Chris:

So you're arguing that nobody is really "bad" or "evil" or deserves to be stopped.

No, but I know that I am not in a position to judge and it is always easy to look at another culture, pick out the worst practices and decide they need to be wiped out. I think we could find similar arguments about the native people of america (savages), those pillaging vikings, and the christians...someone really should have wiped them out long ago.

But who are the 'we' to make these decisions? And isn't this one of the things the Taliban believe, that they should be wiping us out? And how do we stop an entire culture? Kill them all? Killing only the leaders will not work and only create more hatred.

Chris OConnor wrote: First of all I don't think the tendency to not kill each other as often is a matter of spiritual evolution, and I venture to say Christopher Hitchens would agree with me. Religion poisons everything, as the author repeats over and over, and some of us consider even the use of the term "spirituality" to be an injection of irrationality into the mix unnecessarily. Spirituality, in my opinion, is a completely meaningless term, provided that "spirits" don't exist, and this is where Hitchens is going with his thesis. There is no reason to believe spirits exist, spirituality matters, or that religion does anything other than poison humanity. Some of you will argue about the term spirituality as it has become rather cool to think of ourselves as spiritual even when not religious. I personally don't use the word because it embarrasses me to even remotely be associated with religion or religious beliefs.

We've gotten pretty far from the subject of my original question, which was about physical evolution. But no matter. I agree with Chris that Hitchens wouldn't want to be talking about our spirtiual evolution. But it's not because he has anything in particlular against the word spiritual. It's just a word, detached from its root by now, and is fairly meaningless because you never know how anyone means it. I personally accept honesty and compassion, for example, as spiritual values, perhaps the most important of all. "Ethical" would be a good substitute for spiritual as well.

Hitchens has a not very high opinion of either human rationality or our so-called spirituality. Based on evidence, I think he is right to say that we are a mess. He does want us to make the most of our meager rationality, though, which is his main point of conflict with religion. Chris, I don't know if you had a chance to read my posts on early chapters of this book. It's quite clear to me that Hitchens does NOT tar all religion with the same brush. The religion that poisons everything is NOT every single thing to which that word is attached. His particular examples throughout make it that abundantly clear that he is speaking of a "religious" god as being the source of trouble. Modern variations of god, which tend towards a "nebulous humanism," do not concern him. He sees them as irrevelant and optional, but as non-threatening. This is a man who really has stayed up late talking with religious friends, and that experience has given him more perspective than some atheists who recoil in horror at the mere mention of religion, are able to achieve.

When the discussion on this book gets going again, I hope we'll be able to see more examples that show Hitchens is considerably less extreme about religion than his title and chapter titles might indicate. In other words, I commend him for fairness.

No, but I know that I am not in a position to judge...

Then who is to judge? Aren't we all constantly making judgment calls? When you see a bully beating up a weak child don't you judge?

I posit that judging is what ethical people and critical thinkers do day in and day out and throughout every waking moment of their lives. I judge each and every one of you by the words you type. And I hope you judge me for what you see me posting. There is nothing wrong with observing things, thinking about those things, and then passing some sort of judgment.

When genocide is happening anywhere at anytime people need to not be afraid to judge and then after careful thought act on their judgments. Oh, I get your point. We have to be careful about who and what we judge because if we judge others we are subjecting ourselves to their judgment. (Matthew 7:1)

So what do we do then? Sit back and allow bullies and tyrants to exploit and abuse and torture and kill and oppress....all because we don't want to judge?

Nah, I say we employ every ounce of reason, compassion and empathy we can muster, but we need to act. We need to defend the weak and helpless and even the not so weak and helpless. Law and order and civilization are the fruits of thousands of years of cultural evolution and I'm not much interested in living in a society that is afraid to pass judgment and take action when needed.

Will we sometimes make mistakes? Sure, just like you run the risk of getting shot when you run to the rescue of the old lady getting mugged. But I'll damn sure not sit still and watch her get hurt just because I'm not a direct party to the affair and I don't want to pass judgment on the mugger. I trust my judgment, but admit I can and do make errors in judgment. But there is no greater mistake than not taking action and sitting back passively when injustice is happening nearby.

Here you go:



Your welcome!!

Surely evolution is still at work in the human race.

Each child is a new variant in the species. Evolution in each generation. The point in question may be are we trending toward a new form, or new ability?

For instance, you mights say that evolution is working on individuals who are more attentive, or with faster reflexes by way of auto accidents. This effect is very small though.

We would need a real binary test to acheive swift evolutional change i think. Like, if your reactions are slow you die in car accidents, (every time), and if they are fast you survive. Then i think the progress to faster reflexes would become more evident.

As it is humanity is spread so far across teh globe that there is more a gradient of lifestyles and factors to work on our genetics that it will be difficult to see real startling change.

If you could get a population seperated from the rest and study them over generations you would see differences emerge there that vary from the general population. The question remains, what might those changes be?

Perhaps with the overall upgrade of social welfare we have undergone we might see evolution not so much in traits that increase our ability to procreate, but rather, what changes are being allowed to take place because the normal culling is no longer functioning?

check this one out, evolution baby!

