Has our achievements stumped our evolution?

[Jukes]

No I am not but I am open to the possibility that it may be in purely strict biological evolutionary terms.

 

If I was guilty of over-extrapolating you are definitely guilty of over-conflating. Could you separate your genes and memes into their respective culture and evolution since it is difficult to discuss any of it without being specific. A few examples would help to explain why culture ISN'T genetic if you decide that you are adamant that culture cannot be evolutionary. I make no assertions either way except that it seems more likely than not that much of what we think of as learned culture (eg not killing our peers by default) are in fact genetic traits that evolution promotes but equally I make no assertions as to the mechanism.

 

Just one final thing while you are compiling those examples, I'm curious to know in what way you think that humans are biologically special.

 

Jukes x

[Cyclone]

Correct, they absolutely do but you have stopped developing your argument at the first hurdle of religion instead of passing the finishing line at memetics. Continue that line of thinking to determine if killing your peers is the default or if there is some evolutionary advantage in NOT killing them. I hope that you will agree that there is an evolutionary advantage in NOT killing your peers and that killing is a decision (such as it can be) not the default. Once you have determined that killing is NOT the default you need to ask why that is the case - is it a learned cultural behavior from the egg or womb or cell division, or is it something else? If you decide that a single cell organism doesn't have a learned culture it must be something else, so what is it?

Rival groups of primates often kill each other, this is an evolutionary advantage because a dead rival cannot spread it's genes and so yours can flourish without that competition.

Equally, individuals that work together in some circumstances are more likely to survive and so not killing each other is beneficial to procreation and thus an evolutionary advantage.

Trying to draw some sort of universal truth about whether killing is or is not wrong is, well, pointless. It's a moral argument, and has no bearing on evolution. There are times when killing rivals is beneficial and times when it isn't, from an evolutionary point of view.

I hope that we both arrive at the same likely conclusion because if you still think that humans don't kill by default for cultural reasons you are into religion not evolution.

This "not killing by default" is in evolutionary terms a very recent thing.

 

This is all a well established evolutionary argument that is not widely contested and I would have hoped was more widely known on the 40th anniversary of The Selfish Gene. If somebody thinks that we don't kill each other because it is a learned culture I would like to see your evidence. I have given you a world renowned evolutionary biologist who suggests that it's evolutionary, so I expect no less in return.

 

Perhaps we should look at some of our closest relatives.

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/09/why-do-chimps-kill-each-other

 

But a major new study of warfare in chimpanzees finds that lethal aggression can be evolutionarily beneficial in that species, rewarding the winners with food, mates, and the opportunity to pass along their genes.

Well, look at that!

 

---------- Post added 25-05-2016 at 11:09 ----------

 

And with regards to humans

 

"There is plenty of evidence to support both claims: violence, reconciliation, and cooperation are all part of human nature," said Cashdan, who thinks these wide-ranging emotions all evolved because they benefitted humans in some way in the past.

 

Pretty much what I said...

http://www.livescience.com/5333-evolution-human-aggression.html

 

It goes on.

In true nature-nurture fashion, though some kind of genetic preprogramming for violence may exist in humans as a result of our evolution, it is the specific environment that decides how, or whether, that biological determination is triggered, scientists say.

 

"Evolution didn't just shape us to be violent, or peaceful, it shaped us to respond flexibly, adaptively, to different circumstances, and to risk violence when it made adaptive sense to do so. We need to understand what those circumstances are if we want to change things

Edited May 25, 2016 by Cyclone

[unbeliever]

No I am not but I am open to the possibility that it may be in purely strict biological evolutionary terms.

 

If I was guilty of over-extrapolating you are definitely guilty of over-conflating. Could you separate your genes and memes into their respective culture and evolution since it is difficult to discuss any of it without being specific. A few examples would help to explain why culture ISN'T genetic if you decide that you are adamant that culture cannot be evolutionary. I make no assertions either way except that it seems more likely than not that much of what we think of as learned culture (eg not killing our peers by default) are in fact genetic traits that evolution promotes but equally I make no assertions as to the mechanism.

