I wanted to laugh, and probably did. But I also had to take the man seriously, if I was to answer him in terms of his own logic. And so I applied myself to the question of evolution, and pondered why students of the subject thought evolution is only a mechanism. It is not progressive in any meaningful sense, for there is nothing toward which to progress. The process is entirely mechanical.
Life is meaningless, purposeless, and unintelligent.
The conclusions drawn from them, however, were as unnecessary to the facts as the belief of certain primitive peoples that thunder means the gods are displeased. Philosophers had been asking the wrong questions. When I was a child of six, my father told me that the human race is dominant on earth as an evolutionary accident. Perhaps, he said, the birds will be the next to rule, since they haven't had their turn yet. I remember thinking even at that age that his idea was unsatisfactory, for it implied no dominance of consciousness.