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previou ... clues.html

johnson1010 wrote:Surely evolution is still at work in the human race.

Each child is a new variant in the species. Evolution in each generation. The point in question may be are we trending toward a new form, or new ability?

For instance, you mights say that evolution is working on individuals who are more attentive, or with faster reflexes by way of auto accidents. This effect is very small though.

We would need a real binary test to acheive swift evolutional change i think. Like, if your reactions are slow you die in car accidents, (every time), and if they are fast you survive. Then i think the progress to faster reflexes would become more evident.

As it is humanity is spread so far across teh globe that there is more a gradient of lifestyles and factors to work on our genetics that it will be difficult to see real startling change.

If you could get a population seperated from the rest and study them over generations you would see differences emerge there that vary from the general population. The question remains, what might those changes be?

Perhaps with the overall upgrade of social welfare we have undergone we might see evolution not so much in traits that increase our ability to procreate, but rather, what changes are being allowed to take place because the normal culling is no longer functioning?

Birds evolve rapidly in traffic.

Medicine has allowed women with narrow hips to give birth, reversing the evolutionary pressure which killed such women in earlier times.

Social welfare plays havoc with natural incentives. Part of the challenge of evidence-based policy is to ensure social cohesion while avoiding the moral hazard of welfare traps, which appear to be maladaptive, for example regarding unemployment benefits.

Democracy produces perverse incentives, in that the majority may believe a policy is adaptive when it is not. For example spending money on consumption may seem right to the majority, when the group would actually adapt better by saving and investing in productive assets.

We are absolutely still evolving. Every day the human race grows to adapt into something else, or learns something new. Even if you are just learning what 2+2 equals, you are still evolving. Evolution is misunterstood because of its narrow-minded use. Evolution is just like growth, because you are beginning to understand the world around you better as well as learning how to adapt and comprehend to it. People don't typically think of evolution as growth, but it really is.

So yes, we are DEFINATELY still evolving every day no matter what you do. Even if it is as little as learning someone's name . If you put things into perspective a lot, you'll learn that you evolve about 500 times a day.

Iluvbookz13 wrote:We are absolutely still evolving. Every day the human race grows to adapt into something else, or learns something new. Even if you are just learning what 2+2 equals, you are still evolving. Evolution is misunterstood because of its narrow-minded use. Evolution is just like growth, because you are beginning to understand the world around you better as well as learning how to adapt and comprehend to it. People don't typically think of evolution as growth, but it really is.

So yes, we are DEFINATELY still evolving every day no matter what you do. Even if it is as little as learning someone's name . If you put things into perspective a lot, you'll learn that you evolve about 500 times a day.

I agree that we are still evolving. But what you explain is not the evolution this question was speaking of. Learning names and 2+2 does not lead to evolutionary change any more than body modification does. What we learn throughout life does not lead to an evolutionary change species wide. I do not pass on to my children the names I learn throughout my life via DNA. I can teach them these things, but that does not make any difference to their DNA.

The brain may indeed have evolved to understand intrinsically what 2+2 is and certain other concepts due to the structure of the brain (see Pinker: Blank Slate). But evolution cannot be examined on a day to day basis.

Mr. Pessimistic wrote:

Iluvbookz13 wrote:We are absolutely still evolving. Every day the human race grows to adapt into something else, or learns something new. Even if you are just learning what 2+2 equals, you are still evolving. Evolution is misunterstood because of its narrow-minded use. Evolution is just like growth, because you are beginning to understand the world around you better as well as learning how to adapt and comprehend to it. People don't typically think of evolution as growth, but it really is.

So yes, we are DEFINATELY still evolving every day no matter what you do. Even if it is as little as learning someone's name . If you put things into perspective a lot, you'll learn that you evolve about 500 times a day.

I agree that we are still evolving. But what you explain is not the evolution this question was speaking of. Learning names and 2+2 does not lead to evolutionary change any more than body modification does. What we learn throughout life does not lead to an evolutionary change species wide. I do not pass on to my children the names I learn throughout my life via DNA. I can teach them these things, but that does not make any difference to their DNA.

The brain may indeed have evolved to understand intrinsically what 2+2 is and certain other concepts due to the structure of the brain (see Pinker: Blank Slate). But evolution cannot be examined on a day to day basis.

That's definately true, I forgot that does are learned behaviors . Anyway, I read this aloud to some friends last night, and I gathered something pretty bazaar.

Some scientists conducted a test with an Alcoholic and a Non-Alcoholic. They had both of them drink the exact amount of alcohol, and eventually the Alcoholic slipped into a disease. Apparently, when the alcoholic had reached their limitations of this "disease", they were giving off strange levels of activity in the foremost part of their brain, almost as if it was a tumor. Apparently it increases Agression levels and causes them to have serious naseau and can, in worst scenario, cause Cardiac arrest.

They tested it, and apparently it was a gene! The problem in the bgring had been created by a Genetic part of their parents' alcoholism and caused them to have a genetic alcohol disease.

Weird!