Paralith

You are committing the naturalistic fallacy, dennis. Darwin's descriptions of "survival of the fittest" and "chance" were not ideas but patterns that he observed in nature. They have no moral value. They are not "good" or "bad." They are simply what is. Natural selection happens. Mutations happen. No matter how anyone feels about it, there is no denying these facts. Mature and intelligent people should understand this, and should take responsibility for using the existence of these processes to incorrectly justify their actions.

...okay. That may very well be how Darwin reached his conclusions. But I don't quite see how this relates to the incompleteness theorem and religious explanation, which is what you quoted from my post.

This is a discussion/debate forum, is it not? iNow is reacting to your discussion points that he disagrees with with valid counter points. The fact that he is doing it with a little bit of fervor does not mean his points should not be addressed. What further investigation? As we do not have the ability to talk to Darwin himself and ask what was the motivation and reasoning behind his theory that he did not write in any of his publications, there is no way for you to further investigate your assertion. I am not familiar with this theory, but it sounds interesting. However, if what you say is true about humans' ability to perceive reality, then would not other forms of explaining reality, including religion, also not represent reality? Would not all explanations need to continue to change over time in light of new knowledge in order to more closely approach reality? As a side note, you call evolution an easy pill to swallow, but I imagine that most proponents of creationism and/or intelligent design would disagree. A main component of their arguments is often that evolution just seems so gosh darn unlikely/improbable. Some are even more likely to accept quantum mechanics than they are to accept evolution. Perhaps you misunderstood my question. I was referring to modern evolutionary synthesis. Darwin's view was deficient as he lacked an understanding of genetics. However, he did understand that there must be some mechanism of heritability, and that evolution acts on heritable traits. Christianity is not heritable in a way that its tenents will be effected by natural selection.

These are interesting analogies you make. Unfortunately, though they make some sense, none of us know what was in the depths of Darwin's mind when he constructed his ideas. You can make the assertion that this is possible but you cannot with certainty assert that this is true. I am curious, though, how you would relate these ideas to the current, refined structure of evolutionary theory. Evolution does not favor survival; it favors reproductive success, and survival is only worth carrying on as long as you can continue to promote your reproductive success by doing so. Jesus had no children (according to most accounts, at least). In evolutionary terms he was a dead end. The transferrence of beliefs from one generation to another is not genetically based, it is learned. Thus they are also not subject to evolution. Our ability to transfer beliefs is genetically based and evolved, but that ability was present in the human species long before Christianity popped up, and contributed also to the rise of many different forms of religion, the majority of which do not involve accepting Jesus. Also, an actual understanding of what evolutionary theory does and does not say will reveal that those negative social dogmas you speak of are merely incorrect perversions of evolutionary theory, as iNow has pointed out in detail.

Let me give an example. Let's think of a species of ant living on an island. This island is the only place where this species of ant is found. One colony in particular is has a mutation that makes them very good at attacking and destroying other colonies. By doing so this colony is the last surviving one of the species, and secures the best resource spot for themselves with no competition for it. Potentially they could go on to spawn newer colonies that would all be more fit than the colonies they previously destroyed. But: a flash flood occurs in that one resource rich spot (perhaps such occasional floods are why that spot is so rich!) and the final colony is wiped from the face of the planet. The species is dead. If the colony had let other colonies survive in other areas of the island, where no flood occurred, the species would have at least lived on. But natural selection does not work that way. Here's another example. A species of monkey is on the brink of extinction due to recent severe drought conditions - only a small troop is left. But it has several mothers who recently gave birth, so there is hope. However, a younger, stronger, and healthier male takes the troop from its old alpha male. He does what every new male does - he kills all the recently born infants that are not his own so he can impregnate their mothers himself with all due speed. A few months later, this weakened population is discovered by a lion's pride. If the new male had let the young babies live, by now they would have all at least been old enough to contribute to predator vigilance. But they are all dead, and only pregnant mothers and a newborn or two are available. It is not enough to let the troop see when a predator is coming, and one by one they are picked off until they all are dead. Of course fitness is not accidental. Animals evolve and adapt to be fit for their environment. But sometimes, especially when the environment changes, the individual doing what is normally best for its reproductive fitness may actually harm the future of the species. Being more fit for a particular niche does not necessarily guarantee your species will persist longer. Yes, oftentimes they can go together if that niche lasts for a long period of time. But it is not a necessary relationship by any means. Sisyphus made some very good points - in humans there was, already, an existing degree of social cohesion before religion ever stepped into the picture. Religion reinforced what was already there. To evolve is to change the gene frequencies in your population. Some animals, nay even bacteria, evolve far faster than humans ever did. A "bunch of beasts" can evolve quite easily without complex social rules. Ah, thank you pioneer. You already repeated one of my points for me. If everyone cheats, nothing gets done, and not a single individual gains any of the benefits of group living. Did any of us say that "the ego is given maximum flexbility"? In no species is anyone given "maximum flexibility." Individuals are always constrained by the needs of their environment; non-human primates can't just live anywhere they want because they require a large percentage of high energy fruit in their diets. Humans can't just do anything they want because then they will be ostracized from the group and they will most likely not survive out on their own. Pioneer, you have been exhorted by multiple people multiple times to educate yourself on evolutionary theory. Clearly you have not done so and it is to your detriment. You may not like what it says, but you are completely unable to argue intelligently against it if you don't even understand what it is you are arguing against! Must I say again that you are debating a point that was debated years ago by experts in the field, and was subsequently shown to be false by those same experts. The book Adaption and Natural Selection was written in 1966 by George Williams, a man excited by the idea of group selection who set out to study it himself - only to discover that the more he studied it, the more he could see it was wrong.

