Evolution Naysayers
Yes I know, when you view the title of this post you will probably think that I am going to be addressing religious fundamentalists that insist that the diversity of life on this planet can not have sprung forth without the intervention of the invisible hand of an almighty deity - but I'm not. No my friends, there are others who poo-poo the idea of evolution. Interestingly it is the very ones who claim to most fervently support the notion of evolution that I will address. These naysayers however believe that evolution must be arrested... stopped dead in its tracks. They believe that they control evolution and not vice-versa.
Perhaps by now you may be getting an inkling of where I am headed. Perhaps you do not believe my contention. Allow me to continue.
Mother nature generally has a way of thinning the herd; trimming the weak and replacing them with stronger performers. You see the environment and ecosystems of the planet are a constantly changing milieu of push and shove. It is a dance between specialization and generalization... a cycle of rise and fall. It is quite simply change incarnate.
To illustrate my point, let's protract the megaloceros a favorite of mine:
This is a long-dead species of elk that once wandered far and wide across ice age Europe and Asia. The name covers a wide variety of species but is generally and more frequently used to indicate the species more commonly known as the Irish Elk.
These animals sported an amazing set of antlers. Fossilized examples of these antlers have been found throughout Europe and are often then mounted and hung on the walls like other trophy antlers. That is where I saw my first set, hanging on the wall in a gasthaus in Germany while I was stationed there. The breathtaking size of them impressed me and remains stuck in my mind to this day.
As a side note, it is often incorrectly believed that they are related to the American moose. They are not. They are more closely related to fallow deer.
It is also the general haughty consensus that mankind caused the demise of this creature. It is believed that we hunted this critter to its end. The undeniable fact is that the stocks of this animal had so declined that their continued existence was precarious at best.
So did we really hunt this creature to death? Perhaps... but it had already been weakened by the fact that the ever changing environment had migrated away from it, depriving it of its sweet spot or niche. So, while mankind may have finished the job. Nature itself had already decided this creature's fate. As the ice receded from the last ice age, so too did the niche ecosystem that spawned and nurtured this amazing creature.
So what if a few precariously surviving individuals of this species were found to miraculously exist today? The standard mantra would be that we would need to set aside generous reserves and prevent the encroachment of mankind to ensure that this obsolete species did not pass on into the twilight. This in spite of the fact that nature itself has rung the death knell for the species. Resources would be squandered to thwart evolution and the environment.
Ask yourself this. Should we preserve this species from its rightful end, are we perhaps not doing the very thing that they wish to prevent? Are we not still allowing mankind to impact nature by preventing its demise? Rightfully some other species should rise to fill the vacated niche. Are we not preventing or delaying that natural process by our actions?
Consider the fact that, if we should cause the demise of a species we are impacting nature and if we should favor a challenged species then we are also impacting the natural course of things.
Those of this mindset are insisting that they and not nature, are the smarter ones in their knowing that all species simply must endure. They point at man as an evil doer but forget that nature itself created and spawned man to be exactly what he is. They delude themselves into thinking that they control the very system that brought them forth and caused them to evolve from their ape brethren. They stand in the stream of change; bucking the unremitting current, their chest heaving with the exertion, defiantly shaking their puny cozened fists in the face of inevitability.
You see, some day we too will pass into obsolescence. The particular mix of traits that fleetingly places us in our niche at the pinnacle of this ecosystem in this environment will without a doubt be superseded and no longer address the challenges of survival in that niche of a future ecosystem in an inevitably changed environment.
These are the naysayers that I wish to address with this post. Perhaps by now you will see that they are every bit as wrong about evolution as the religious fundamentalist sort; if not more so!
So now let's expand our examination of these people beyond the realm of the evolution of animal species and the variability of the environment.
These same evolution naysayers have cast their specious philosophy upon our economy. An economy is after all analogous to an ecosystem. Things change there too and sometimes the requirements that once caused a company to arise and prosper may, by the will of fate alone change, leaving that once flourishing company high and dry and ill-suited to compete in their new environment.
Our illogical naysayers once again threateningly shake their feeble little fists in the face of this "fait accompli" and claim their doomed megalocerous of a company is "too big to fail". In response they toss out colossal sums of money with reckless abandon all to serve their near-religious faith in their ability to forestall the inevitable sands of change. They cavitate in an impotent churning froth of hastily printed Monopoly money and misguided peckish fervor. Here too, they will fail. They are doomed to failure and we with them are doomed to go along for the ride. Our complicity of inaction ensures that generations to come will also be doomed to a seat on this hellish ride to a thundering crash of splintering failure and the misery of slow recuperation.
