>Yep, I've seen a few people chucking around phrases like "designed by nature" which are both wrong and confusing.
That's me chucking that phrase and I am telling you there's good reasoning for it. Think about it. How do I differentiate between the human hand and a rock? Do I say:
The human hand is a low entropy configuration of atoms that is very efficient at grasping things while the rock is a high entropy configuration of atoms that is not efficient at grasping things.
OR do I say...
The human hand is designed to grasp things the rock is not.
See. One sentence just rolls off the tongue better but I guess I have to get into the technicalities otherwise people are confused.
Either way, People like to get into linguistic debates on the definition of a word without realizing that it's a trap. Nothing profound is actually being discussed when we're just talking about how to properly use the word "design." Think about it... you're just debating about the proper definition of a vocabulary word.
Granted I'll tell you it's an effective trap. People get into these debates without realizing how pointless it all is. The famous debate is "What is life?" Well if you want to argue about that you have to realize that the word "life" is loaded and ambiguously defined. Attempting this argument is simply trying to demarcate the complex boundaries of the word. It's simply an attempt to add more bullet points and rules to an overly complex vocabulary word.
How about we stop arguing about vocabulary.
>We, as a species, are not "finished" in any way or "more evolved" than other species. There is no destination evolution as such.
Where did this come from? I don't see anyone making that argument. Sure we can as a species can start ingesting gasoline and likely with enough time and natural selection we could involve into a gasoline eating species.
This does not change the fact that there is meaning to the sentence: "Humans are not designed to eat gasoline." Guess the intent of my usage of that sentence without getting pedantic and try to express and convey the same intent without the use of the word "design" or "purpose."
That's me chucking that phrase and I am telling you there's good reasoning for it. Think about it. How do I differentiate between the human hand and a rock? Do I say:
OR do I say... See. One sentence just rolls off the tongue better but I guess I have to get into the technicalities otherwise people are confused.Either way, People like to get into linguistic debates on the definition of a word without realizing that it's a trap. Nothing profound is actually being discussed when we're just talking about how to properly use the word "design." Think about it... you're just debating about the proper definition of a vocabulary word.
Granted I'll tell you it's an effective trap. People get into these debates without realizing how pointless it all is. The famous debate is "What is life?" Well if you want to argue about that you have to realize that the word "life" is loaded and ambiguously defined. Attempting this argument is simply trying to demarcate the complex boundaries of the word. It's simply an attempt to add more bullet points and rules to an overly complex vocabulary word.
How about we stop arguing about vocabulary.
>We, as a species, are not "finished" in any way or "more evolved" than other species. There is no destination evolution as such.
Where did this come from? I don't see anyone making that argument. Sure we can as a species can start ingesting gasoline and likely with enough time and natural selection we could involve into a gasoline eating species.
This does not change the fact that there is meaning to the sentence: "Humans are not designed to eat gasoline." Guess the intent of my usage of that sentence without getting pedantic and try to express and convey the same intent without the use of the word "design" or "purpose."