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Single Idea 14801
[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
]
Full Idea
Darwinian evolution is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad results.
Gist of Idea
Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results
Source
Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.320)
Book Ref
Peirce,Charles Sanders: 'Philosophical Writings of Peirce', ed/tr. Buchler,Justus [Dover 1940], p.320
A Reaction
The 'destruction of bad results' is a much better slogan for Darwin that Spencer's 'survival of the fittest'. It is, of course, a rather unattractive God who makes progress by endlessly destroying huge quantities of failed (but living) experiments.
The
23 ideas
with the same theme
[theory that life results from natural selection]:
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5090
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Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed
[Empedocles, by Aristotle]
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5989
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Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime
[Archelaus, by Schofield]
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23301
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There is a gradual proceeding from the inanimate to animals, with no clear borderlines
[Aristotle]
|
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15961
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I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds
[Boyle]
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12567
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It is inconceivable that unthinking matter could produce intelligence
[Locke]
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19414
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Men are related to animals, which are related to plants, then to fossils, and then to the apparently inert
[Leibniz]
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7646
|
There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap
[La Mettrie]
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19776
|
Small uninterrupted causes can have big effects
[Rousseau]
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14801
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Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results
[Peirce]
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6938
|
Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones
[Peirce]
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20241
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Enquirers think finding our origin is salvation, but it turns out to be dull
[Nietzsche]
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7179
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Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution
[Nietzsche]
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7178
|
The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary!
[Nietzsche]
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7180
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Darwin overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances'
[Nietzsche]
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4535
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A 'species' is a stable phase of evolution, implying the false notion that evolution has a goal
[Nietzsche]
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5314
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Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow
[Wilson,EO]
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5315
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Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase
[Wilson,EO]
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3502
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Mind involves fighting, fleeing, feeding and fornicating
[Searle]
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3804
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Darwin's idea was the best idea ever
[Dennett]
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7515
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All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent
[Pinker]
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7514
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Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default
[Pinker]
|
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23993
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Our capabilities did not all evolve during the hunter gathering period
[Goldie]
|
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7462
|
DNA mutation suggests humans and chimpanzees diverged 6.6 million years ago
[Watson]
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