Of course they will use their foray into this realm to support their faith in stymieing biological evolution and ecological change. They will nationalize these companies and then force them to crank out unwanted ill-conceived products. They will rationalize, that if they build them then the consumers will come... They deny the fact that the financial environment is diced into ecosystems of supply and demand. Expecting these products to sell would be akin to tossing a goldfish up into a tree and expecting it to thrive there.
Logic is obviously not their strong suit.
Expanding this line of thinking leads us to other arenas in which they ply this feckless philosophy.
...Communism for example...
Communism is of course a creature doomed from the start. It is a chimera... a damned combination of ill-combined traits praying for niche where it can thrive. Our naysayers believe that in spite of the fact that this hideous creature has failed abysmally in every single "ecosystem" where it's been released, that it too must none-the-less be perpetuated. They contend that the failure to date is due to the fact that it was not they who managed the release of this Frankenstein's monster into the wild.
There are of course those who read this, who are sure to puff out their huffing puny chests, roll their lower lips into a childlike pout and wheeze out an indignant protest against the fact that I deign to claim that they are following this path, but facts are facts and they are discarding the endeavors of our founding fathers. I call as my witness those who are perhaps the best authority to call a spade a communist spade. I present to you Pravda, the former official mouthpiece of the communist regime of the fallen USSR. Who better to recognize communism when they see it? In an April 27th editorial, Pravda claims:
How can the president of the United States nationalizing one business after another and placing the proletariat (labor unions) in charge of the factories not be called Marxism and communism? We all know that it is a perfect example of Chicago-style quid pro quo politics. It is surely a corrupt payback for services rendered but it is also the very definition of Marxism... the contrived conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Communism is of course doomed. I claim that because we all know that without deprivation mankind has no impetus to excel. It is discomfort that compels us forward. Have you ever heard the saying, "necessity is the mother of invention?" Under communism, society invariably wallows in paralyzing mediocrity and complacency since by definition, every effort is rewarded the same. People are inspired to greatness only with the greatest stimulus and communism provides only the vapidity of contrived "fairness" as a stimulus.
Again we and generations of our progeny are doomed to go along for this hand basket ride. Or are we?
Be forewarned. I may edit this post as my thoughts continue to crystallize around this line of logic.
Perhaps by now you may be getting an inkling of where I am headed. Perhaps you do not believe my contention. Allow me to continue.
Mother nature generally has a way of thinning the herd; trimming the weak and replacing them with stronger performers. You see the environment and ecosystems of the planet are a constantly changing milieu of push and shove. It is a dance between specialization and generalization... a cycle of rise and fall. It is quite simply change incarnate.
To illustrate my point, let's protract the megaloceros a favorite of mine:
This is a long-dead species of elk that once wandered far and wide across ice age Europe and Asia. The name covers a wide variety of species but is generally and more frequently used to indicate the species more commonly known as the Irish Elk.These animals sported an amazing set of antlers. Fossilized examples of these antlers have been found throughout Europe and are often then mounted and hung on the walls like other trophy antlers. That is where I saw my first set, hanging on the wall in a gasthaus in Germany while I was stationed there. The breathtaking size of them impressed me and remains stuck in my mind to this day.
As a side note, it is often incorrectly believed that they are related to the American moose. They are not. They are more closely related to fallow deer.
It is also the general haughty consensus that mankind caused the demise of this creature. It is believed that we hunted this critter to its end. The undeniable fact is that the stocks of this animal had so declined that their continued existence was precarious at best.
So did we really hunt this creature to death? Perhaps... but it had already been weakened by the fact that the ever changing environment had migrated away from it, depriving it of its sweet spot or niche. So, while mankind may have finished the job. Nature itself had already decided this creature's fate. As the ice receded from the last ice age, so too did the niche ecosystem that spawned and nurtured this amazing creature.
So what if a few precariously surviving individuals of this species were found to miraculously exist today? The standard mantra would be that we would need to set aside generous reserves and prevent the encroachment of mankind to ensure that this obsolete species did not pass on into the twilight. This in spite of the fact that nature itself has rung the death knell for the species. Resources would be squandered to thwart evolution and the environment.
Ask yourself this. Should we preserve this species from its rightful end, are we perhaps not doing the very thing that they wish to prevent? Are we not still allowing mankind to impact nature by preventing its demise? Rightfully some other species should rise to fill the vacated niche. Are we not preventing or delaying that natural process by our actions?
