Robert Tulip wrote:

geo wrote:Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, Robert. But I think what Dawkins is saying is that the concepts of universal love and true altruism do not make evolutionary sense in respect to survival. But Dawkins has mentioned already in the introduction (to the 30th anniversary edition) that we are capable of rising above our instincts:

Our brains have evolved to the point where we are capable of rebelling against our selfish genes. The fact that we can do so is made obvious by our use of contraceptives. The same principle can and should work on a wider scale. pg. xiv

This is why I think I think it's crucial for people to understand evolution because it gives us a chance to know ourselves (just as the Greeks said), understand our motives and make choices to override our primitive hardwiring.

The question of what makes ‘evolutionary sense’ is immensely complex, and has been radically changed by the evolution of human language. As I see it, if humanity does not work out how to cooperate on a planetary scale we are headed for extinction, and all our fine genes will be dead. Language has enabled us to transfer subterranean carbon into the air at a pace that will transform our planet into a dead Venus hothouse if unchecked. Language also gives us the capacity, as Dawkins notes in your quote, to rebel against instinct. The deep irony is that this rebellion goes well beyond his example of birth control, and picks up our ability to determine behaviour by reason. The irony is that it is precisely the concepts of universal love and true altruism, with their origins in the Christianity that he detests, that seem most needed to guide a planetary transformation. It is the inner instinctive ape within us that is destroying the planet by following irrational instincts to expand consumption. The key original human mutation, the emergence of a rational higher consciousness coded in words, is the only thing that will save us from our destructive animal genes.

I bolded some text there from you Robert. A rogue neuron fired reminding me of the robot imperative in I, Robot(the movie). The robots were designed to abide by three rules created by Asimov. One of the rules was to not allow humans to come to harm through inaction. So, the robots staged a coup in an attempt to quarantine humanity so they wouldn't destroy themselves by unintentionally destroying their environment.

I believe we can achieve an equilibrium not only environmentally, but socially. Our evolutionary heritage cannot account for this equilibrium other than that it equipped us with the ability to reason. However, if viewed from a focus greater than Earth as the only environment, and over a large timeline, an interesting question arises. Could evolution select certain sentient species over other by eliminating those that aren't able to achieve global equilibrium? For example, if many separate alien species somewhere out there were to evolve and dominate their world, would some survive rather than others? If so, the selective features that account for this could be attributed to evolution. This is merely a speculative question, but fun to ponder.

RT: "If he persists in dragging threads off topic then Chris will have to ban him."

In his defense, he's simply posting where he finds disagreement with what he believes to be true. Unfortunately, that is most of this site.

Ahrwe, it might be best to consolidate all discussion about creationism in the creationism thread, likewise keeping Dawkins in the Dawkins forum, if that's agreeable. If the overlap turns into a tangent, make a post referencing a new thread which you would create in the philosophy section. A discussion on why jesus never existed, for example.

I can walk you through the steps to do this if you wish, so that threads don't become derailed.

Dawkins is provoking debate about religion by seeking to provide an evidence-based rational explanation for how the world came to be. This directly challenges the belief-centred cosmology which creationists push.

I really do not see this. It seems more like Dawkins is talking about a discussion that is going on in the scientific community. I do not feel like he is intentionally trying to get at people who give no credence to evolution. Discussing significance in a religious text is entirely separate from what Dawkins is writing about. This book is a discussion about a particular subject that is going on in the scientific community.

I do agree with Interbane, though. I do not think we should be banning anyone. This sight is about discussion whether we agree with each other or not.

Robert Tulip wrote:Dawkins is provoking debate about religion by seeking to provide an evidence-based rational explanation for how the world came to be. This directly challenges the belief-centred cosmology which creationists push.

For me, The Selfish Gene is strictly about the science and I think Dawkins himself would say religion is well beyond the scope of this book. That said, this is an online forum and we can (and should) discuss anything that comes up that pertains to our reading of this book. However, lately I grow tired of the circular arguments about religion of which several are going on right now. This thread went seriously off topic on its third page and it shows no sign of stopping. (These things never really do.) All I'm asking is Stahrwe and others who aren't even reading this book, please take it somewhere else. If I'm being out of line, I apologize.

