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Originally Posted by boagie  Is not evolution, mutation, adaptation, reactionary responses to the physical world |
You're mixing a lot of terms and concepts here. Mutation can happen because of errors in DNA transcription, errors in DNA proofreading, free radicals, UV light, etc. It's not a
reaction except in the sense that it's the end result of a chemical reaction that is NOT selectively induced.
Evolution is a genetic change on a population level that happens over time. At the nonacademic level that people talk about this here, you'd think that it's just a phenotypic change. But evolution can be easily measured and studied even in instances where no changed phenotype is produced. However, to get at the heart of your question, evolution cannot be simply described as a "reactionary response to the physical world". Why? Because the most influential factors in evolution have to do with statistical phenomena -- like the effect of non-random mating and small population size on allele frequency within a population. Natural selection exerts a much smaller force on the genome than plain old genetic drift -- although when present its force is powerful.
Adaptation is both biological and behavioral. We adapted to create clothing rather than biologically evolving to grow fur. Etc.
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how it is, that humanity can in fact get out of this reactionary situtation and become the actor.
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Easy -- we genetically engineer every single embryo and we selectively abort fetuses that do not meet our standards. That way our genetic evolution is our own doing.
But outside the realm of science fiction, I don't really understand what motivates your question. Sure, it would be great if our intellect and reason ruled the world. But the fact of the matter is we're animals and we're beholden to the constraints of our biology and the permissiveness of our environment -- and nothing can change that.