Sunday, November 29, 2009

Purpose-driven life: evolution does not rob life of meaning, but creates meaning. It also makes possible our own capacity for creativity.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/spring-2009/

Evolutionary thinking has lately expanded from the biological to the human world, first into the social sciences and recently into the humanities and the arts. Many people therefore now understand the human, and even human culture, as inextricably biological. But many others in the humanities--in this, at least, like religious believers who reject evolution outright--feel that a Darwinian view of life and a biological view of humanity can only deny human purpose and meaning.
Does evolution by natural selection rob life of purpose, as so many have feared? The answer is no. On the contrary, Charles Darwin has made it possible to understand how purpose, like life, builds from small beginnings, from the ground up. In a very real sense, evolution creates purpose.
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