Interbane wrote:RT: "Complex order is the best guarantee of peace and stability. By a more complex world I don’t mean a more stressful or regimented world, but rather one that is sophisticated and interlinked through communication, with complexity a function of natural adaptation. Setting this dichotomy in moral terms, we get the idea that a more complex ordered world is good, while a disordered world is evil." There, well said. Now why in the world would you flip the page and attempt to merge this idea with a fairytale!?! You can build on the idea above far better without limiting your philosophy with the parameter that disorder=satan. It may frame it in a cosmological context for you, but that's only because you've accepted the context a priori. Build a new context without the riffraff and your ideas will blossom. These are the types of ideas I enjoy discussing, although not with the religious baggage. I think that increased ordered complexity = good is an assumption because the premise is an assumption. The premise is that life is good. Do you have reasoning to support the idea that life is good, or is that something which shouldn't be questioned? I believe life is a good thing, but this requires you to think differently about what consumption means.

Some of our debate about The Selfish Gene has centred on its implications for morality and values. In one sense this is frustrating, because the beauty of the book is in the brilliant way Dawkins marshals the facts of genetics to produce what seems to be a value-free view of the world. In this he is a bit like the old stoics such as the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who argued that whatever exists is just by definition because nature is just. At an ultimate level Dawkins may be right – it does not matter if our world flourishes or not, the universe will go on regardless. However, we do not exist at an ultimate level, and so consider as axiomatic that it does matter if our world flourishes. It matters for humanity, and that is enough to treat the goodness of life as an ultimate truth. In this, morality is rather like geometry – once you accept axioms from Euclid such as that parallel lines do not meet you can build all the complex ideas of engineering. Similarly, the premise that life is good is a moral axiom that cannot be proved. However, without such axioms we flounder in a total relativist morass where nothing matters.

I agree that religious baggage is distracting for scientific discussion. However, one of the great things that Dawkins provides is a framework in which to consider religious language against an empirical context. I’m now reading his current book The Greatest Show on Earth, which he describes as filling in the gaps of his writings by providing an extended defence of why evolution is true. One of the main concepts he introduces is ‘deep time’, the empirical understanding of the immense age of the earth which provides the basis for evolutionary thought. Where I find it interesting is that Dawkins provides a context in which traditional mythology can be assessed for its memetic content. The example I gave of Satan = disorder is intended in this spirit, not to claim that a religious entity exists, but that scientific understanding, for example of order and disorder, provides the context to interpret the real meaning hidden in the folk concepts.

RT: "Dawkins may be right – it does not matter if our world flourishes or not, the universe will go on regardless. However, we do not exist at an ultimate level, and so consider as axiomatic that it does matter if our world flourishes."

It behooves us to distinguish the truth from what we want the truth to be. You may be correct that we elevate the importance of our world flourishing, but that most definitely does not make it an absolute truth, not even close. That "ultimate level" you mention is nothing more nor less than the truth, regardless of what you think we exist at, whatever that means. It's almost as if you're fighting with cognitive dissonance where you want two different exclusive ultimate truths to exist, but have reached the point where you're rationalizing them together.

RT: "It matters for humanity, and that is enough to treat the goodness of life as an ultimate truth."

I don't understand how you can say that. We don't control what the truth is. If it's true, it's true. In most cases, we'll never get close to the truth. You're abusing the crap out of the word 'truth'. It's not that you want to treat the goodness of life as an ultimate truth, it's that you want to treat it as the ultimate priority, or ultimate virtue, or ultimate goal.

What ever happened to the lengthy discussion we were having in one of these posts?

Robert Tulip wrote:Dawkins is provoking debate about religion by seeking to provide an evidence-based rational explanation for how the world came to be. This directly challenges the belief-centred cosmology which creationists push.

seespotrun wrote:I really do not see this. It seems more like Dawkins is talking about a discussion that is going on in the scientific community. I do not feel like he is intentionally trying to get at people who give no credence to evolution. Discussing significance in a religious text is entirely separate from what Dawkins is writing about. This book is a discussion about a particular subject that is going on in the scientific community.

