Selfish Gene - Preface

WildCityWoman · Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:50 pm


	Penelope wrote: That Camacho!!!!! Shall we gang up on him at playtime for your Robert? My copy of the Selfish Gene has gone astray in the mail. I paid for it too. Anyway, now I've ordered another one and that should be with me in a couple of days. I remember reading reviews about it many moons ago. Studying children at the age of three in playgroup, I am of the opinion that some children are born kind-hearted and caring and others need to learn. The Selfish Gene - It's the nature/nurture debate with brass knobs on isn't it?

I dunno', Penelope - I don't think anybody's born kind-hearted, or otherwise.

We become what we are through what we've received; if I was introduced to children in a sandbox and everybody hoarded their little shovels and pails, I think that's what the child-me would do.

If a child is with kids that are particularly violent - smacking each other, pushing, shoving - I think the child will develop that same bent himself.

If he notices a child is particularly kind; offers to share a goodie, a toy, then that child might copy that behaviour.

I think we learn by example.

WildCityWoman · Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:53 pm

Isn't that what this topic is about, really?

Kindness - does it come natural, or is it something we learn by way of true life experience?

If my mother, her mother, and her mother before were all kind women - only too glad to squeeze fresh juice kinda' thing, then I might be that way myself.

If my mother, her mother, and her mother before were all crabby women who criticized, judged and were verbally abusive, then I might be that way myself.

I think the first person we emulate is a parent. Or a guardian.

WildCityWoman · Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:10 pm

What I'm saying is this . . . you can give me 4 to 5 books like this one, and I still wouldn't be convinced that anybody's born bad.

We learn it by way of our first experiences.

geo · Thu Sep 10, 2009 7:28 pm


	WildCityWoman wrote: What I'm saying is this . . . you can give me 4 to 5 books like this one, and I still wouldn't be convinced that anybody's born bad.

Just to clarify, The Selfish Gene is not about people being born selfish. No one who reads this book would come away thinking that. Dawkins looks at evolution from the perspective of genes, as biological entities that are interested only in survival and in replicating themselves.

As for your other point, I would agree with you. People aren't born bad. In fact, I would argue that no one is "bad." Some people are psychologically damaged and that's almost always because they were raised in shitty environments.

stahrwe · Fri Sep 11, 2009 7:33 am


	Interbane wrote: Star: "I suspect you believe I would pick D. However, there is that pesky problem of original sin, so my choice is G." No, that would be far too obvious, don't you think? It was a trick question. The problem of the question is a matter of epistemology, no choice can be known by either of us to be correct, not even G. Penny would be most likely to know, be she possesses the intellectual humility to use the weasel word "suppose". The only reason I posed this question is because it is the way in which you believe that is the problem, rather than the content(with respect to Creationism). Don't get me wrong, I have a problem with the content as well, but I also understand it can all be rationalized within a particular person's worldview. Star: "BTW, I think your wording of B is backwards. Something isn't evolved into us, our predispositions result in our evolution, assuming of course one believes in that sort of thing." Actually, behavior is influenced by our evolutionary heritage. Some of our behaviors are what's called evolutionarily stable strategies(ESS's), which makes my wording correct. Also, evolution is a fact, not a belief.

Stahrwe: I agree with Penelope, I disagree with you. Would not ESS result in uniformity of human behavior? Anyway, John Nash was a nut and ESS is porcine cleaning solution.

As regards evolution being a fact, I concur as follows:

"There are also two kinds of truths: truths of reasoning and truths of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible."
Gottfried Leibniz

Robert Tulip · Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:04 am

Penelope wrote:


	Quote: Interbane: D) The children were children of god, created in his image and thus blessed with his kindness while in the innocence of youth.

This is backside foremost - If you are taking The Bible's version of God, because the Bible says all of us are sinners, born in sin and it also advocates 'spare the rod and spoil the child'. No, I just think that as some children have red hair or fair skin, or dark hair and olive skin, depending on which genes they inherit, some children inherit a good, kind or loving nature and others inherit the selfish gene. There seems to be truth in the maxim that there is good in the worst of us and bad in the best of us......and it depends what hand life deals you, as to whether the good is allowed to surface, or the bad. Perhaps??

