[Sabertooth]

((((((growl)))))

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[Ogmios]

Thanks for the ping, I like it a lot!!

[Rudder]

“What does it mean for a civilization to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilization is a few hundred years old... an advanced civilization millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bush baby or a macaque.” (Carl Sagan)

This opening quote for this article reveals a subtlely conveyed, albeit perverse, concept: the author has evolution's direction in his grasp. How did Sagan, or anyone else, come to know the course of evolution yet to come? Since advancing technical complexity and/or intelligence is always posited by futurists as the putative hall mark of a long-standing civilization, it seems to me that a critical analysis of their presumptions is warranted because there is no way to know that this position is even close to the true state of evolutionary affairs.

That Sagan, an allegedly reputable scientist, would be so foolish as to predict the future is not surprising, almost all scientists (as well as the laiety) express similar views.

There's no way anyone can know the variance of future selective pressure, let alone predict unknown organisms' response to them.

But, the fallacious position will no doubt persist. That is, aliens, with eons of time to have evolved, will have most certainly followed the course we ourselves would have chosen.