Gregory and I have opposite (in some sense) approaches to this – in another sense we just draw the line in a different place. His outrage is so extreme, it is like he buys into the understanding of evolution as mechanical process and thus denies that the development of human society can be any such thing – arguing that the mechanism of evolution doesn’t describe social and cultural development very well. I, on the contrary, refute the understanding of evolution as a mechanical process to say that it is just the same essential living process of learning and development.
To be sure different information mediums are involved. For biological evolution information medium is organic chemistry – particularly DNA and RNA. For human society and culture the information medium is that of human communication – particularly language. But in both cases it is still a living process with learning, development, and an inheritance of information passed on to later generations.
What are the implications of drawing these lines in such different places? What hangs in the balance is the value of other living things other than human beings. Are they at least brethren to us in regards to our biology? And for that matter, are our bodies to be likewise despised as nothing more than material shells? I don’t this this sort of Gnostic-docetistic derision of the body and the living organisms of the world is heathy or sound.
It is enough that there is a profound difference in that we are alive in the whole different medium of human communication learning thousands of times faster and with vastly greater awareness than other living organisms and there is no need to repress the fundamental relationship of interdependence we have with other living things.
Unlike Gregory, I think you have the right idea. Evolution in modern humans is mostly not biological but social (and I would add technological). Evolution goes through different stages passing from individual to communal when the community begins protecting its weaker members. We saw this in the transition from single celled organisms to multicellular organisms and and many think something similar happened when we went from prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic cells earlier. For a long time we thought protecting the weaker members of society would inhibit evolution but I think it actually stimulates evolution by increasing the allowed diversity of individuals – we no longer have to be all Daniel Boones. Only then can we take specialized roles and develop a technological civilization.