Hello Penelope, thank you for joining the discussion on the good Dr Dawkins. If I may comment on your response here, your phrase 'others inherit the selfish gene' is a misunderstanding of Dawkins' intent. Individual genes are selfish, but a range of strategies at the organism level, ranging from selfishness to altruism, can lead genes to increase. There is a real disconnect between the genetic and the cultural (memetic) levels of selfishness. I think that 'selfishness' in culture is more a matter of nurture than nature, so more meme than gene. Human genes evolved to be social, to cooperate with a clan, whereas individualist private property only emerged in the last 2% or so of the time since our genus split from australopithecus two million years ago. For most of their existence, our genes have been intrinsically social. The atomised world of modern capitalist selfishness is only a very recent aberration by evolutionary time scales.

Your claim that Augustine's doctrine of original sin is found in the Bible is not right. Paul says all have sinned, not that all are born in sin. The Bible presents a gracious innocence as the natural state of humanity, with the disorder of sin introduced by the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise and then Cain killing Abel. The Roman Catholic doctrine on original sin has a weak Biblical basis, let alone its completely absent empirical basis. The purpose of the doctrine of original sin is more about manipulation of the community by priests to enforce their role as mediators between ordinary people and God and bolster the power of the church. Original sin has been a successful meme, central to the ability of the church to grow.

Dawkins notes in The Selfish Gene that the mistranslation of the Biblical term 'young woman' as 'virgin' enabled a significant cultural mutation with the rise of the cult of the virgin birth. I suspect a similar cultural mutation occurred to produce the Christian doctrine of original sin, which when you look at the details is really a misreading of the intent of Christ.

Interbane · Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:26 pm

Star: "Would not ESS result in uniformity of human behavior?"

You mean, do they? Obviously not, look around you. I don't know who J Nash is, sorry. I do think evolution goes right over your head though.

If you concur with Leibniz, it's obvious you prefer old and very outdated minds upon whose ideals to rest your beliefs(the bible included). Leibniz was the nut whose philosophy argued that everything that exists is an angel. His work on truth theory resulted in him concluding that all truth is analytic. If you've read any modern epistemology, you'd know the problems with this.

Order and read Bertrand Russell's book "A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz" (1900).

Quoting Leibniz to support Creationism... :wall:

Penelope · Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:36 pm


	Quote: Robert Tulip: wrote to Penelope If I may comment on your response here, your phrase 'others inherit the selfish gene' is a misunderstanding of Dawkins' intent.

Robert, I do understand what Mr. Dawkins was referring to and I was just being a bit of a clever clogs here. I should have said, 'others are more selfish'.

As far as I understand it, and do tell me if I'm wrong, the selfish gene is just the behaviour of the corporal body- blindly reproducing and looking after itself at the expense of other life forms, if necessary.

Now, as human beings - we have developed the critical ability to challenge this 'natural' progression of the life-form. To carry on the human-race at all costs. The selfish gene urges us to destroy any child born imperfect....kill them....like animals do. But our human emotion, intellect, tells us that. that imperfect child is loveable. Scientifically speaking, we should nourish the strong and perfect and destroy the weak and imperfect. But we can't can we? Because we love them, and in fact, often their weakness and imperfection is what makes them loveable.

Oh, I hope that God, if there is a God, feels like this about us.

Robert, I thank you for your expansion on the theory of original sin. I wasn't brought up in the Roman Catholic faith but in the high Church of England and there is very little difference.

I remember when I was ten years old, learning the catechism for my confirmation. I had to promise 'to renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh'.......I was ten.....I remember wondering what the sinful lusts of the flesh were!!! And as for pomps and vanities!!!

Carley - good to hear from you.....separate post re yours!

Penelope · Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:57 pm


	Quote: Carley said: I dunno', Penelope - I don't think anybody's born kind-hearted, or otherwise. We become what we are through what we've received; if I was introduced to children in a sandbox and everybody hoarded their little shovels and pails, I think that's what the child-me would do.

Well I don't think people are born bad, we are all born innocent, but some are born more loving, kind hearted than others. Just as some are born more musically gifted, or with a better sense of humour.

Some people are born 'sociopaths' that is with no ability to feel things from another persons perspective. This, apparently, is an actual personality disorder, and the sufferer really can't help it.