Yes, it could be. These are the emotional motivators that we evolved to help us live in cooperative groups, that make us feel guilty or upset if the desires of these emotions are not met. stevo, if we lost the desire to be empathic and fair, why would we suddenly turn around and develop a system that pushes us to be empathic and fair? It's not that our instinctive motivators failed, it's that at one point, probably having to do with group size, we needed something stronger, something to help give those motivators an additional boost. When you live in a very large group, it's more tempting to be a cheater, and take advantage of your more cooperative neighbors, as you are but one among many, and it may not be worth your neighbor's effort to punish you for your actions. Religion adds an extra motivational force; it takes the job of punishing you off your neighbors and puts it on the undeniable strength of a super-human deity. It adds extra benefits to the benefits you already gain through cooperation through the promise of happy after life. It makes you more willing to cooperate, and the better your group cooperates, the more they gain and the better they can compete against other groups. Religion can even motivate you to wipe out your competitors by describing them as evil unbelievers, or motivate you to add to your own group's strength by converting your competitors and having them join your group.

Your view is one that was often held by researchers a few decades ago, because that does seem to be the case on the surface. But close inspection reveals that it is not so. If you had read the previous posts in this thread in any detail you would have seen that, but now I have to repeat myself and what others have already said. Group living animals live in groups because each individual does better by living in the group than they could by forging it on their own. This became particularly true during the course of human evolution. When everyone cooperates, each person gains more than they could by themselves. Thus we evolved emotional and "moral" motivators that helped us work together better, and each reap the greater benefits. Consider, Pioneer, as many researchers did years ago, the case of a group of humans who all limit their own reproduction "for the good of the group." Born into this group is a mutant individual who is more selfish, and reproduces as much as they can, while the others continue to limit themselves. This selfish individual's offspring will begin to outnumber the offspring of the more generous individuals, and eventually the group becomes full of selfish individuals once again. Group selection does not work. No, Pioneer. When actually using logic and looking at real world scenarios, this is the result we get. Your approach was thoroughly tried and tested because many people thought, at first, that it made sense. When they truly tested it, they found that it didn't. Every example that was thought to support group selection was actually found to have a selfish gene basis. This is not deck stacking. This is the process of science, and you may not be a fan of what it uncovers, but what it uncovers is the truth. The poor of your group are still members of your group. Cooperation of the group of key. It is tempting to take advantage of the less advantaged of your group, but this lowers group cohesion, which is bad for every individual involved. Yes, there is some selective advantage going on when one group of individuals reliably reproduces more than another. No, this has nothing to do with what's "better" for the species. It means that those individuals are doing something that spreads their genes better than the other individuals. Pioneer, humans are the result of nature. Even different aspects of different cultures are responses to the restraints of the environment in which that group of people are trying to make their living. How much money you have says little about how "close to nature" you are. All people raised in a particular culture are subject to that culture. Culture is not "stronger" if you have more money. Human-determined morality today tries to balance both. What we're talking about is the ORIGIN of mortality, which began millions upon millions of years before our species evolved, and continued along our line of ancestors up until very recently in terms of evolutionary time. That is not an influence easily shaken off by a paltry few thousand years. Atheism has NOTHING to do with morals. ALL atheism implies is the lack of a deity. That's IT. Whether you want to be more individualistic or more collective is a personal decision that every atheist makes differently, and makes on their own. Do some species last longer than others? Yes. Did they evolve for that purpose? No. They evolved so that each individual could reproduce as successfully as possible, and it turns out that some of the solutions some species developed helps them persist longer than others. That is much more of an accidental side effect.

