[Marxism] human origins

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carrol Cox :
*       
        No. It is a prime example of pure contingency. It was pure accident,
an accident rooted in astronomy, not biology, that the earth is still not
dominated by the dinosaurs up to the present moment.
        
        Carrol

^^^^^^
CB: "Pure contingency" is _part_ of Darwin's theory !  This is a very
critical point.  Therefore, the fact that the comet hitting earth was chance
relative to the life of the different species makes it a perfect, empirical
example of Darwin's theory, as I said.

Changes in the environment that impact the fitness of species are, in the
Darwinian model, contingent or by chance relative to the constitution of the
species that are affected by these changes.

It wasn't destined that a comet would hit earth. It was chance. The
astronomical events was random relative to the biology. Once the
astronomical event occurs though, it is not random as to which species are
caused to go extinct and which survive and expand into the empty niches.

Once the comet hits earth _by chance_ , it is not chance  that the dinosaurs
and not the mammals were caused to go extinct in the sense that the comet
impacted the earth's environment in a way that it destroyed aspects of the
environment vital to dinosaurs but not mammals.

Again, "contingency" is _integral_ to the Darwinian theory. The "chance"
event (chance or bad luck relative to the eco-system of the dinosaurs) of
the comet hitting the earth is a Darwinian event.

Put it this way, every environmental event that caused a species to go
extinct within natural history was a _chance_ event relative to the species
that went extinct.  That's fundamental Darwinism.

Another point of chance or contingency _integral_ to the Darwin theory is
the random occurance of new traits. Darwin didn't know of genes and random
mutations, but he had the fact that these changes are chance. In fact, this
differentiates his theory from LaMarck's. LaMarck's theory is that new
traits arise _caused_, not randomly ,in relation to the life experience of
the parental generation.

To reiterate the most important point, contingency is integral to Darwin's
theory. So as I said


My statement is Darwinian, exactly  BECAUSE  it includes a contingent change
in the environment. "Chance" changes in the environment of a species are the
typical scenario in the Darwin model.

If the comet hitting was not random or chance, one would be putting forth a
theory of "intelligent design" , because it would imply that the comet
hitting the earth was part of a design, an intent, a purpose.
        



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