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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: epicure who wrote (78497)4/19/2000 3:04:00 PM
From: Neocon  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 108807
 
Not true. I still have my appendix....

There is no reason, even taking evolution for granted, to suppose that all such things are adaptive. As long as they can appear through variation (including mutation), and enter the gene pool, and are not bred out, they will persist. They may even be slightly maladaptive, but not enough to cause carriers to perish, as in the case of Tay-Sachs. The idea that evolution is always adaptive is superstition....

In fact, most human behavior is not adaptive at all. Primitive societies exist in all latitudes, and if the perpetuation of our genetic material were the final criterion of adaptation, we would not be communicating on the Web right now. Rather, we have capacities which push us beyond adaptation to our environment, to the creation of a human environment that has its own imperatives......



To: epicure who wrote (78497)4/19/2000 3:20:00 PM
From: nihil  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 108807
 
Many useless things survive (like appendices and canon lawyers). Traits only disappear from populations if they are dominant and fatal.