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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cuae2!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth
From: beth@sphinx.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.bio,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution vs.(?) Creationism
Message-ID: <911@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Dec-86 11:56:08 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.911
Posted: Tue Dec 16 11:56:08 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 22:52:37 EST
References: <2778@gitpyr.gatech.EDU> <1260@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: beth@sphinx.UUCP (JB)
Organization: U.of Chicago Computation Center, Operating Systems Group
Lines: 28
Xref: watmath sci.bio:57 talk.origins:281

In article <1260@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
>In article <2778@gitpyr.gatech.EDU> dts@gitpyr.UUCP (Danny Sharpe) writes:
>> I've heard that, due to lawnmowers, dandelions in suburban areas are being
>> selected for shorter stems.
>[...]
>> And then there's all the diseases that have become
>> resistant to the drugs used to treat them.
>[...]
>> These are all examples of natural selection at work.
>
>Neither of these is natural selection, in that the selection pressures are
>being applied by man.

What?  Do you really think it makes a difference to dandelions and viruses
and bacteria (and insects which develop resistance to insecticides) that
the changes in their environment were brought about by humans?  As far as
they're concerned, we're just another species.  We may like to think of
ourselves as outside of, or beyond, nature, but we're not, and we'd do
well to remember it.  If we realized that we have the same ties to the
earth and "nature" that all the rest of the species have, maybe we'd be a
little more careful about fouling pretty much anything that strikes us as
inconvenient.  "Human" <==> "beyond nature" is an arrogant, anthropocentric
delusion.
-- 

--JB  ((Just) Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth)

  All we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history.