Delete comment from: Edward Feser
If one intends to address the claims made by biologists, one needs to consider what the claims mean, regardless of what the words they use mean in different contexts
If one intends to address the claims made by Thomists, one needs to consider what the claims mean, regardless of what the words they use mean in different contexts
If we define [random], at least for present porpuses, as: “Mutation that is only accidentally, or merely happens in some cases to be helpful and therefore does not “aim” (telos) at survival...
A mutation is not a thing and therefore has no telos. The thing with an end is the gene [maybe]. The original gene had a telos, which was the protein it had evolved to build. [It's rather more complex than that, but it will do.] The mutated gene has a perverted faculty, in that the gene may or may not assemble its required protein.
It may, because the editing and repair processes within the cell my correct or bypass the corrupted code as when autocorrect changes "cta" to "cat". In that case, the mutated gene retains its original telos.
It may build a different protein, as when "cat" is mutated to "cut". It has been perverted from its original end. [perverted (adj.) 1660s, "turned from the right way," from Latin pervertere "overthrow, overturn."] But it may now have another end, depending on whether the corrupted code spells out another sensible word.
Or it may be corrupted entirely and do nothing or do harm, as when "cat" is corrupted to "dir". The organism with the transcription error may or may not survive.
Mutation is not the process that entails greater fitness. Natural selection is. Evolution, at least many evolutions, are thought due to natural selection acting on variation in genetic information.
Nov 24, 2018, 11:26:00 AM
Posted to Byrne on why sex is binary