On 2005-03-29 04:54, garyb wrote:
but it's not "darwinism". also, it's not that brilliant. it's just a simple expression of the obvious, that all forms have a purpose.
To be precise, the element of "purpose" tends towards finalism, so I would avoid it, and it's no way a concept of Darwin. Purpose sounds like a certain destiny causes a way to be, while the core of evolutionism is exactly the opposite.
Beside this, what Darwin said at his times was not obvious at all, he had quite hard times with all the cultural establishment, heavily conditioned by religious influences.
Darwinism must not be confused with "Social darwinism" that is a sociological theory born in the early 20's, basically fascistic and containing the purpose of justifying racism.
Darwinism is a word created by the creationists to blame what has put in serious difficulty the pseudo-scientific theories of the religious traditions.
Once again, the reduction of evolutionist theories to a specifical character like strength or whatever else is not precise, as a scientifical approach derivates optimal conditions as a description of what is experienced on the field, with all the attention and consideration that the scientific method imposes to the relativity of any observational point.
It happens that in different geographical contexts, different qualities are required to help survival, the fact that an esquimese will have very few chances of a healthy and long life at the equator is a no brainer, while it's also easy to understand that the possibilities given by technology could make life much easier for a Masai at the North pole.
Conditions are not prioristically given, but they can be observed as effects, and the same marvelous qualities of our beloved sound cards show that observation can lead to very consistent results.
Some species are extint. Some other show a beginning at a certain point of known history, at least no elements for a previous existence have been found. Genetical mutations are observed everyday as a spontaneous phenomenon of the dna recombination, that are not determined in a single direction, but towards multiple and opposite directions, so it's totally casual if a certain organism shows better or worst chances of survival. At this point all given conditions, no matter if climatic, social (medicine for example), physiological, will just express themselves, and the result will be reality as is.
And if someone sais at this point that something can be done to contrast this, he doesn't take in account that this "something" is just one of the conditions expressed above.
The fact is that our language uses words that are often a misuse of their original meaning. There is too much ideology, defensive ideology mainly, and the first victim through history has been the free thought and the scientific (methodic doubt) approach.
The scientific method is the only practical effort of knowledge that doesn't admit a definitive truth, but uses contextual and relative truths to make things, rather than burning erethics.
Darwin should be read with attention, and also Adam Smith, Marx, Freud and many others, and I'm sure that most of the bashing would be replaced by fruitful doubts.
i still say that darwinism is a narrow-minded view, that the scope (again!) of the mind is narrowed by the view of creation that it is incomplete because to perceive darwinism's tenets, the world is stuck in the progression of moments rather than the experience of the totality. yes, forms change through time, but this is obviously the nature of the universe, time being the thing that happens so that everything doesn't happen all at once(duh....things change, ALWAYS one form into another)....not to mention the fact that time is a dimension. look this word up and you will find that it means a measurement of spatial extent. if time is a measurement of spatial extent(a dimension) like width is a measurement of spatial extent(another dimension, after all, when we measure something we answer the question "what are the dimensions".), then as you can see, the way that you and i see and think about the universe is very inaccurate. observations and descriptions based on this inaccurate view are bound to be flawed. 
