Re: [asa] fun- an evolution test question ... a hint (was "riddle")

I'm not sure if anyone gave this answer yet, but I can think of two
possibilities.

One would be to argue that cars/machines in general are just another kind of
offspring of humans. That could arguably put them in the evolutionary chain,
at which point you just have to draw the lines of descent back to the common
ancestor between them.

Another way would be to argue that they're both the result artificial
selection by humans. Pigs have been successively bred to have certain
features, cars have been made to have certain features, therefore another
link is that they're both human-guided 'artificial' products of a descent
line.

I can think of other ways to justify as much, which alone probably
highlights some problems with the whole evolutionary debate.

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 1:20 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>wrote:

> As I think about it more- maybe "riddle" was a bad word, because it implies
> a play on words or some kind of trick. Actually, I'm thinking this could be
> on an actual exam if Richard Dawkins was teaching a class on evolution.
>
> And yes- it should say 'evolutionarily' not 'evolutionary.'
>
> Here's a further hint:
>
> If it was a picture of a mother big and a baby pig, you'd say "that is
> easy- the baby is the offspring, descended from, the mother." If I gave a
> picture of a fish and a human, you'd say "that's easy- they are 'cousins'
> because they have a common ancestor. All mammals directly descended from
> some kind of fish." This is expanding the range- can you see the
> evolutionary link, as proposed by Dawkins?
>
> ...Bernie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexanian, Moorad [mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 8:00 AM
> To: Dehler, Bernie; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] fun- an evolution riddle
>
> To a strict materialist or physicalist like Hawkins, the biggest claim they
> can make is that, in principle, anything purely physical, viz. nonliving
> matter, can, via evolutionary processes, turn into a living being. In math
> format, matter + evolutionary processes = living being; or, equivalently,
> evolutionary processes = breath of God.
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________________
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of
> Dehler, Bernie [bernie.dehler@intel.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 5:23 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] fun- an evolution riddle
>
> I'm not sure what you mean- you'd have to explain more fully.
>
> ...Bernie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexanian, Moorad [mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu]
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 1:38 PM
> To: Dehler, Bernie; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] fun- an evolution riddle
>
> The picture represents the evolution of the living from nonliving matter.
> Is that it?
>
> Moorad
> ________________________________________
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of
> Dehler, Bernie [bernie.dehler@intel.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 4:27 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] fun- an evolution riddle
>
> Actually- the answer I'm thinking is real evolutionary science and not a
> joke, according to Dawkin's mindset.
>
> An interesting alternative- think of a picture of a Catholic Cathedral (or
> a Baptist megachurch) instead of a VW bug, or the tallest building in the
> world, or a picture of the space shuttle, or a solar-powered calculator...
> lots of choices. The animal could also be any animal.
>
> ...Bernie
>
>
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Received on Sat Jan 10 16:00:53 2009