Phinehas asks Neil Rickert a fascinating question about the supposed direction of evolution.  Neil says he will address it in a separate thread, and I started this one for that purpose.  The rest of the post is Phenehas’ question to Neil: @Neil I also appreciate the professional tone. I am a skeptic regarding what evolution can actually accomplish. In keeping with your demonstrated patience, I’d be grateful if you would give serious consideration to something that keeps tripping me up. I’ve often thought of natural selection as the heuristic to random mutations’ exhaustive search. A path-finding algorithm can be aided in finding a path from point A to point B by using distance to B as a heuristic to narrow … Continue reading Why Up When Down is Just As Good And A Lot Easier?