to_hobbes

Is ethics consistent with darwinism?

I think it is. To very loosely interpret Evolution, it means we do whatever is necessary to perpetuate our species.

But what's the best way to perpetuate our species? I think this is another way of asking, "whats the most efficient way to ensure everyone's survival?" I think the most efficient way is to just get along with everyone else. Go out there and be a social animal by any means necessary. Be ethical and develop a good set of morals, because thats the best way to get along with everyone in a society.

Strength is in numbers, so to perpetuate our species efficiently and still ensure resources do not become scarce is what society is all about and why we need to be ethical. Humans are better at solving this problem of survival than any other species, which is why we dominate.

PS, this thread was inspired by a post by Skepticologist on this thread. Why is it important to do good things? Well, we know why, but can one develop a hypothesis that is consistent with darwinism?

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

shadowind

makes sense to me, the strength of 5 men are usally greater then 1, but to keep the group together rules developed to keep people happy with their organisation.

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remember "for mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescirbe to oursleves is liberty"-rousseau: the concept of the general will "if we can not reconcile all opions, then let us endeavour to unite all hearts."-?"to be is to be perceived"-? "‘We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know’-Robert G. Ingersoll

WilliamBlue

Absolutely, if it were not then it would put us as a species at a disadvantage and we probably would not of gotten to where we are today(top dog ). To me, this is a given...

What I would like to know is, is a belief in god consistent with Darwinism? What I mean is, did our belief in a superior being help keep us together? Is there an inbred genetic predisposition to believing in god or another way, did believing help us as species?

I don't know how you would prove it, but I have read articles that suggest there is a gene related to this belief.

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How can we be so arrogant and egotistical to believe that the whole Universe was created just for us?

Og

All things that happen are in line with the modern model of evolution. Evolution is not some path that things must follow. Evolution is a description of the observed path of beings on earth and the volume of evidence about those that came before us.

There is nothing that says that only some form of high fitness creatures must exist.

Darwinism is about how environmental pressures form a population. It's identical to how water shapes rocks over thousands of years. Ask yourself what pressures there are on the population. Then you will see where evolution is at work.

One pressure could be the vast increase in population of humans. Possible outcomes could be:

1) people work together and form rules that allow this to happen
2) people kill one another to reduce the population to where they don't interact

Both happen.

Evolution just says that pressures move things. It doesn't say anything about the nature of that movement. Environmental pressures could move creatures into a corner (i.e. the dinosaurs) at which point they can be wiped out by a change they have not been selected for (and couldn't have been).

Calling it "darwinism" also makes it sound like a cult compared to observation.

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Become Who You Are

romansh

This worries me a little bit .... theories are supposed to allow predictions to be made and tested. If anything goes, this is about as testable as ID. Am I missing something?

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to_hobbes

I've also wondered about this issue: how does evolution theory qualify as a theory if it can't make predictions and be tested with experimental data.

As far as I know, some natural processes are just impossible to test, so we have to describe the theory using a well-established scientific established framework.

Take black holes for example. We have been fortunate to never be near enough to a black hole to be able to test it or observe it directly. Really, because we have never directly observed a black hole, how do we know it exists? Faith?

No, not faith. Einstein's relativity predicts black holes, and even allows us to theorize about how to detect them. And so far, we have seen some distant galaxies that show the features of having a black hole according to our predictions.

Evolution works the same way. We establish a scientific framework (biology) and then try to explain an observation in nature using that framework. Since evolution happens too slowly to observe directly, we have to look for indirect evidence of it using the scientific framework of biology.

However, independent design fails to meet the criteria for a valid scientific theory, which is exactly why it can't be used as a theoretical framework to prove anything.

That's my take on it.

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

Og

Sorry, I do this frequently.

I mean to imply that evolution is a description of the observed change of populations over time. The point was that the theory adapts to reality so nothing can be "out of line with evolution" because evolution adapts to data.

That being said, the theory of evolution is STRONGLY supported by mountains of data.

I did not mean that the world must adapt to evolution. In fact, I meant the opposite.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Og

There are many ways to answer this. We can ask the question "if whales evolved from land mammals, where are the transitional forms and how does their ear change from one that can hear in air to one that works better in water." The answer is ambulocaetus natans and the intermediate forms between that and modern whales. There are many examples of fossils with ear bones that describe this transition.

There are TONS of genetic hypotheses that can be described in terms of evolutionary theory. For example, the fact that chimpanzees have one more chromosome than us followed by the idea that we are descended from them.

In fact, you can look at the chromosomes of chimps and humans and find the exact fusion point of two chimp chromosomes into a single human chromosome. You can do this to within a few dozen base pairs out of billions.

You can look at the divergence of genetic homology between certain conserved molecules in organisms such as membrane ion channels and see how the sequences of similar molecules in multiple organisms are related.

All of these examples are "evidence"...

When asking "why does a chimp have one more chromosome than a human," the testable hypothesis is "the genes are all still there, they probably just re-arranged somehow"... It's very unlikely that an organism would loose an entire part of the genome.. They would most likely not be able to survive if this happened. They'd lose key genes.

So there are many ways that evolution can make testable hypotheses. There are many ways that evidence continues to pile up for the Theory.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

BuckFutter

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, there are two forms of evolution that are being discussed here as if they are the same thing. The default evolution that is being ascribed to ethics formation is evolution of organisms. But the real evolutionary effect that drives ethics, and many other things, is cultural evolution. Human culture is evolving and changing from generation to generation. There is, of course, some interplay between the evolution of the culture and the evolution of culture, one can affect the other and vice versa. So the development of an organism through its life is driven by genetics AND environment.

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romansh

Not quite there but taking a step forward to a black hole

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...n-the-lab.html

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams