Indeed! But this then make Nature not trustworthy? We are Nature so…?
So by being trustworthy & selfless, do we go against our nature? What is our Nature?
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That’s an interesting philosophical question, can the existence of morality beyond mere pragmatism for survival of the species be justified through purely scientific/naturalistic means? As a Christian I believe virtues such as selflessness, trustworthiness and caring for the weak/“unfit” come from beyond nature, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument for their existence from those who believe science is the be-all and end-all of knowledge.
(Apologies if this goes over the line for this discussion, I am not trying to start a debate or anything just commenting on a very interesting question that was brought up)
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I feel you, I also am a Christian. The fall of man has corrupted our nature & all of life fell with us, is this what kick started evolution to be selected for “Survival of the Fittest”? I mean if no animals ate each other, evolution wasn’t selecting for “Survival of the Fittest” but instead Selecting for Love? Selection pressure shifted from love to survival?
This is just an interesting theory I had, God could’ve created us thru evolution or another way.
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I want to know what the flagged post said. I hate this pearl-clutching cencorship.
Sorry, the “community” (probably just one person) has decided that you need to be protected from my comment.
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The comment in question was a response to one of my comments discussing questions related to a comic someone posted, but was not directly related to that discussion and appeared to be merely intended as a “gotcha” towards my religion. I am not the one who flagged it, but it being removed is hardly “pearl-clutching censorship”
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Let’s be fair here. My comment was nothing more than a mirror image of yours.
Mine was at least related to the discussion surrounding that comic. I may be wrong, but yours came off as a whataboutism, bringing up a completely unrelated issue you have with religion. I don’t typically mind discussing that kind of stuff (although I find online debates are rarely fruitful), but this isn’t the place to start a debate on the “problem of evil” in theology
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I moved these posts, which were not comics, out of the comics topic.
As a reminder, the forum guidelines are here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/guidelines
I will close this topic if it continues to stray from these guidelines.
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These traits crop up all over in nature. Among other things that’s a major part of what taking care of young is.
And we see things like vampire bats sharing resources with unrelated individuals, mixed species animal troops alering each other to dangers, cetaceans helping unrelated species, a wide range of animals demonstrating strongly held concepts of ‘fairness’ and ‘morality’ (look at Frans de Waal’s extensive research into this field), trees (even ones of different species) sharing resources via mycorrhizal networks, etc, etc, etc.
The world is filled with examples of ‘selflessness’ and ‘caring’ in non-human organisms.
Mind you, there is an argument to be made that behaviors exhibiting traits like selflessness, trustworthiness and caring are ultimately self-serving because overall they enhance the survivability of the species (and individual) that expresses them.
The simple truth is that all these different behaviors are different strategies applied to surviving and different species utilize these strategies in different combinations and different ways.
There is an extensive body of work using game theory and economic theory (which, interestingly, works better for behavioral predictions when applied to nature than it does for the actual economy) that looks at this specific set of issues and questions in detail.
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This seems to me like a bad way to argue. Isn’t it best to explain why you think someone is wrong, rather than make a “mirror image” of their comment? This is a tu quoque fallacy and doesn’t really make your argument very strong.
I think that (at least with people) this depends on what intent the “selfless” or “caring” acts were done with.
From an evolutionary perspective, I really can’t see any explanation other than this. Everything is about what statistically increases the survival of the species, and altruism is only useful if it serves this goal. If this is the sole basis for morality, then there isn’t much room for concepts like caring for the disabled or “unfit”, (especially those with genetic disabilities), and lots of room for concepts like eugenics, which might enhance the survivability of the species but I hope we can all agree run counter to common decency. So what is “common decency” after all? Does it transcend mere biological utility? If so, what is its ultimate source? Something to think about
That’s where people get into trouble as they’re anthropomorphizing.
Evolution doesn’t have any ‘intent’ beyond, ‘survive into the next generation’.
There is no end goal, there is no ‘meaning’, etc.
We love to assign characteristic like that for a variety of reasons, some noble, some venial, some out of hope, some out of fear, etc, but those are all not only human abstractions we try to use to categorize our world, they are culturally defined as well, so different people assign them differently too.
Theological and philosophical discussions about things like the ‘meaning of life’, what ‘influences other than nature affect our behavior’, and all that are all well and good, and often fun to engage in, but in my personal opinion it’s like arguing over whether Mighty Mouse or Superman is more powerful, or the relative merits of choosing a Druid with a Ranger subclass or a Ranger with a Druid subclass.
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That’s why humans have blind spots in their vision, the ability to choke, etc. Evolution isn’t making ‘the perfect’ animal. Just a ‘good enough’ one. Which why stuff like da pumpkin toadlets are still alive. Srry if this was off-topic.
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I think isopodguy was talking about human intent there. I think you summed up the atheistic evolutionary worldview pretty well though. From that perspective, we are merely the product of dumb luck, abiogenesis somehow happening followed by billions upon billions of “lucky” mutations over eons which just so happened to lead to more and more complexity in life while simultaneously increasing odds of survivability and reproduction. And somehow gave rise to the non-algorithmic phenomenon of consciousness/self-awareness as well. To me, this worldview takes more blind faith than creationism. Even theistic evolution is much more believable to me, if one must interpret the fossil record and genetic evidence in a macroevolutionary manner
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That’s a pretty flimsy pretext for suppressing a comment, but we all know that’s not the real reason.
It does!
Honestly * controversial statement warning*
I don’t really mind that much about how life and earth, and the universe, or anything came to be. Sure, it’s fun to learn about, but I’m just happy that everything that exists, no matter how it was made, is the way it is*.
*Except humans. Most of them suck.
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Short answer: It is not the basis for morality. And no evolutionary biologist will ever argue that it is. (On the contrary, they will argue vehemently that it isn’t.)
I think, people, coming from a religious perspective, expect of “science” the same as they do from their religious text of choice: both an explanation for the world, and a basis for a moral system. However, “science” will never give you the latter. Every evolutionary biologist (I know) will tell you this.
But it has indeed been a problem that people largely unfamiliar with this area of biology (or with other peoples and ethnicities) have made these false conclusions.
I don’t want to argue with you about evolution vs. creationism/“intelligent design” or whatever it is called. But, I think it is important to emphasise that nothing in evolutionary biology justifies eugenics or a lack of morality. In fact, there are plenty of examples for the selection of altruistic traits and many ways in which they can provide a benefit.
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