Wrong. Natural selection works on the level of the individual only, and not at the level of groups or species. No non-human animal does what it does for the good of the species; even what appears to be human generosity in this regard has its motivational roots in much more selfish (in terms of genes) goals. What you are talking about is group selection, which has long since been falsified, and thus falsifies the rest of your comment.

Hello Johnny. I'm sorry to hear you've had so much difficulty in your past, but I'm also glad to hear that you have gotten the help that you need to focus on your passion again. The first time I got involved in research at my undergraduate college, I was terrified too. I knew I needed and wanted the experience. Fortunately for me, my school held a little meeting where all the professors in my field seeking undergraduate research assistants met with interested students and passed out fliers about their research. You should check and see if your school does anything of that nature, in particular the department you are interested in. Through this I arranged to start working with one of those professors. When the day came to start my training, however, I simply did not want to go. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do the work, that I wouldn't like it, that I wouldn't like the people there, that I would be uncomfortable, that I would mess things up, etc etc. My boyfriend nearly had to shove me out the door. And I am immensely glad that he did. Once I got there, I loved it. My experiences there were key in my later getting a job in a similar field, and both those experiences together were key in my acceptance to grad school, which I just started two weeks ago. In my opinion, there is no better qualification than actual research experience (as well as there being no better way to be SURE this is what you want to do for the rest of your life). If you enjoy what you do and put in the effort, the professor you are working with will know and appreciate it, especially if you are freely volunteering your time. She or he will then be happy to help you get another position, or write a letter of recommendation for a job or a graduate school application. My advice to you is to volunteer and/or intern wherever you can (with the one caveat that you avoid professors who just want free labor to, for example, wash their glassware). Academics are undoubtedly helpful, but the trials and tribulations of actual lab experience will prepare you for the realities of your field far better. Plus, when applying to graduate schools, you will have plenty of opportunity in your statement of purpose to explain your poor GPA by describing your past, and how you overcame it. Perseverance in the face of such difficulties will count in your favor.

Pete, and D H, and anyone else who feels singled out - don't take it personally. I know that's easier said than done sometimes, but it is often very frustrating for those of us who have been asked to defend these positions time and time again by one person after another. It's not even necessarily related to religion - we can just as likely be asked such questions by someone not motivated by religion at all, but someone who, for example, thinks he/she can disprove natural selection. Because of this, it's hard for some of us to be as calm as we should be in conversations like this, and I know I am prone to that as well. To us it's rather akin to having one person after another approach you and say, "But are you sure the earth isn't flat? Because I think/heard that..." After the 28th person, it's hard to resist rolling your eyes and sighing, even if that person is just genuinely unknowledgeable and seeking answers and well deserving of patience. But that being said, hopefully we can move past this bump, have everyone try to be a little less prickly, and concentrate and any more specific questions that Pete might have.

Glider is not considered a resident psychology expert for nothing. But I'm sure he would be willing to provide you with some sources from the primary literature. I would do some searches myself, but I'm low on free time these days and I'm sure he could find them faster than I could. I'd caution you against making arguments based on authority. What evidence are these philosophers offering that supports such an assertion? If there is one thing behavioral ecologists have learned, it's that almost no complex human behavior is solely nurture or nature - most have a healthy complement of both. Our genes point us in a certain, reproductively advantageous direction, but they also give us flexibility - a flexibility that has been key in H. sapien's success in colonizing a huge variety of environments the world over. Thus, no matter where a human infant comes into the world, it has the biologically-based tools to learn the specific skills it needs in the environment it has found itself from its social group, and to learn them well. Not necessarily. But your original question was to the origin of morals; not if human-designed laws are the same as evolved behaviors. One distinction behavioral ecologists often need to make clear is that of the natural fallacy; is does not equal ought. In other words, just because a certain behavior is natural doesn't mean it is right. It is natural for primate males to kill the infants of others, but that doesn't mean we should be lenient on step fathers who murder their adopted children. Ultimately we have to decide what is right; biology can inform us about our background and our tendencies (and biology is what made us desire to be moral in the first place), but the rest is up to us.