 

Just one final thing while you are compiling those examples, I'm curious to know in what way you think that humans are biologically special.

 

Jukes x

 

Humans are special in the context of what we're discussing because we have highly advanced communication for the propagation of memes.

We're also rather unusual biologically because we have a far greater faculty for acting on and developing memes.

 

I would agree that we have a genetic disposition toward cooperation, and the absence of murder is clearly a part of that. We are above all else, adapters, which is why we're some of us murderous and some not.

 

There are a very large number of humans in the world and a lot of recorded history. It's not hard to show from this that our genetics provide the faculty for both cooperation and individualism in varying collective sizes and that it is nurture that determines which we follow.

 

You still haven't said anything that we weren't already well aware of. You've just made me work hard to extract from you what you're actually trying to say.

[Jukes]

Re The End Of Faith, I agree that any discussion on moral relativism wouldn't last very long here. People seem incapable of having those discussions without becoming personally offended without any good reason and as Stephen Fry said "you're offended, so ***ing what". I have a deep personal interest in moral relativism in particular to religion and culture but it always seems that people's perceived slight is more important than their death threats and cultural recidivism.

 

Jukes x

[Cyclone]

Re The End Of Faith, I agree that any discussion on moral relativism wouldn't last very long here. People seem incapable of having those discussions without becoming personally offended without any good reason and as Stephen Fry said "you're offended, so ***ing what". I have a deep personal interest in moral relativism in particular to religion and culture but it always seems that people's perceived slight is more important than their death threats and cultural recidivism.

 

Jukes x

 

We're discussing biological evolution though. Moral relativism isn't really relevant to this topic.

[unbeliever]

Re The End Of Faith, I agree that any discussion on moral relativism wouldn't last very long here. People seem incapable of having those discussions without becoming personally offended without any good reason and as Stephen Fry said "you're offended, so ***ing what". I have a deep personal interest in moral relativism in particular to religion and culture but it always seems that people's perceived slight is more important than their death threats and cultural recidivism.

 

Jukes x

 

Now this is clear. Couldn't agree more. Making the debate of the world's greatest force for destruction (religion in general) taboo, is the worst thing we could possibly do.

[Cyclone]

Re"you're offended, so ***ing what".

 

Masked swearing isn't allowed by the way.

 

But if you accuse people of being ignorant because they disagree with you, then you will offend people. If you can present an actual argument instead of just a weak ad hom attack then you'll find discussing things like an adult to be more productive.

[unbeliever]

We're discussing biological evolution though. Moral relativism isn't really relevant to this topic.

 

Have to agree. This thread had value in its own right. I apologise for my part in allowing it to be side-tracked.

[Jukes]

Humans are special in the context of what we're discussing because we have highly advanced communication for the propagation of memes.

We're also rather unusual biologically because we have a far greater faculty for acting on and developing memes.

 

I would agree that we have a genetic disposition toward cooperation, and the absence of murder is clearly a part of that. We are above all else, adapters, which is why we're some of us murderous and some not.

 

There are a very large number of humans in the world and a lot of recorded history. It's not hard to show from this that our genetics provide the faculty for both cooperation and individualism in varying collective sizes and that it is nurture that determines which we follow.

 

You still haven't said anything that we weren't already well aware of. You've just made me work hard to extract from you what you're actually trying to say.

You seem to be saying that human culture (and propagation of memes) is biological and therefore I will extrapolate, evolutionary. I hesitate to say that in case you think I'm trying to back you into a corner but that if you aren't saying that please clarify.

 

Jukes x

[unbeliever]

You seem to be saying that human culture (and propagation of memes) is biological. I hesitate to say that in case you think I'm trying to back you into a corner but that if you aren't saying that please clarify.

 

Jukes x

 

Our facility to propagate memes is a result of our genetics. Our memes in turn influenced our genetic development because they affected our survival chances. The link ends there as far as I can tell.

Meme's are too complex to encode in DNA and there is no mechanism for that to occur anyway.