[MD] MOQ and the Future: An Inquiry into Usefulness

[Platt Holden]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 8:22 PM, <craigerb at comcast.net> wrote:

> [Platt]
>
> > dogmatic evolutionists like Dawkins and his ilk
>
> > cannot answer Pirsig's question, "Why do the fittest survive?" This
>
> > yawning gap in Darwinian theory. . .
>

I think you’re confusing “survival of the fittest” (the theory of natural
> selection) with the theory of evolution.


I demure to your expertise but to me this appears to be a distinction
without a difference.

>
> To take a crude example, suppose:
> 1) the only difference in moths is their color; some are brown, some are
> white
>
> 2) color is an hereditary property
>
> 3) 90% of the trees are brown oak & 10% are white birch
> 4) moths feed randomly on the bark of trees 5) their predators are only
> successful when the moth is a different color than the tree.
> According to the theory of natural selection, over time 90% of the moth
> population will be brown & 10% white.   This holds even if the theory of
> evolution is false.
>

OK, but the question is, "Why does hereditary work to insure survival?" Or,
more simply, "Why survive?  Or, as Pirsig inquired, "Why for example should
a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen
struggle for billions of years to organize themselves into a professor of
chemistry? What's the motive?" (Lila, 11).

Platt