Yes. Would you say that with current trends, genetic influence for antisocial behavior may be dying out?
No. Much of our behavior was set by evolution over many thousands of years. This is countered by the spiritual nature that is a gift from God. My belief is we have two natures. One that is based on flesh and one that is based on spirit.
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that’s a valid idea. I was wondering if you’ve seen the Pinker video about trends in violence, and if so, what you think of it.
Indeed, let alone the propagation of one’s genes. @TheStruggler - it seems even harder to imagine that anyone would make life choices for such an abstract purpose. I agree with Christy’s advice regarding the relevance and importance of the arts and especially literature here.
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The bible tells us that two brothers (Cane and Able) with similar genetic traits, fell out because of the different outlooks spiritually. I think we human beings are motivated to good and to evil in ways that transcend the concepts attributed to biological evolutionary thinking.
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I really don’t know what I can say. My friend is very busy in real life but I asked him to come on this forum and address it directly. I don’t know if he will have the time. DNA exists to perpetuate itself, having long healthy lives, aren’t necessarily required for this. I do not know how to rework the question into something which is simple and makes sense.
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Interesting to think about what exactly that means. Are we imputing intent to DNA’s molecules? We don’t say Mercury exists to be liquid at room temperature. That just seems to be a brute fact about a molecule with 80 protons. The noble gases aren’t ‘reluctant’ to combine with other elements, they simply lack the available ‘docking stations’. Likewise, though far more complex, DNA just does by its nature replicate.
Of course organisms which do persist across generations will have strategies to pass along its DNA. But I’m not sure how accurate it is to think of organisms as being compelled by their DNA to do so.
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Now look all of you all have tried to down grade the problem of the survival of the fittest. How can you do this an say that you accept Darwinian Evolution?
Survival of the fittest is true or it is not. If it is true then Christianity has a serious problem. If it is false then Darwinian evolution has a serious problem. I know that it is the later that is true, so I have found a solution. If you want to live in some sort of wishful thinking world, you can ignore the whole question.
I don’t see why these must be in conflict.
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Of course they don’t have to be in conflict, but Darwin and Dawkins say that they are in conflict. Dawkins says that life has no meaning and purpose, while Christianity says that the Logos is the meaning and purpose of life. Darwin said that conflict, the war of nature, survival of the fittest is the source of the higher animals, Christianity says that Love leads to a higher Life.
If Sin produces evolution, then God created Sin, because God created evolution, but Sin or conflict does not produce evolution.
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Again, this ignores the incredibly complex social nature of humans. DNA does not exert a will over human beings, there is much more that goes into human self-determinancy. And human societies are much more complex than simply preferring DNA-influenced reproductive fitness. “Fitness” for humans encompasses high level social skills, not just overall biological health. Part of the reason your question is not simple and doesn’t make sense is the fact that human societies and human coupling/family formation don’t operate by the same rules that you are asserting govern reproduction in the animal kingdom. But even reproductive success in the animal kingdom is often way more complicated than just mating a lot.
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Very challenging matters.
I cannot really offer a lot of help. I have also seen the wicked win, live well, and be lauded for their rottenness. I have seen those who do right suffer bitterly for opposing them. The world is filled with indifference and cruelty. I could easily express the things in Psalm 109 on some days when I lose my composure.
On the other hand, I go on as a Christian. Why?
Well, who is able to find the right moment to teach a person to repent – seeing his/her ugly deeds for exactly what they are – than God? If I had all the power in the world, maybe I could torment the person for his/her wickedness, but the only thing the person would learn is not to mess with me. Yet when God kicks our butt, we see it is fair and we know why what we did was wrong. Then, we don’t want to do it anymore. That is what repentance is about. That is why David asks in Psalm 109 for God to do the action and does not take it into his own hands (and it is a good thing that God doesn’t always give us what we ask God to do on other people too).
The fact that your friend sees that things are wrong in the world already says that there are things that are right, even if on the face of them, they might seem unprofitable compare to the luxury and wealth of the wicked. Better to be poor and struggling than to be one who is wicked with mountains of wealth.