Consider the fact that, if we should cause the demise of a species we are impacting nature and if we should favor a challenged species then we are also impacting the natural course of things.
Those of this mindset are insisting that they and not nature, are the smarter ones in their knowing that all species simply must endure. They point at man as an evil doer but forget that nature itself created and spawned man to be exactly what he is. They delude themselves into thinking that they control the very system that brought them forth and caused them to evolve from their ape brethren. They stand in the stream of change; bucking the unremitting current, their chest heaving with the exertion, defiantly shaking their puny cozened fists in the face of inevitability.
You see, some day we too will pass into obsolescence. The particular mix of traits that fleetingly places us in our niche at the pinnacle of this ecosystem in this environment will without a doubt be superseded and no longer address the challenges of survival in that niche of a future ecosystem in an inevitably changed environment.
These are the naysayers that I wish to address with this post. Perhaps by now you will see that they are every bit as wrong about evolution as the religious fundamentalist sort; if not more so!
So now let's expand our examination of these people beyond the realm of the evolution of animal species and the variability of the environment.
These same evolution naysayers have cast their specious philosophy upon our economy. An economy is after all analogous to an ecosystem. Things change there too and sometimes the requirements that once caused a company to arise and prosper may, by the will of fate alone change, leaving that once flourishing company high and dry and ill-suited to compete in their new environment.
Our illogical naysayers once again threateningly shake their feeble little fists in the face of this "fait accompli" and claim their doomed megalocerous of a company is "too big to fail". In response they toss out colossal sums of money with reckless abandon all to serve their near-religious faith in their ability to forestall the inevitable sands of change. They cavitate in an impotent churning froth of hastily printed Monopoly money and misguided peckish fervor. Here too, they will fail. They are doomed to failure and we with them are doomed to go along for the ride. Our complicity of inaction ensures that generations to come will also be doomed to a seat on this hellish ride to a thundering crash of splintering failure and the misery of slow recuperation.
Of course they will use their foray into this realm to support their faith in stymieing biological evolution and ecological change. They will nationalize these companies and then force them to crank out unwanted ill-conceived products. They will rationalize, that if they build them then the consumers will come... They deny the fact that the financial environment is diced into ecosystems of supply and demand. Expecting these products to sell would be akin to tossing a goldfish up into a tree and expecting it to thrive there.
Logic is obviously not their strong suit.
Expanding this line of thinking leads us to other arenas in which they ply this feckless philosophy.
...Communism for example...
Communism is of course a creature doomed from the start. It is a chimera... a damned combination of ill-combined traits praying for niche where it can thrive. Our naysayers believe that in spite of the fact that this hideous creature has failed abysmally in every single "ecosystem" where it's been released, that it too must none-the-less be perpetuated. They contend that the failure to date is due to the fact that it was not they who managed the release of this Frankenstein's monster into the wild.
There are of course those who read this, who are sure to puff out their huffing puny chests, roll their lower lips into a childlike pout and wheeze out an indignant protest against the fact that I deign to claim that they are following this path, but facts are facts and they are discarding the endeavors of our founding fathers. I call as my witness those who are perhaps the best authority to call a spade a communist spade. I present to you Pravda, the former official mouthpiece of the communist regime of the fallen USSR. Who better to recognize communism when they see it? In an April 27th editorial, Pravda claims:
"It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed..."Read the whole editorial. It is brutally eye opening.
How can the president of the United States nationalizing one business after another and placing the proletariat (labor unions) in charge of the factories not be called Marxism and communism? We all know that it is a perfect example of Chicago-style quid pro quo politics. It is surely a corrupt payback for services rendered but it is also the very definition of Marxism... the contrived conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Communism is of course doomed. I claim that because we all know that without deprivation mankind has no impetus to excel. It is discomfort that compels us forward. Have you ever heard the saying, "necessity is the mother of invention?" Under communism, society invariably wallows in paralyzing mediocrity and complacency since by definition, every effort is rewarded the same. People are inspired to greatness only with the greatest stimulus and communism provides only the vapidity of contrived "fairness" as a stimulus.
Again we and generations of our progeny are doomed to go along for this hand basket ride. Or are we?
Be forewarned. I may edit this post as my thoughts continue to crystallize around this line of logic.
Labels: Commentary, The New USSA
posted by G-Man at 12:03 AM
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