07-28-2013, 03:59 PM
(07-28-2013, 02:56 PM)Gretel Hanselsister Wrote: "Good" and "bad" are simple things in evolution, you don't need a human perspective (huge claim!)
"Good" is everything that helps your genes survive the next generations, "Bad" is the opposite. *snip*
Here's the problem with your logic. You are arguing a false dichotomy. You are arguing genetic traits are either a) "good" where they help your genes survive or b) bad where they do the opposite (and by opposite, I believe you mean they "hurt" your genes chances of survival). False dichotomy is false. The vast majority of genes in an organism's DNA have no bearing on survival (they neither promote or hurt it for a species). For starters, unless the gene plays a role in a phenotype (i.e., a gene that manifests itself in an organism), then the gene has little bearing on natural selection. Still, your "good" and "bad" standards are very fact specific. What is a beneficial phenotype for one generation of a species, may be utterly pointless if that species migrates to a different habitat. However, "utterly pointless" does not equate to "bad" using your above definition. It may just be redundant and have no impact on the natural selection of a species whatsoever. The umbezahlbar may simply fall into this category.
I would like to point out you kind of shifted your argument from "being normal" to being "good or bad". I still don't understand the big deal that your are making about this. Natural processes (like diseases or evolution) happen. Of course, if you personally don't want them to happen, they're bad, but nature doesn't care what an individual thinks (though evolution works in the aggregate) nor does nature cast a moral judgment upon them. And for that reason, there's really no scientific litmus test about whether a seltenvogel should or should not have an umbezahlbar (i.e., whether it's good, bad, or neutral).
I mean really, there's still a debate over whether wessen are purely biological or not. There are clearly supernatural elements to many wessen (e.g., hexenbiest, grimm, etc.). Therefore, this discussion becomes very difficult using genetics for explaining the umbezahlbar, when two episodes later, they totally blow off any biological explanation when they eliminate Adalind's hexenbiest nature.