Does evolution have a purpose? (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, October 10, 2014, 18:11 (3695 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: But you are right that innovations must still tie in with fitness, since there would not be much point in increased complexity if the new organism couldn't survive! -Agreed. But it is interesting that Darwin folks cannot define fitness except to work backwards and say what survives is fit!
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> DAVID: We are not together. I still view an inventive mechanism as following guidelines and semi-autonomously inventing.
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> dhw: We have agreed that the inventive mechanism follows guidelines in the same way as the bridge-builder does: knowledge of what it can and can't do, plus knowledge of current conditions. .... It branches off into many different forms BECAUSE it is autonomous, with the different organisms coming up with different solutions to different problems in different environments.-I wont quibble. It is constrained by knowledge of what it 'can and cannot do'.-
> DAVID: That is just my point. Who knows God at all?
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> dhw:Indeed. He may not even exist. But you think he does, so do you still believe his purpose in starting evolution was to create humans?-I always ask the question of myself. Why are we here? The apes, whose lifestyle we left, did fine until the last 100 years when we become too numerous for them and began to encroach on their habitat. Nothing drove our brain size. It just happened. Upright posture began to develop 22 million years ago in a monkey. Why? It appears to me evolution was directed toward humans. Our bodies and brains have exceeded all requirements of nature at the time we began to appear. It is still recognizing purpose or appeallng to chance to do these things. Darwin bet on chance. I don't.