Smoke 'Em If Ya Got 'Em

(This post comes in response to the stupidity posted by Jewish Philosopher. Surely, the ‘philosopher’ thinks very highly of himself, but that self-delusion requires a lot of maintenance in terms of control and manipulation of one’s environs. I wish him luck. He’s going to need it.)

Years ago, I remember seeing advertisements for Virginia Slims (skinny cigarettes for women) that read "You've come a long way, baby!" Apparently, the cigarettes that men smoked were just too cumbersome for female fingers to handle. The objective was to convey the message that women should no longer restrict themselves to old-fashioned ideas about themselves. Like cultural norms and lung cancer, many things progress over time and, to me anyhow, it seems silly to stubbornly cling to old ideas when newer discovery renders them obsolete.

The critics of Evolution persist in hacking upon Charles Darwin, but conveniently skip over the 150 years of discovery, observation, and experimentation that occurred since his era. Darwin does not have to be 100% correct to be generally right; in the same manner that Freud, though many of his pet theories have been rejected or changed over time, opened the world to the scientific exploration of the psyche and its inner workings. As we do not rebuff all inquiry into human consciousness and behaviorism due to a theoretical mistake on Freud’s part, we should also not reject out of hand the entire study of Evolution based solely upon the ideas of Darwinism.

Darwin's "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" was innovative in two ways. It summarized that organisms have descended with modification from a common ancestor, and advocated natural selection as a mechanism of evolution. Biologists no longer question whether evolution has occurred or is occurring; that part is now considered to be so overwhelmingly demonstrated that it is often referred to as the fact of evolution. The mechanism (what factors drove it) is still under investigation.

We have learned much since Darwin's time and it is no longer appropriate to claim that evolutionary biologists believe that Darwin's theory of Natural Selection is the best theory of the mechanism of evolution. It has been widely promoted in the popular press and the image of "survival of the fittest" is too powerful and too convenient. Fitness in terms of power, size, and virility do play a part in an individual organism’s short terms ‘success’, but many species, once becoming too ‘successful’, become much too successful for their own good and end up in the dust heap of extinction. ‘Fitness’ is a situational concern. (Mankind needs to ponder this thought.)

Essentially, the Modern Synthesis introduced the connection between two important discoveries; the units of evolution (genes) with the mechanism of evolution (selection). It also represents a unification of several branches of biology that previously had little in common, particularly genetics, cytology (cells), botany (plants), paleontology, geology, mathematics, chemistry, anthropology, and physics. The study of Evolution is now interdisciplinary, with these seemingly non-related branches of scientific inquiry confirming and refining the results.

As in cigarettes and women's liberation, Evolutionary Theory has "come a long way, baby!”

Got a light?