Natural selection works on the basis of an individual's odds of getting her genome reproduced. The probability is what matters, but as with card games, dice games and quantum physics the probability works itself out through a huge series of individual events.
^^^^ CB: So said Engels concerning the dialectic of chance and necessity. The laws of nature express themselves in a plethora of chance events.
^^^^^
On 12/6/05, Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk> > wrote:
> Charles:
> Then natural selection doesn't act on individuals , because individuals ,
> well, die ! They are mortal. Individuals don't evolve in the Darwinian
> sense. They may go through changes in their ontogeny (lifetime), but they
> don't evolve into a new "species" or evolve genetically at all. Species
> don't originate phenotypically in an individual during the course of the
> individual's life. Species originate in two individuals, two generations,
a
> parent-offspring individuals pair , at least.
>
> ^^^^
>
>
> "Death seems to be a harsh victory of the species over the particular
> individual and to contradict their unity. But the particular individual is
> only a particular species-being, and as such mortal."
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm
>
>
>
>
> Karl Marx
> Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
>
>
>
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> Private Property and Communism
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