It is, unfortunately, human nature to anthropomorphize - especially thoughts and natural processes that the layman has no way of understanding otherwise.
The scientific community are encouraged to push away this way of thinking, but it is incredibly difficult. Saying a horse was "designed for speed" by evolution, versus saying "natural selection over millions of years has resulted modernly in a creature capable of sustained rapid travel over land". It doesn't sound nearly as good. :P
We have to remember, all of these statements were being made (taking the books at face value - not as evidence of author's understanding or misunderstanding) by thirteen to sixteen year old KIDS. They're barely into junior high before their world goes to hell, and yeah - none of them BUT Cassie have the biological background to understand beyond the anthropomorphized view of evolution. Even Tobias, who is technically living natural selection with every mouse he kills, can't understand it from a scientific perspective. He's too close to it.
Cassie, who does have the scientific knowledge, also has too much of a bleeding heart. She anthropomorphizes EVERYTHING, form the animals in her parent's barn, to the natural processes of the planet. It's simply the way she thinks.
Ultimately, it's my opinion that these statements aren't a negative reflection on the author's understandings of evolution so much as an accurate attempt to put everything into the mindset of the characters and be consistent with said mindset.
Also, yes - the anthropomorphizing does die down as the series goes on - as one would expect. These people are going from naive children to hardened warriors. It stops mattering what the animals are capable of doing from a standpoint of admiration and beauty, and more about "do they fulfill this requirement we need the morph to do". The animals become weapons, nothing more.
And again, if that DIDN'T happen, this series wouldn't be nearly as realistic a look at the impact of war on a human psyche as it is.
no subject
The scientific community are encouraged to push away this way of thinking, but it is incredibly difficult. Saying a horse was "designed for speed" by evolution, versus saying "natural selection over millions of years has resulted modernly in a creature capable of sustained rapid travel over land". It doesn't sound nearly as good. :P
We have to remember, all of these statements were being made (taking the books at face value - not as evidence of author's understanding or misunderstanding) by thirteen to sixteen year old KIDS. They're barely into junior high before their world goes to hell, and yeah - none of them BUT Cassie have the biological background to understand beyond the anthropomorphized view of evolution. Even Tobias, who is technically living natural selection with every mouse he kills, can't understand it from a scientific perspective. He's too close to it.
Cassie, who does have the scientific knowledge, also has too much of a bleeding heart. She anthropomorphizes EVERYTHING, form the animals in her parent's barn, to the natural processes of the planet. It's simply the way she thinks.
Ultimately, it's my opinion that these statements aren't a negative reflection on the author's understandings of evolution so much as an accurate attempt to put everything into the mindset of the characters and be consistent with said mindset.
Also, yes - the anthropomorphizing does die down as the series goes on - as one would expect. These people are going from naive children to hardened warriors. It stops mattering what the animals are capable of doing from a standpoint of admiration and beauty, and more about "do they fulfill this requirement we need the morph to do". The animals become weapons, nothing more.
And again, if that DIDN'T happen, this series wouldn't be nearly as realistic a look at the impact of war on a human psyche as it is.