Creationism vs. Evolution - A Culture Divided

Mr. Pessimistic

Actually, the "Survival of the Fittest" is a name that has become synonymous with Darwinian evolution, but it is not the 'jist' of the field at all. "Fit" is a very relative term. It was actually coined by Herbert Spencer.

Quote:
Survival of the fittest
A better way of expressing this idea is “survival of the fit enough.” Portraying nature as “red in tooth and claw,” wherein living things always engage in a life-or-death struggle against competitors grossly oversimplifies what is really going on. Many life forms get by for eons by existing in niches that other organisms are not suited for. For example, brine shrimp live in water that is unsuitable for potential aquatic enemies, and they apparently have no significant competitors for food.

From berkeley.edu

This phrase is abused by creationists who try to discredit evolutionary theory as a tautology.

Genes are best thought as passed down in populations, as it applies to the evolving of a species. Genes are passed on as hard wired mechanisms and are not what passes on aquired traits. It is the interaction of the genotype and the phenotype in a specific environment that determines the ultimate 'flavor' of the organism. This is called the 'norm of reaction'. (Mayr - What Evolution Is.) Thus, a strong leader is not the result of his/her genes.

I am no authority and my statement may be off, but I think homosexuality, as with all other personality traits, may be the result of this.

And I do not think it is 'wrong' or 'the work of Satan'. Just wanted to make that clear.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:06 pm Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

hee...well I just have plain old fun hearing some of the things they say!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

PeterDF · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:58 pm Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

Quote:
Do you think that instinct still plays a role in the human species?

Yes I do think that instinctive behaviour is common in humans. I agree with Jeremy that Steven Pinker's book, "The Blank Slate" is hugely important in understanding human behaviour. I also saw Pinker give his lecture about the book, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

To give my take on this, I think instinctive behaviour forms a class of behaviours, which we variously call intuitive, subjective and emotional. I think rational behaviour is very different and is perhaps a different mental module (Evolutionary psychologists like Pinker see the mind as being composed of a massive number of modules). I also would add that all instinctive behaviour is innately predisposed. Think about love. Could you teach someone how to fall in love? Of course not! Or minds are in some way, not yet understood, genetically designed to experience instinctive behaviours like love.

The effect of instinctive behaviour is impossible to overstate. I came up with a thought experiment, which I put in my book to illustrate this point. I don't know if I've outlined this on Booktalk before. If you've seen it before sorry for being repetitive. The thought experiment goes like this:

Imagine a man with no emotional or subjective experience and imagine him waking up one morning. Why would he get up? He would not be driven to eat, to work or do anything else. Whether he lived or died would be a matter of complete disinterest to him, even pain would not bother him because the only way we know that pain is unpleasant is through our subjective judgement. So our morning riser would never rise he would lie there until he died. The only reason we do anything is because we feel it is worth doing. So all human motivation is rooted in subjective experience. (This must also, obviously, be true of other related animals)

Rational behaviour can be seen as a tool that we use to maximise "good" and minimise "bad" feeling. But note that, in humans, the two systems are interdependent; in less complex animals this might not be so clear cut.

RickU · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:08 pm Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

Indeed. One could cite hormonal swings in Men and Women as an example...or that babies, with no objective experience, have much the same reaction or expected reaction to various stimuli..or in fact that babies perceive pain, as pain, at all.

In Vino Veritas

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:40 pm Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

PeterDF

Quote:
Imagine a man with no emotional or subjective experience and imagine him waking up one morning. Why would he get up? He would not be driven to eat, to work or do anything else. Whether he lived or died would be a matter of complete disinterest to him, even pain would not bother him because the only way we know that pain is unpleasant is through our subjective judgement. So our morning riser would never rise he would lie there until he died. The only reason we do anything is because we feel it is worth doing. So all human motivation is rooted in subjective experience. (This must also, obviously, be true of other related animals)

This case is not entirely hypothetical. In Descartes’ Error, Damasio describes patients with frontal lobe damage who specifically loose the ability to care about the effects they cause. The typical patient can tell you in exact detail all the bad things that are going to happen if he doesn’t complete tasks at work; and then he wanders away leaving them undone anyway.

If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:25 am Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

PeterDF:

Quote:
even pain would not bother him

Pain hurts. No matter our subjective judgement. It is a physical thing. How could pain not hurt no matter what?

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

PeterDF · Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2004 4:38 am Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

jeremy

You are right there is a condition called akinetic morphism, which occurs when a patient suffers damage to a part of the brain called the Cingulate Cortex. It leaves the sufferer conscious but completely lacking the urge to say or do anything.

Mr. P

There is some evidence that pain can be experienced without the subjective "feeling" of unpleasantness. In Susan Greenfield's books about the brain she says that hospital patients who are given morphine for pain relief report that the pain is still there but that it just doesn't bother them. I agree that pain is a real mechanism involving signals sent from the affected part to the brain, but the sensation of unpleasantness is experienced in the mind as (as I understand it) a quailia. We don't know how qualia are generated in the brain but it seems that they can be influenced by the action of natural chemicals produced in the limbic system and released into the brain (Greenfield calls this mechanism the amine fountain). These chemicals can be mimicked by opiates like morphine.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2004 8:27 am Post subject: Re: Do you believe in Chod?

Peter:

Thanks for the education...I will be looking into this more as it sounds interesting.

The brain...can't live with it, can't live without it!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

Mr. Pessimistic

This makes me wanna regurgitate!

www.drdino.com/Ministry/250k/index.jsp

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

Edited by: misterpessimistic at: 8/4/04 1:19 pm


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