cladking
Well-Known Member
Every scientist understands that their interpretations of thier experiments and findings are unlikely to be the whole truth or even wrong. New findings from new experiments are published every day. Some lead nowhere and other become mainstream for at Least a while.
However over time and a great deal of effort progress is made.
In some fields like particle physics remarkably little progress has been made in my life time (born 1935) however it is a major and very costly field of study. Quantum physics is another related science that has been stuck in a rut for a similar time.
However this has not stopped useful and practical applications emerging from these studies.
The whole area surrounding Field theory seems to lacking a fundamental thought that will bring it all together.
Unfortunately this is how science works, it always appears simple looking back at it. Breakthroughs are usually led by revolutionary thought. Not from following accepted or traditional views.
The various theories around evolution are clearly not yet complete.
However, the genetic record establishes clear links between species and their evolution.
What must be less clear is the why and the processes involved.
Your question about the role of "FITNESS" leads one to suspect it plays a part, but the actual chemical, biological process, if there is one? is far from clear, with out adding survival to the equation.
Only those that survive to reproduce, pass on their genes.
Thank you. I can't really take exception to anything here and am in close agreement with much of it.
Unfortunately this is how science works, it always appears simple looking back at it. Breakthroughs are usually led by revolutionary thought. Not from following accepted or traditional views.
I believe most of science (I'll avoid using the word "metaphysics") is based on a few very poor definitions and some false assumptions. Several are relevant to "Evolution" but the most important are that individuality and consciousness can be factored out of the equation. Darwin factored it out because he believed only humans are conscious and still we believe only a few species are conscious. Obviously if you believe any life can evolve outside consciousness then it really could be factored out. I don't believe this. I don't believe anything in reality follows any sort of course but is rather a random walk or cyclical or both. In a sense you could say that things that are cyclical are harmonic and things that are a random walk are chaotic, but the real world is a mixture of both except that the chaos is driven out of technology virtually by definition.
While I understand the attraction of defining fitness as survival ability I can't imagine anything so simple governing the real world works AND I can't imagine that consciousness doesn't play a chief role. I can't see any sort of advantage in understanding change in species by defining terms in such a way.
I just figured out what the ancient "goddess" "henet" really represented last night and marveled at the fact I hadn't seen it earlier. Like all things once you see them they are quite clear.