Talk:Evolution
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[edit] Doesn't natural selection have a mind?
It seems like it... I mean it chooses the best traits for the environment. Isn't that natural selection having a mind? — Unsigned, by: 71.222.47.95 / talk / contribs
- A mighty clumsy mind, maybe. It's less of a choosing of the best traits, but more of a organisms who happen to have the better traits having a higher chance of survival. Nullahnung (talk) 09:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
- It has no more of a "mind" than a river flowing downhill. Change the land and the flow will change - but it's not making conscious decisions, it's not self-aware and it's not planning ahead. It's not a "mind".--Weirdstuff (talk) 11:24, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
- Natural selection works like this: Mutations occur, and an organism maintains, thrives, or dies under environmental pressures. Mutations--that is, an imperfect replication of DNA--happen all the time, and most of them don't amount to much because most DNA is just junk. Then, too, mutations have a bigger difference if they happen early on--because then the altered DNA will be passed along by the cells derived by the original mutant one. If you get a skin cell with the mutant power to change color according to your will, but you're 25 when it occurs, you'd never know. Every now and then a mutation happens in an important spot, and--usually--an organism dies (because you're in trouble if your liver is miscoded, or other important organs). And then, sometimes, one hits the genetic lottery, or a bunch of the previously useless mutations happen to add up to something new and useful. Check out the wiki's page on The Lenski Affair for an example of a beneficial mutation letting something thrive under environmental pressures.. --Maxus (talk) 02:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
- It has no more of a "mind" than a river flowing downhill. Change the land and the flow will change - but it's not making conscious decisions, it's not self-aware and it's not planning ahead. It's not a "mind".--Weirdstuff (talk) 11:24, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Illuminati
Maybe I'm too fed up with the recent Illuminati explosion on RW (mostly from BoNs), but isn't this article's Illuminati section just too silly? It's like following a discussion of Inflammatory Bowel Disease with a bad fart joke. MarmotHead (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think it should have its own section unless there is more recognition (newspapers documenting it, viral videos of it, that stuff). The source is pretty scanty, being only one (most likely obscure) Youtube video. What's next, the article on Pokémon having the Illuminati because one person talked about it? The best we can do it make a one-liner bullet point in the main Illuminati article, I believe. Finally, there's an awful lack of coherence that leads to this section. So, I'd support removing it. LEFTYGREENMARIO 20:09, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
- I just heard that the Illuminati invented Pokémon. Proof? Someone mentioned those two words in the same sentence on RW! MarmotHead (talk) 03:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)