Why natural selection doesn't work

PUBLISHER:

redshirt

Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: January 27, 2015 January 27, 2015; Hits: 2790 2790

Natural selection is no mere idle fancy. Every so the logic behind it stirs a call for eugenics. "Unless we embrace genetic engineering, we will become a sickly and frail species" says Johnjoe McFadden, reader in molecular microbiology at the University of Surrey. Is natural selection so established a theory that we must take to the tumbrills and the guilotine once more?

Natural selection is notoriously hard to critique. Logically, it must contribute to evolution to some extent, just as, logically, friction must to some extent contribute to driving an automobile. But just as friction doesn't actually drive the automobile, natural selection may not be what actually drives evolution. How can we think our way through this?

I've arrived at a context in which it may be easier to evaluate natural selection. It's a physical situation that I think presents us with a parallel with the action of natural selection. More...