Ah. You and many highly conservative persons with religious leanings. I think it has mostly been stated by iNow, Glider, myself, and several others. To recap: during our evolution, it became reproductively advantageous to achieve high levels of cooperation within the social group. To encourage such cooperation, we evolved genetic leanings towards what would today be called "moral" behavior (some of which are also present in other group living animals). Cooperative groups are especially vulnerable to cheaters, or what you might call "immoral" individuals who take advantage of the others, and so we developed many biological and cultural defenses against such cheaters; the rise of religion is one of those defenses. Additionally, this in-group cooperation is believed to have developed hand-in-hand with high out-group competition. Thus it makes adaptive sense to have a religious faith which condones or even encourages the killing of others, of competitors, but which frowns upon killing your neighbor, aka a member of your group. In modern times, many people are beginning to favor the idea that the entire global community should be considered members of our group, and that killing any of them is immoral.

My thanks to Kyrisch and Glider for the info on human instincts - I stand corrected. I would still maintain that the majority of adult human behavior, especially as pertains to morals, does not depend on such strict, fixed rules as instincts, as the exact details about what is and isn't moral changes so much depending on the society which you are born into. And just a side note to Pete, the dictionary definition may not in fact do well enough in a scientific discussion. Unfortunately, many words that have a given meaning in every day language do not have the same meaning if used as scientific terminology. Using "instinct" as an example, the list you related from Merriam has three meanings for the word that are not the same; thus, to answer whether or not humans have instincts, you have to clarify which of those three meanings you were using. In common language the word instinct means something like a gut feeling, or intuition. In science an instinct is a specific type of behavior with specific characteristics.

In the strictest definition, humans do not have instincts. An instinct is a strict, unchanging, behavioral rule that is instilled in an animal before it is born. Thus, some predatory birds instinctually avoid certain snakes that are poisonous. The very first time the individual ever sees that snake it knows to avoid it. Humans are more flexible than that. We have predispositions more than we have instincts. For example, humans in general tend to be fearful of snakes and insects as there are many that can harm us - but also some that don't, and some that might actually be good to eat. So our genetic make up gives us room to learn what is safe and what isn't from our social group. Similarly with morals, we likely have predispositions toward certain things, such as empathy, which iNow mentioned. But there is also flexibility for us to learn the specifics of how to express empathy and to whom, and we learn this as we grow up. I would like to point out that many animals who do not have forward-facing eyes also rely on group living to protect from predation (just think of bird flocks and fish schools). More numbers is simply better in that respect, so I don't think the change in primate eyes is that directly related. Other than that, iNow told most of the story. When social living, especially cooperation with other members of the group, became important to our reproductive success, there was also a need to instill behavioral inclinations in us that favor and support such cooperation.

Long story short, it depends on how you define suicide, and what you believe about the level of consciousness different animals have.

However, some people also put labels on themselves - sometimes with pride. I'm a fire-breathing liberal! I'm a family man! Etc. And people who do this do it because they believe that the label conveys (at least in part) an accurate portrait of who they are. Or, and perhaps more importantly, who they want people to think they are. In this sense, I think the question of "why do we use labels?" is fairly easy to answer - in short and sweet terms, it conveys a description of a certain person or group that we want others to believe is true. I think the real kicker is "why are we easily convinced by labels?" Intellectually, most people understand that a single person or group cannot be described in whole by a word or two, so I'm not entirely sure about this one myself. People who know more about pscyhology might have some better answers. Personally, I think it might have something to do with information efficiency. Our brains are pattern seekers, looking for patterns that we can use to define and understand the complexities of the world around us, allowing us to function better within it. The idea of a two-word description that tells us all we need to know is probably innately appealing to us. After all, how many quizzes and questionaires contain questions like, "If you could use ONE WORD to describe such-and-such, what would it be??" But that's just my opinion.

I think you are mixing two different questions into one basket. The first question is, can mass group delusion increase the reproductive success of the group that is conducting it? The second question is, can mass group delusion decrease the likelihood that the human race will go extinct in the near future? To the first question is yes, which by this point is fairly obvious. Any behavior, including the promotion of delusion (religion, propaganda, etc) that increases the level of cooperation within the group and increases animosity and aggression towards other, competing groups will most likely result in the accumulation of resources and elimination of some, if not most, of those competitors, resulting in better reproductive success. The second question is much more difficult to answer and depends on a lot of environmental variables that can be hard to predict. Can a species better stand the test of time that continually splits into groups that seek to eliminate each other? I'm inclined to say no.

