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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution vs.(?) Creationism
Message-ID: <1262@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Dec-86 10:15:33 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1262
Posted: Thu Dec 11 10:15:33 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Dec-86 01:39:59 EST
References: <2778@gitpyr.gatech.EDU> <1260@cybvax0.UUCP> <2280@princeton.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32
Keywords: natural selection
Xref: mnetor sci.bio:48 talk.origins:190

In article <2280@princeton.UUCP> wlin@princeton.UUCP (William Lin) writes:
> In article <1260@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
> >Neither of these is natural selection, in that the selection pressures are
> >being applied by man.
> 
> I fail to see why pressures applied by man, which is a creature of nature,
> should by deemed 'not natural'.

I agree with you, however the hoary old human/natural dichotomy (which has
no place in science) is important to Christian (often) and some other
philosophies.  If we want to convince them of our positions, we can still do it
by adopting the slight restiction.  After that, we can undertake the much more
difficult task of convincing them that humans are natural too, contrary to
their philosophy.

(In cladistic terms, human is a derived group of natural, not a sister group
to natural.)

Another poster asked why the distinction between artificial selection and
natural selection mattered, since the mechanism is the same.  The problem
is that artificial selection does not constitute proof of natural selection.
Otherwise, one might just as well say that because man has demonstrated
locomotion by internal combustion, other organisms locomote by internal
combustion.
--

"Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the
evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species."
Konrad Lorenz in "On Agression" 1966.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh