingdom moved on. It's like a train dropping
> off things at various intervals alongside its travel. Whatever
> is dropped off remains within some neighborhood of that location
> just like the drunkard by the light pole.
This shows about the most incredible lack of knowledge of understanding
of organic evolution that I've encountered. Actually, one could argue
that the Plant Kingdom was one of ther main "drivers" in faunal
evolution, particularly for the mammals with the Angiosperms developing
at the end of the Mesozoic. To call them dead-ends of evolution provides
us all with a clear and penetrating insight to Hubey's brain. Stick with
Mathematics, Hubey, those equations are a lot more simple than scientific
reasoning...
> Intelligence is the best adaptation possible. With it you can
> adapt to any environment and even change your environment to suit
> your needs. With intelligence you don't need a trunk to reach the
> grass, a tall neck to reach tops of trees, wings to fly, webbed
> feet to swim, gills to go underwater, fur to live in cold climates,
> large canines to kill prey, sprinter speeds to catch prey, grasping
> feet to climb trees or any of the other half-assed adaptations.
And if that adaptation called intelligence leads to the premature demise
of not just the human species, but most of the ecological chains worked
out through natural selection over the last billion and a half years, so
that most of the aquatic and terrestrial forms of life become extinct, is
it really intelligence?
I think Hubey has a sophomoric idea of what evolution is. We
provided numerous references for him in the past, and he has spurned them
for a lot of crap you could get out of a bible class. I'm out of here.
Ralph Holloway
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