To SkepticLance and PhDP - PhDP - I understand you based your definition of the categories on morphology, but unfortunately, as you yourself pointed out, humans are not exactly like other animals whose different mating strategies are linked in a finite manner to a specific and relatively unchanging behavior and morphology. We are more complex than that. To SkepticLance, this is why I would hesitate attaching fitness numbers to a certain mating strategy, because you are making that assumption that some males just are in this category and this is what they do, always and only. The roving bad boy male and the good father male are terms of convenience. When I speak of them I speak of a generalized, average behavior, but these are by no means the be-all and end-all of human male mating behaviors. I doubt these terms even represent the concrete categories we think of in most other animals. Humans are much more flexible within their lifetimes and across cultures and environments. Even during one man's lifetime he may act the bad boy roving male when he is young, and then take on the good father role when he is older. Other males may stick largely in one category or the other. Others may go in the middle with serial monogamy. In some cultures they'll go with actual polygyny. In point of fact, polygyny is probably the ancestral mating system for hominids and was likely quite prevalent during our evolution. I have no doubt these various strategies exist in human mating behavior to this day, but I think attempts to start going into the rigid, strict analysis of them that you two are starting is inaccurate.

PhDP - For starters, extra pair copulation (mate with the hypermale and cuckold the good father) is common and well documented in other species of sexually reproducing animals, especially birds. So the strategy itself has long proved to be more than a just-so story. Nor does it require, as you seem to think it does, that genetic monogamy must be low. Not every female will partake in EPC every time she has children, because then the good fathers would never pass on their genes and they would soon go extinct. Species in which EPC is a fitness risk have good fathers with strategies to prevent EPC. Some bird males, when their female returns to them after a suspicious absence, will peck at their mate's vaginal opening in order to expel any other male's semen that might be in there. Have you ever wondered why so many traditional cultures are very strict on the behavioral rules for women? It's because these cultures are male dominated, and the men do not want to be cuckolded, and they formed cultural stigmas to aid in the prevention of EPCs. The point about different mating strategies existing in one species is that these strategies exist in a stable balance with each other - if they didn't, one or the other would be completely selected out. Though I'm not sure why at this point, current human behavior and culture have probably created an environment in which the balanced frequency for the success of hypermales is relatively low - existent, enough to sustain itself, but low. (For a good example of balanced alt. mating strategies, look up side-blotched lizards.)

And I agree. But what is still up for debate, in my view, is how much societal pressure alone will override, en masse in a population, basic behavioral drives that have existed in our ancestors for a very long time. But I don't know the answer so I won't debate it at the moment.

Low, but it happens. But the frequency isn't the whole story - for human males, even one instance of cuckoldry is extremely costly to their fitness, considering the large investment of time and resources a family man puts into each of his (usually few) offspring - much more so than most other animals. But if the 'bad boys' target only low quality females, then their offspring will also be low quality, and eventually, the strategy would probably be selected out. So I'd have to disagree with you there. But modern society has only existed for the blink of an eye in terms of human evolution. The genetic bases of our behavior most certainly did not evolve in this context, and though they can be mitigated their influence cannot be dodged entirely.

Of course women prefer helpful mates for long term relationships; but cuckoldry is also more common than you probably think. I think the latest estimate was that 10% of human males are cuckolded - for every 10 fathers out there, one of them is raising a child that is not his and he doesn't know it. If nothing else, human males have many behavioral traits that are meant to protect against cuckoldry, and I don't think these traits would be so prevalent if it was not a significant barrier to reproductive success. My personal theory is that the "bad boy" represents a roving stranger male, someone who is definitely outside of your kin group. Mating with such a male is a good way to introduce some genetic diversity into your offspring, so sometimes (there's variation with the who and the when, I'm sure) the desire to mate with a 'bad boy' kicks in. Also, any sons who inherit that mating strategy may be quite reproductively successful themselves.

And on an equally serious note, successful cuckoldry can allow a woman to mate with the "bad" guy and let the family-maintaining-father foot the bill, so to speak. And even if the family man knows his mate's child isn't his own, research suggests that willing efforts on his part to raise that child will increase the chances that his mate will have a child with him too. There are a variety of mating tactics a male can take advantage of, as not everyone can be the alpha dog, or the bad guy, or the perfect family man. So they all exist in the population in relative balance with each other, each fathering enough children to maintain the strategy.

In high school classes, biology was definitely the easiest, then chemistry, then physics. But high school is not representative of the reality of these field. A high school biology class that attempts to cover everything from molecules to macroevolution (which is what my senior year advanced bio class did) will of necessity barely skim the surface of the many, many fields classified within biological study. The sheer complexity of a biological system makes the task of unraveling it and/or its history every bit as difficult as trying to formulate a complex theorem in physics. As you can probably tell, I have a great dislike for how biology is taught in high schools.

But it is a sacrifice. It's teaching a scientific inaccuracy to children for the sake of not hurting anyone's feelings. Once again: I don't see the worth in going to extra trouble to keep the ignorant calm and happy.