Quote Originally Posted by Omnis Dei View Post
I have to say your point contradicts the quote you used. I was defending/elaborating on the quote you used, but I find the conclusion you drew from it to be wrong.

If an argument would mean the difference as to whether or not you breed, in an evolutionary sense it is extremely important. Just because society has grown more complex since the days where it was really so simple that one single argument would decide the future of your genes, this doesn't mean there are various levels of dominance which still play a role. Besides, this is assuming evolution only works through genes, and that ideas do not also evolve and dominate other ideas.
My oh my. I find myself reading and responding again.

First off, when anybody cares about your opinion on the validity of a given argument, they'll surely ask. I wouldn't hold your breath. In this case, profound truths (the uselessness of arguments) are often contradicted by other profound truths (the absolute necessity of argument). I would expect you to understand this.

Second, of course evolution operates on ideas. This is memetics. Evolution operates on languages as well. Operating off of the whole language as a subset of memetics idea, I actually predicted (though didn't publish) that the most frequently needed words would be the shortest and that these would be the slowest to change. About two years later I read that the most frequently used words are the shortest and are the slowest to change. I was right again. What a surprise. They even went so far as to say that language appears to be an evolutionary system. Well, can't blame a scientist for caution I suppose.

At any rate, this isn't genetic evolution. This is memetic evolution. One's darwinian (ok, with epi-genetics a darwinian system occasionally simulating a lamarkian one). Memetic evolution is pretty close to larmakian system.

One day, I'll figure out how to formalize all this stuff and then I'll be able to prove things. Then I'll really be in a postion to ruthlessly mock creationists and new agers. I think that the key is a proper definition of "species". I started a thread on this but it got dismissed as too abstract. hahahahaha