Our genes may instruct us to be selfish, but we are not necessarily compelled to obey them all our lives. It may just be more difficult to learn altruism than it would be if we were genetically programmed to be altruistic. Among animals, man is uniquely dominated by culture, by influences learned and handed down.
I, like you, see through all the smoke and mirrors, but come on, guys, think of the poor dears who can’t handle the truth!
Often altruism within a group goes with selfishness between groups. This is a basis of trade unionism.
A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple.
It is easy to see why some people have wanted to.
To sum up, we have seen three reasons why a bottlenecked life history tends to foster the evolution of the organism as a discrete and unitary vehicle. The three may be labelled, respectively, ‘back to the drawing board’, ‘orderly timing-cycle’, and ‘cellular uniformity’.
But isn’t it all – crystal ball gazing, star signs, birth stones, ley-lines and the rest – just a bit of harmless fun? If people want to believe in garbage like astrology, or crystal healing, why not let them? But it’s so sad to think about all that they are missing. There is so much wonder in real science. The universe is mysterious enough to need no help from warlocks, shamans and ‘psychic’ tricksters. These are at best a soul-sapping distraction. At worst they are dangerous profiteers.
Prediction in a complex world is a chancy business. Every decision that a survival machine takes is a gamble, and it is the business of genes to program brains in advance so that on average they take decisions that pay off.
If you are trying to explain something improbable, it can never suffice to invoke an entity that is, in itself, at least as improbable.
The gene is a long-lived replicator, existing in the form of many duplicate copies. It is not infinitely long-lived. Even a diamond is not literally everlasting, and even a cistron can be cut in two by crossing-over. The gene is defined as a piece of chromosome which is sufficiently short for it to last, potentially, for long enough for it to function as a significant unit of natural selection.
My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.’ We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would.
The effect of the gene depends on its environment, and this includes other genes. Sometimes a gene has one effect in the presence of a particular other gene, and a completely different effect in the presence of another set of companion genes. The whole set of genes in a body constitutes a kind of genetic climate or background, modifying and influencing the effects of any particular gene.
Living bodies are machines programmed by genes that have survived.
The ‘expert’ on the programme observed that the vast majority of baby spiders end up as prey for other species, and she then went on to say: ‘Perhaps this is the real purpose of their existence, as only a few need to survive in order for the species to be preserved’!
This is a subtle, complicated idea. It is complicated because the ‘environment’ of a gene consists largely of other genes, each of which is itself being selected for its ability to cooperate with its environment of other genes.
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
CNN journalist Tucker Carlson?
Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name.
Maybe the psychological reason for this amazing blindness has something to do with the fact that many people have not had their consciousness raised, as biologists have, by natural selection and its power to tame improbability. J.
Here is a list of things defined as rewarding: sweet taste in the mouth, orgasm, mild temperature, smiling child. And here is a list of nasty things: various sorts of pain, nausea, empty stomach, screaming child. If you should happen to do something that is followed by one of the nasty things, don’t do it again, but on the other hand repeat anything that is followed by one of the nice things.