I do agree that we learn kindness from other people, too. I learned a lot of kindly behaviour from my husband's family. I emulate them in the way I care for my own grandchildren, the way that they did theirs. They were 'happy' people, so they must have been doing something right. So I do what my mother-in-law did - she's my role model because she was a 'happy' woman. :oops:

Robert Tulip · Sat Sep 12, 2009 2:10 am


	stahrwe wrote: Would not ESS result in uniformity of human behavior?

If you read The Selfish Gene you would discover that the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) does not produce uniformity, but rather describes how genes tend towards a strategy that works, ie that is stable over time.


	Quote: Anyway, John Nash was a nut and ESS is porcine cleaning solution.

John Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for his work on game theory which led to the biological theory of the evolutionary stable strategy. Calling Nash a nut is a typical below-the-belt creationist ad hominem slur in the effort to delude readers. The fact that Nash suffered from schizophrenia, the topic of the book and film A Beautiful Mind, does not detract from the quality of his mathematical reasoning. Are you suggesting the Nobel Committee shared in Nash's insanity by awarding his prize, or just that Dawkins is tarred by association with a Nobel winner who suffered from mental illness? Your description of Nash as a nut is a good example of how creationists need to resort to unethical and false reasoning strategies in their effort to convince people that untrue claims are in fact true.


	Quote: As regards evolution being a fact, I concur as follows: "There are also two kinds of truths: truths of reasoning and truths of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible." Gottfried Leibniz

Dawkins presents a number of truths of reasoning in evolution, in the effort to describe laws of biology with as much universality as the laws of physics. For example, self-replicating entities evolve through a process of cumulative adaptation to their environment. Your invokation of Leibniz seems geared to asserting that the fundamentalist theory of God is a truth of reason, whereas evolutionary science is merely contingent. Dawkins shows that the reverse is true: the creationist God is a contingent belief, while evolution is a permanent rational feature of the order of the universe.

seespotrun2008 · Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:15 pm

I really like this book so far. It is fascinating. It seems that Dawkins is not necessarily placing a value judgment on selfish or altruistic. That goes into a philosophical or religious discussion. Those ideas are important but it seems that they are not important in science. Science is just attempting to state what is. I really like that he begins the discussion by separating science from morality. He is very aware that people bring their political, emotional, and religious motivations into these discussions but I think he tries to nip that in the bud to start with. I am not completely of the opinion that science can ever be free of human emotional or political motivations entirely. I think that “objectivity” is false. Human beings can never be free of perspective, fear, or experience. I think that the goal in science however has always been to overcome all of those things and reach “objectivity”.
I am really excited about reading this book. It is so great that Dawkins makes it easy for the non-scientist to read. It makes it so much more accessible to most people. I think that that is a political choice on Dawkins part. Sometimes intellectuals write in a way that is only accessible to a few people who understand the discussion to begin with. I like that he makes his ideas available to most of us.

stahrwe · Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:20 am

Mr. Dawkins,

I thought you were some great intellectual, Darwin's rotweiler and all, but I have to say, even in the preface to the 1976 edition and I am finding statements which destroy your support of evolution. Specifically, "The reason is that we animals are the most complicated, perfectly-designed machines in the known universe."

did you mean to say, "The reason is that we animals are the most complicated, perfectly-evolved machines in the known universe."?

DWill · Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:05 am


	stahrwe wrote: Mr. Dawkins, I thought you were some great intellectual, Darwin's rotweiler and all, but I have to say, even in the preface to the 1976 edition and I am finding statements which destroy your support of evolution. Specifically, "The reason is that we animals are the most complicated, perfectly-designed machines in the known universe." did you mean to say, "The reason is that we animals are the most complicated, perfectly-evolved machines in the known universe."?

Perhaps you could ask Mr. Dawkins if we chat with him. But if you wouldn't mind a non-source response, don't you think there is leeway in this word 'design' for a meaning that does not imply the presence of a single creator, or even the conscious act of creation at all? The design of animals is what has resulted from the process of evolution. I don't see anything contradicting belief in evolution in the use of that word. Every physical thing in the universe has a design. Dawkins, if you take the passage as a whole, is after all expressing wonder that our design has come about through this natural process. 'Perfectly evolved,' on the other hand, would be vague at best. It doesn't mean much to me.

Penelope · Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:05 am

Starhwe:

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