Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Convergent evolution beautifully illustrated in politics?

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Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely UniverseIn Life’s solution, Simon Conway Morris devotes an entire five-page, double-column index to convergence: Two or more species evolving the same complex, multi-part trait without being related.

Seemingly, it works that way in politics too, if we heed journalist Rich Galen’s advice:

There is a reason that just about every airliner looks like every other airliner. Some are larger, some smaller; some have two engines, some four, but they generally look alike.There is a reason for that. There is a design solution that fits commercial airliners. They take off, they go where the pilot aims them, they land, and they can carry enough passengers to make money.

Same with political campaigns. Every cycle candidates say, “We’re going to run a different type of campaign.” They all look pretty much alike because there is an engineering design solution for political campaigns.

Things change. On-line fundraising instead of using the USPS was new. So were digital avionics instead of analog instruments. But those things are updates, not fundamental changes. – “Design solution,” (Townhall, 06/10/2011)

Sounds like evolution (as it really happens) . ..  Well, it seems one American politician ignored this pattern, and

Rich Galen… ran afoul of the rule that campaigns look like campaigns look, because there’s a design solution that works.

… campaign was like an airliner with no wings, no engines, and no landing gear. It was a different kind of airliner.

But, it couldn’t get off the ground.

Rich Galen might enjoy Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell and The Nature of Nature .

Comments
I have found that most convergent evolution ideas are just misdiagnosed . For example I insist marsupials are just placentals with minor adaptation due to early migrations. nOw the creatures did get like marsupial traits yet not from steps in evolution but sudden triggers in their biology. So many other convergent conclusions can simply be seen as like responces to like needs. i have a hunch that critics of evolution have missed a big point here about all the convergence of traits that is found between unrelated creatures by any definition . From a common blueprint there would be convergence in traits if all traits are just part of a bigger equation in biology.Robert Byers
June 13, 2011
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"The claim that Darwinism is parsimonious is false." And, even were Darwinian "explanations" parsimonious, the thing rational beings care about in their explanations is that they be true. Parsimony and truth are on different scales.Ilion
June 11, 2011
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Two or more species evolving the same complex, multi-part trait without being related.
And unless they did so by following the exact same steps, how is it that people can claim that Darwinism offers a parsimonious explanation? The claim that Darwinism is parsimonious is false.Mung
June 11, 2011
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