An inventive mechanism; Reviewing Talbott (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 09, 2014, 02:19 (3697 days ago) @ dhw

It occurred to me today that your review of Talbott mysteriously left out a comment on his huge section discussing fitness, and the inability to define it. Since in this discussion somewhere, recently, and I can't find your quote, you pointed out very rightly that the Darwin theory depends on the concept of survivability, I wondered why you skipped commenting on that aspect of Talbott's critical points. We know that what is 'fit' is then supposed to 'survive', and you have admitted, rightly so, that the whole concept is a tautology.-I am not sure that the basis of evolution is survivability. And that is why the Darwinian attempts to quantify fitness may be so important to them but not to me. I look at the obvious drive for complexity, the appearance of advances in complexity without a driving necessity, and with a possible IM producing a bush of living weirdness with some of the strange lifestyles I've shown in natures wonders, and Darwin's theory may not be on the mark. Is life in competition with itself and the environment the only reason for evolution? I strongly doubt it.