Re: Excuse me while I sequence this genome Was Re: tree-climbing hominid

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In article <hubey.814485493@pegasus.montclair.edu> H. M. Hubey,
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu writes:

>Change is neutral. Neither Evolve nor Devolve is. Easy.

Yes. And quite incorrect.

>
>Yes, they're just words but we should at least agree on
>some meanings and definitions.

Perhaps, but your definitions are not the ones we prefer.

>
>On any planet on which life can evolve, there will probably
>always be beings which will reach the state of science in
>which they can begin to tinker with their own evolution and
>begin to direct the evolution of the macro-ecology of the
>planet, as we are about to do right now.
>
>If this is true, then it is always deterministic and has
>at least a direction even if not an end/state, and even
>if we do not know what it is.

You are badly confusing "directionality" with "history." That primates
have an evolutionary history does not mean there was some determined
"direction" to it; you ignore the many stochastic effects on evolutionary
history.

chris

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