Friday, October 15, 2010

Fallacy of Affect

Last Lecture brought a question to my mind. When we were discussing whether or not death or survival was the driving force of evolution it occurred to me that the only way we can judge the answer to this is by looking at society around us today. Butler and Darwin both do this. For example, in looking at the Giraffe’s long neck, did it become this way because he strove to reach food on a higher branch, or because the giraffe with the predisposed longer necks were able to survive past those with smaller necks (and therefore could not reach food enough to eat). Here, What Evolutionists have done, is looked at the circumstances in the world, and made a judgement call on their origins. Isn’t this the fallacy of affect? Darwin, Butler, humankind – all we see are the affects of what we theorize to be evolution. We make judgement calls and base the truth in terms of these consequences. Is this correct? Should we be doing this? Is there another way to confront the question of our origins?

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