Posted by Amanda on January 05, 1997 at 08:50:37:
In Reply to: Re: ..... continuation of re: Unlikely Existence of God (Readability improved.. having browser trouble!) posted by Amanda on January 04, 1997 at 13:13:15:
After the caffeine wore off and I've had some sleep - I realize that a part of what I've written here is not accurate and I have made far too many value judgements so off I go again - explaining my opinion with changes to those I uttered yesterday. I also can clearly see the havoc I've reeked on the defenseless english language and I apologize for the many grammatical and spelling errors. Often when an idea pops into my head - my passion gets the best of me and I throw it all out on the table without enough attention to detail.
The idea presented by Horgan regarding our purpose to propogate genes may need some attention. I'm not very knowledgable in this area - but I believe there are various aspects to the issue. We see in our population a variety of physical and mental defects that can be attributed to 'bad' genes and we attempt to get rid of those genes so that the 'good' ones have a better chance of being the ones that reproduce. I suppose this is in our best interest. But, what about the general population who are continuing to reproduce without much thought to the genes they pass on? What is being done about the young teens who have offspring without regard to what's in their best interest or the onslaught of offspring coming out of the less civilized nations where birth control is a mystery and children are necessary for survival? I'm not sure if I understand what it is we hope to do in this area to help our species progress to a more advantageous position.
I then mentioned a few things about Darwinism but I see that I've committed the very same mistake I've accused others of - misinterpretation. I claimed that we as a species all survive or we don't and that there are no boundaries between the fit and unfit - I think I'm wrong here and more than likely I'm interpretating darwinism to fit my own purpose and adding to that my own desires. I do still feel that the evidence shows that the socail organisms who tend to survive are those who get along amongst themselves and have a greater amount of cooperation than competition but I do see that competition and violence does go on within each and every species. There is a distinction within our species between weak and strong where evolutionary characteristics apply - I have to admit that equality is not necessarily a possibility here. To an extent I do see that 'aid' is a natural trait between the weak and strong but to what extent? We certainly can't expect it to be advantageous to our species if the strong carry the weak on their backs completely - that would lead to annihilation no doubt. So here, there has to be some 'happy medium' that sticks to the facts of the natural world and isn't laiden with personal agendas or bias - but what is it? In several of the bird species - a blind bird is often cared for by the others - fed and nourished. Also, there have been many cases where a helpless individual from one species has been adopted by an individual from another and cared for. I believe the strong help the weak as is natural but also as is natural, many of those weak die out. As individual members, it is not for us to pick out the 'unfit' of our species and deem them unworthy of life - this is for the indifferent forces of nature to decide. Are we supposed to attempt and manipulate these forces to our advantage? It seems like there's no cut and dry areas - we have to attempt to stick to the facts and go from there. We have reached a time where we see how complicated all matters are - the interconnections, overlaping and the variety of issues involved in one simple problem - they all have to be weighed in importance and taken into consideration. It's a difficult topic to discuss without uttering a statement that will be interpreted wrongly. Nietzsche tried to explain his idea of the overman and the last man - Hitler misinterpreted this and we saw the results. How can we explain the theory of evolution as it applies to our species and avoid such an outcome?
I also think I misunderstood Horgan's coment that science works against itself. I think he's right if he means that it takes on a 'negative' stance where all that it discovers is subject to questioning forever. One day it claims that nothing will travel faster than light - tomorrow we may discover that there are other elements that can travel faster and so it's original discovery may be wrong. In this way - it works against itself but in no way should we see that as a 'bad' thing - it leads to progress, it leads to a better understanding of ourselves and the universe we're a part of. I suppose there are some that interpret this as destruction or that by working against itself - it will eventually result in suicide - I don't agree with this outlook but I'm not sure how to dispute it.
I have more to say on this - it's an interesting subject - but I'll wait to see if anyone out there has anything to say - I'm starting to feel a little schizophrenic!