[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

Unfortunately, this same accusation can easily be levelled at natural selection. If a certain bird evolves a longer tail, it helps it to fly better, if it evolves a shorter tail, maybe it makes it less obvious to predators....

But you see, evolution doesn't require evidence, as Marvin Minsky so simply describes:

The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.

Unless you disagree with the premises, the result follows. What the concept of "natural selection" does is suggest strongly that less fit organisms will disappear in the face of ones that are more fit. It does not say whether longer or shorter tails fit the bill.

Originally Posted by Chris

You can't do the same with morphic resonance. There is no way to manipualte it. There is no way to transparently make predictions from morphic resonance.

Hell, you can't even say which objects are associated with morphic resonance and which are not.

~~ Paul