We Are Not Consistent
So I'm going into my fourth week of work at the Aquareana Center, and it is awesome. I spend 99.9% of my time outdoors. I drive glass bottom boats and tell people how cool the San Marcos Springs are.
The place used to be an amusement park, but it went bankrupt. Now the university owns it and has turned it into a research and educational center. They love to talk about preserving the environment and saving endangered species, which is great, but it's made me realize something:
Very few people in America truly believe in Evolution. Evolution is about survival of the fittest. The one with the best genes wins. But we don't like that. We try to preserve endangered species and environments, and believe it is bad when they perish. We spend time, money, effort, and love trying to treat those with severe handicaps. If we practiced what we preached, we would let animals go extinct, we would not concern ourselves with those weaker than us.
posted by Dan Reiter @ 1:38 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Good post, Dan! While at the Aquarena Center, you should ask Jessie, "Y'all still have them pigs?" She really likes it when tons of people call and ask about them and why they don't have them anymore.
That's well written and provacative...one of the things people gloss over in evolutionary theroy is how harsh and unloving of a world it presents. Life as one big biological competition with no purpose or goal. For me the thought of life without meaning is one that is very depressing. Love being biological and not spiritual seems like a kind of love not worthy of the title.
I would say though that the desire to save an endangered species does not wholly conflict with this. One could say that our presence has had an affect on the environment that could eventually lead to our own extinction and thus by saving the species we have helped endanger we prevent our own extinction from occuring though massive ecological and climatological pattern shifts on the only planet we know of that we can live on. While this is kind of extreme and far fetched coming from me I'll state that I do not share the view that the Universe formed accidentally and without a greater purpose. However, I do like to play "devils advocate" on occasion. Pun intended?
p.s. Don't cut your hair ever.
- Jordan
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