Every cell, virus, plant, or animal mutation or characteristic is explained by Natural Selection.
It’s almost like there is some motivation for it to make sure life exists and survives. But why do anything at all? If there is a God then it makes sense that it was put in place for life to exist but if there is no God then why don’t we just have a universe of non-living matter?
Natural selection is simply the idea that all living things want to survive and reproduce.
Along with this each new being could have small mutations that make it different from others in it’s species.
Those beings born with a mutation that makes them less likely to be killed before reproducing will pass on their mutation to the next generation, meaning there will be more of that mutation in the next generation.
Continue this process many many many times and you get evolution through natural selection.
It’s not some great plan, it’s millions of individuals scrapping for survival in the face of a dangerous and uncaring world.
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Natural selection, the beings that didn’t have that urge to survive didn’t reproduce and died 🤷
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Because it’s conducive to survival.
That was an unfitting characterization.
Natural Selection does not care about wants. Natural Selection is the inherent and consequential process of selection.
Wants and reproduction are properties that influence natural selection - influences what is being naturally selected.
Because life couldn’t exist as we know it if there wasn’t an inherent desire to live. If living organisms didn’t have that inate drive to continue living, all species would become extinct before ever evolving.
Though I don’t have any actual knowledge in this area so who knows if I’m right. Just my assumptions!
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Now this is speculation on my part, but I assume that any organisms that didn’t have this innate drive randomly present in their biology, they died off, so all that’s left now are the organisms with this drive.
So organisms that didn’t seek out reproduction at our earliest form of life, are dead and what remains are the organisms that randomly developed with this drive.
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It exists because we wouldn’t be here if it didn’t. That’s all there is to it really. You’re asking for an answer if “why”. Why did the earth form in the exact place that it did? Things are allowed to arise randomly, and natural selection isn’t an explanation for the begging of the universe
Natural Selection is a process. It has no intention or intended function.
You give more meaning to life than natural selection or physics does. Arguing from that perspective is flawed. You’re equating and relating the wrong things.
We don’t have a universe of non-living matter because life is an inherent necessary consequence of the physical properties and processes of our universe.
I often compare Natural Selection to Survivorship Bias, because as far as I can tell that is what it is.
There is no “drive” or mythical force to be better. A mutation occurs and the result works or doesn’t.
Those that work have survived until today, and those that don’t failed to reproduce sufficiently to reach today.
That said, today we actually have what I call “Un-natural Selection”, and that is when we humans take something that would have failed naturally and ensure its success through our intervention. Think seedless plants or humans/animals with chronic disabilities. Natural selection would likely have eliminated them for failure to function or reproduce, but through our will they endure. For now.
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You can include what you deem unfit in the Natural Selection process too. Humans are part of reality, part of nature, part of Natural Selection process/environment.
A crop that can only survive with human culturing may be unfit without human intervention, but humans are there culturing it. The crop survives. The crop even replaces other crops that humans may have cultivated otherwise. The crop is still being naturally selected. So you have to include humans and that process in Natural Selection.
While evolution and natural selection conflicts with Intelligent Design, it is perfectly compatible with a supreme creator and spirituality. Neither proves or disproves the other.
The common belief, though, is that life as we know it can occur through chance.
But, I just want to make it clear that it is valid for you to believe a creator is necessary for natural selection without conflicting with it.
I’m not sure that there needs to be a any grand cosmic reason for life to exist. Life could just be an accident of random events in our little corner of the universe.
Natural selection offers an explanation for how life changes across generations in response to challenges in the environment. It does not require a plan, just that the outcome of a chaotic process (reproduction) creates mutations that produce a slight edge, or at least no reduction in reproductive efficiency.
Natural Selection describes the process and the outcome, not intent. It is also situational, where different types of plants and animals fill different kinds of roles at different times because of overall pressures and opportunities from the environment.
Pandas eat bamboo, a very low energy source, in their environment because of environmental pressure. Kodiak bears get absolutely massive on their island because of the prevelance of seafood (whales) that wash up and provide an opportunity for more energy dense food sources. Neither are the result of design, just local environments.
Crocodiles survive extinction events because of their biology allowing for long periods without food and water. But they aren’t successful in cold climates for the same reason. They are vulnerable to other pressures like overhunting, but their other traits tend to discourage being eaten. Something still eat them though! Their immune system is crazy strong because it improved due to where they were successful, stagnant waters with a lot of bacteria.
Bats are the opposite, very fragile physically. But the species have adapted to communal living with fast reproduction and a strong immune system due to that proximity with each other to be massively successful on a global scale.
None of these are designed, and birds on islands being very different from those on mainland because they fit into different roles is a very easy way to see that there is nondesign, just adaptation given enough time.
Since the very beginning the life that was successful was the life that successfully reproduced. That just continued since that point in time, so all current life is also the life that successfully reproduces whether consciously or not.
You have a lot of terms conflated in a way that tells me you would benefit from learning more about these ideas.
Natural selection is the opposite of a motivation. All it really is this: Traits that help an organism live to reproduce or do not adversely affect its opportunity or ability to reproduce will continue to propagate in a population of organisms. Traits that hinder an organism in reproducing or adversely affect its opportunity or ability to reproduce will gradually be expressed less. There isn’t a motivation for that, it’s a self-selecting process. If an organism can’t reproduce, it can’t pass its traits on to the next generation. If it can reproduce, it can pass its traits on to the next generation.
Life isn’t motivated to survive because an omnipotent superintelligence wants it to be. All the life that didn’t give a shit about surviving didn’t live long enough to propagate.
Natural selection does not provide an origin for life or the universe. I agree with the other poster who mentions that organic matter - and life - is a result of the basic nature of matter in the universe. I wouldn’t say I know much about the origin of the universe, but inserting a god into it just kicks the can down the road. Every issue you might have with the big bang is just moved one completely unverifiable step away by throwing a god into the equation. Who made god? And, if god can exist without being created, why could not the universe?
