From: "John T. Duryea" <jtduryea-AT-dmv.com>
Subject: Re: Nietzsche on Mill and Darwin
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:54:20 -0600



-----Original Message-----
From: Massimiliano Marinelli <m.marinelli-AT-fastnet.it>
To: nietzsche-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
<nietzsche-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, January 20, 1998 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: Nietzsche on Mill and Darwin


>Steven E. Callihan wrote:
>>Nietzsche takes pains to disassociate his thinking, the will to power
>>specifically, from any kind of teleology of strength, from the notion of
>>evolution as progress, from Spencerism, as you pointed out, I believe, but
>>also from Darwin's own perhaps unfortunate attempts to defend and explain
>>his own theory (the phrase "survival of the fittest" was his, after all).
>
>I agree with Steven, but ... only two remarks:
>1) there is a great difference between Spencer theory and evolution theory.
>The first is "optimistic", the latter is nihilistic
>Darwin, as philosopher, can be a phlegmatic, (J.T. Duryea)  but, as a
>scientist, he was nihilistic.
>So in BGE 253 N. names Darwin as  a mediocre englishman, but in BGE 9 the
>picture of nature is darwinist.
>
>2) On the survival of the fittest,  I remember that we know the fittest
>only  "a posteriori".
>There are a casual mutation and a natural selection: that is all.
>
>
>Ciao, Max
>Massimiliano Marinelli .
>Bioethics Department, Urbino Italy
>
>
What do you mean by casual mutation, is this a form of
gradual evolution? What is meant by natural selection,
is selection not willful by definition? Do you know of
any examples of creatures which are not perfectly
adapted to their environment? If so, are these
creatures transitional forms and can you predict
their *final* form?

Once you take away the Lamarkian idea of inheritance
of acquired characteristics, does it make any sense
whatsoever to conceive of such a complex organ
as the eye gradually evolving over thousands of
generations?

If you take away the dynamic of inheritance through
acquired characteristics, is not the rationale of natural
selection of better fitted varients and the *fittest* survive
simply a circular arguement?

The fact of the matter is that no human on the face
of the earth has certain knowledge as to how species
originate. The best current knowledge is that species
suddenly come into being, hold their form, then die out.

John T. Duryea



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