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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (2043)	9/13/1999 2:53:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

>Cultural progress, including the progress of science, depends on an element which is very unlike evolution, the active intellect hypothesizing and constructing tests for its hypotheses.... < ... but in a way it is very like evolution. The progressive element in biological evolution is that if the current species is chosen as a baseline, we can start "doing combinations" on its genetic code. The current theory favors random mutations - lots of them. Many give up fitness, and their stock dies out. Many others are neutral in terms of fitness or advantage. They might or might not stick around for the ride, depending on with what genotype they are bundled. But a very few confer advantage and advance the subgroup's and then the species' baseline level of "fitness". If that isn't progress - what is? In the intellectual arena - a new idea needs to be tested and found sound or at least interesting. This is the life-or-death analog. Intellectual progress can be held up indefinitely by applying external and irrational canons a priori. Only when these canons can be tested for soundness and subject to evolutionary pressure can we think of intellectual progress. Jmo