ant wrote:serious philosophical considerations that lead to inferences of something greater than ourselves

that would make a good thread.

ant wrote:Go back and read my opening post wherein I explicitly stated that Dawkins is understood to be at odds with certain sociological explanations.
That was clear and I did not take him out of context. For you to accuse me of taking the comment "there is no such thing as a driving force" out of context is a blatant lie. Dawkins belief is that genes explain altruistic behavior and not a non existent "driving force." He does NOT believe genes possess a "driving force" Nor are they "selfish" in a way human beings understand the word. To Dawkins, a driving force that is NOT "blind" is non existent - PERIOD.

Ant, you show here again that you're just making stuff up. You could actually read THE SELFISH GENE (the book you like to criticize based entirely on its title) and you might have some clue.

When Dawkins says there's no "driving force" he's referring to the gene-centered view of evolution which he has espoused for many years. Within the scientific community there is a longstanding dispute that evolution works either on a group level or on an individual gene level (or both). So since Dawkins argues that selection works primarily on a gene level, it follows that there's no "driving force" because selfish genes account for altruistic behavior. That's all Dawkins is saying. He's not making any grand pronouncements about the universe or God or anything else. Dawkins is talking about evolutionary science, and a very specific aspect of evolutionary science at that.

So whatever offends you is based entirely on your own misreading that has nothing to do with evolutionary science. I'm afraid if you want to disagree with Dawkins, you'll have to become an evolutionary biologist so that you can make an informed argument based on science rather than some Ant-concocted strawman. Do you know anything about kin selection or Dawkins' gene-centered view of evolution? It's obvious that you don't.

Getting all worked up over Dawkins' statement that there's no "driving force" makes about as much sense as getting worked up over Dawkins' statement that we evolved from fish. Remember that, Ant? Maybe you don't like it when science assumes materialistic explanations, but science is all about evidence. Science cannot assume some nebulous cosmic intelligence just because some people are comforted by the idea.

Hey, good news! The entire text of THE SELFISH GENE is online. You really have no excuse not to read it.

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgu ... owkins.pdf

Robert Tulip wrote: The Selfish Gene is itself a meme. It presents the idea that our fundamental genetic constitution is individualistic, not social. That is an idea that fits within the evolution of British philosophy, on the psychological model of identity as individual. Ideas find purchase in society when they hook into prevailing desires. Britain has been dominated by a desire to redeem the capitalist model of the competitive individual as the model of human success. So there is a memetic harmony between Dawkins and Thatcher. But of course Dawkins rejects this. It seems to me that this memetic alignment operates largely unconsciously, with people being attracted to ideas that also happen to serve their material interests.

Dawkins would say the selfish gene isn't a meme, of course. He stated (forgive me, I can't think of just where) that the theories of science were not memes, which spread as though by contagion. In science, ideas are subject to intensive testing.

Dawkins says that individual reproduction is the inevitable imperative, so that we need to assert our reason against the dictates of selfish genes to avoid the Darwinian world of nature red in tooth and claw. He doesn't seem to emphasize that when we do act for the social good, it must be that we are then also using genetic endowment to do so. Others such as Frans de Waal view us as actually "good by nature" (i.e., by genes), or not so governed by our need to see our genes be passed on.

Group selection is obvious. Our current non-fiction selection, Why Nations Fail, illustrates that when the group conditions provided by good institutions are in place, a nation will prosper. This illustrates that an individual who is genetically prompted to align with and promote group interests will generally be more successful than an individual whose genes prompt rejection of the group. I know this is a complex mathematical problem in genetic theory, but I side with Wilson against Dawkins.

Obvious perhaps in culture, but very tricky to tease out and define due to the way that social groups have of being "written in sand," vs. the solidity of individuals forming a biological species. Designating groups can be just an arbitrary act, in fact, without a necessary link to the motives and actions of individuals who have been grouped. This is especially true with groups beyond the simple level, such as states. I haven't seen yet a good analysis of the pitfalls likely when we try to explain how groups have been selected over others. It's fraught with difficulties. Whatever group we designate has obviously been selected, for one thing; we say it exists.

I don't think that qualities we may judge as indicating fitness or strength of groups, such as prospering due to good institutions, necessarily have much to do with selection. States may not have these, they may not prosper, but they can exist and continue. Evolution doesn't have directionality in synch with our ideas of good societies. The bad as well as the good will evolve, and the difference between the two is strongly influenced by cultural views. In The Neighborhood Project, David Sloan Wilson points this out. But he says that principles of evolutionary psychology--vs. results of culture that we see--actually align well with humanistic principles, so in that sense we can use evolution for social improvement.

Nature has directionality from simple to complex. In a stable environment, evolution continually finds openings for doors to new levels of complexity, exploiting niches more fully. So the driving force of life, its purpose and meaning, is to evolve to more highly complex order. That does not make this driving force of evolution a conscious intention, but more a byproduct of the natural process of cumulative adaptation. Building on precedent makes the future more complex than the past. We can see this in memetics, with the constant pressure of progress forcing replacement of simple memes, whether in technology or institutions or culture, by more complex ones.

By specifying "in a stable environment," you take into account collapses that have occurred locally or regionally or even over much of civilization, such as after the Roman Empire. Then, building toward complexity reverses. But despite these reverses, the trend is toward at least technological complexity. I really am not sure about complexity in all dimensions, whether it might not be true that social complexity withers along with the technology that knits our world closer together. Just looking at religion as an example, we'd have to note much less diversity. Diversity isn't identical to complexity, but it would seem to be a key element.