Although he does have things to say about creationists in other writings, here I agree that he looks past them completely. The creationists are not even on the field in this contest. Dawkins contends with other scientists in the book, and they certainly have no points in common with that other crowd.

DWill wrote:Although he does have things to say about creationists in other writings, here I agree that he looks past them completely. The creationists are not even on the field in this contest. Dawkins contends with other scientists in the book, and they certainly have no points in common with that other crowd.

In the chapter Why Are People?, Dawkins makes the following statements

It was Darwin who first put together a coherent and tenable account of why we exist... All attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless and we will be better off if we ignore them completely ... 'nature red in tooth and claw' sums up our modern understanding of natural selection admirably ... universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense ... I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.

Now, 'worthless' is rather strong language to use about the whole history of human religion, but that is the term Dawkins uses on the first page of this chapter. I happen to agree with his scientific ideas, but disagree quite strongly with his assessments on broader questions of philosophy. By including the term Why? in the chapter title and content, Dawkins is stepping directly into broader fields than science alone. The creationists are never 'on the field' in Dawkins' view, but his critique, here as elsewhere, commits a serious logical fallacy, vis:

Person A believes claims B and C
B is false
Therefore C is false.

Specifically, this fallacy involves the argument that

Creationists believe creationism and other religious ideas
Creationism is false
Therefore other religious ideas are false.

By his call to ignore all religious anthropology, Dawkins does present a reductive view which I fear is not expansive in the way scientific explanation can be, but limits our understanding of humanity to our animal nature.

I think he was referring to "All attempts to answer that question...", which you assume to imply the whole history of human religion. I agree that the attempts of religion to answer the question(if I'm remembering what question he was referring to correctly) are worthless. This doesn't speak of the other attributes of religion.

Also, I believe the desire to know "why" is very similar to the desire to have certainty. We are predisposed to find answers and not have loose threads which cause mental discomfort. It is motive behind asking the question, and the motive behind desiring certainty, that are the problems here. You first have to assume that there is a "why", and that there are certain answers. I'm fairly sure that both items are grand misadventures.

DWill wrote:culture evolves only in a general way that is utterly unlike biological evolution. The two can be represented as analagous, but that's as far as it goes, IMO.

This from page 1 of the thread has been nagging at me (as a few other comments have). What worries me is that it is rather like the claim during the boom that the fundamentals of the economic cycle have been superseded by a transformed system producing endless growth. These claims have been deflated by the recession, and I think that the claim that culture and biology are separate will eventually be deflated too. If culture departs too far from its biological base then it becomes unsustainable.

Interbane wrote:I think he was referring to "All attempts to answer that question...", which you assume to imply the whole history of human religion. I agree that the attempts of religion to answer the question(if I'm remembering what question he was referring to correctly) are worthless. This doesn't speak of the other attributes of religion.

Also, I believe the desire to know "why" is very similar to the desire to have certainty. We are predisposed to find answers and not have loose threads which cause mental discomfort. It is motive behind asking the question, and the motive behind desiring certainty, that are the problems here. You first have to assume that there is a "why", and that there are certain answers. I'm fairly sure that both items are grand misadventures.

The question is 'Why are people?' which when you think about it is at the base of most religious claims. I don't think we can find any certainty on grand questions of why we exist. However, nor do I think we should close the door on arguments that humans are special and unique in nature. For example, the anthropic argument that human consciousness expresses a deep characteristic of the universe itself cannot be disproved by empirical means, and keys into religious views about why people exist, especially the metaphorical Biblical claims that God is love and that humans are made in the image of God. Dawkins view that we should ignore all 'BD' anthropology just seems the height of arrogance, denying any meaning in the metaphor. He is right that Darwin put such discussion onto a sound empirical footing, but there is something very unevolutionary in Dawkins' attempt to kick away the ladder of precedent upon which our modern views are built. It is like he is advocating a 'big mutation' while explaining in detail why big mutations do not work in nature.