Single Idea 5090

[catalogued under 27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution]

Full Idea

Is it just an accident that teeth and other parts of the body seem to have some purpose, and creatures survive because they happen to be put together in a useful way? Everything else has been destroyed, as Empedocles says of his 'cow with human head'.

Gist of Idea

Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed

Source

report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], 61) by Aristotle - Physics 198b29

Book Reference

Aristotle: 'Physics', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1996], p.50


A Reaction

Good grief! Has no one ever noticed that Empedocles proposed the theory of evolution? It isn't quite natural selection, because we aren't told what does the 'destroying', but it is a little flash of genius that was quietly forgotten.