As Christians, we have the hope that there is something more than just this life and this world. This offers a way that can help us find the courage to keep on doing good, even if (or when) we suffer for it. Without that hope, we easily could get rattled apart. So the hope that somehow these things will be made right by an almighty and just God, who is fair, is really the ground that helps us keep our peace, keep our head up, and just persevere forward.
by Grace we proceed,
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which isnt the answer to the question
the ruthless, manipulative and overall amoral
still occupy the upper levels of that so called “good” society
and so being evil still wins out
within ever context
NEW MESSAGES
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same with reproductive success
if you can get away with cheating
then you won evolutionarily
and thats that
your descendants will only be able to ponder the morality of your actions
because you put them there
I copied a response he gave to me.
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Hi, Ephraim
I, too, struggled with this problem until I accepted Teilhard de Chardin’s view of the history of the Universe. But it is not easily grasped. It takes a lengthy study to really appreciate how well Teilhard’s view, that replaces Original Sin with Original Blessing, can accommodate modern evolutionary science with a Cristian Faith . You might peruse some of my posts on tho Forum to see if it might help you and your friend. A book that “interprets” some of Teilhard’s more “mystical” writings is: Delio’s “From Teilhard to Omega”.
Basically, Teilhard proposes that the history of the Universe can be viewed in three stages, all subject to different types of evolution:(1) the Cosmosphere evolving from a quark plasma (perhaps via laws of quantum physics); (2) the Biosphere (once life appeared (how?), then Darwinian evolution began to operate (via considerable selfishness and thus to this point creation was amoral); (3) and finally the Noosphere, the sphere of Ideas transmissible via complex language.This latest sphere began relatively recently (~50,000 yrs. BCE) in a Great Leap Forward, evidenced by sophisticated cave art & sculpture. Most importantly, Homo sapiens, a species that had been on earth for ~150,000 yrs., began to bury their dead with grave goods–evidence for a belief in an afterlife and a behavior influenced by conscience. Sin entered the world, NOT because of a Fall, but rather because of a refusal of the gift to Rise above our animal natures, our biologically evolved selfishness. In the Noosphere we have the freedom to become co-creators to fashion the earthly Kingdom that God foresaw from the moment of the Big Bang.
May God bless your efforts to seek the Truth.
Al Leo
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This is dependant on the rules society sets and not evolution, since with morality a new way to reflect came into town. A teache of mine once gave an example if you want to create a new game or want to change some of the current existing. There are several kind of rules, the hard ones, which require to be followed entirely to make the game function, for example a foul due to attack. Then the rule of resources, for example you need a ball and two goals and last but not least the moral rules, which aren´t written in stone but required to be followed to make a fair game. We can stretch this example out on society. The evil one can ignore moral rules to use the hard ones against society and himself. If the moral rules are written in stone, it would not be possible, but for the sake of personal freedom, there are only so many laws to make society work. Also we have to establish how we measure a win. I give an example: Martin Shkreli, the guy who bought the rights for the medicine Daraprim and raised the price over night from 12 to 700 Dollars. Has he won? Financially, sure. But on the other side despised by society his grave will probably drown in spit and the number of people who don´t wish him an “accident” can probably be counted on one hand. You know where I´m getting with this. It´s not like it´s without consequences. And all together it´s rather unhelpful in evolutionary ways.
Similar case. But let´s make something clear first. I don´t think getting married several times is immoral, although those who stand true to one person their whole life is put in a higher regard by me, whatever that´s worth. But cheating in a marriage is also seen as way more immoral by society as getting divorced. It´s just like that, so one gets consequences for his/her actions. And again I use my extreme example like in the other comments, this logic would lead to evolutionary success for a rapist, which would perhaps be true in a society without rules of any kind and even then maybe only if you look at the propagation-account. And in our society, maybe you get one impregnated this way, but you will probably also get 20 years in prison. Is that success? I don´t think so.
Also I have to admit that I have a hard time seeing how this can be related to Christianity. Can you explain, since you know you´re friend better. Has he really busied himself with it or is he rather following you? (I don´t ask to ridicule him, but I just have never been confronted with such arguments or read something similar anywhere)
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That is the whole thing Ephraim.
If you look at the world, this nihilist type of conclusion is the logical one you will get. Science can only tell you what is, it cannot make a moral judgment on the matter. Yet your friend seems to “know” that such things are wrong. How does he know? Evidently, there is some kind of selective advantage to having this compunction because most normal people feel it. When we look at the evidence, it is ambiguous, but we still sense that it is wrong. Maybe then, without faith, social animals like ourselves do not survive.
You have to make up your own mind whether to believe that there is right and wrong; you will not get any clear answers from “science”. Science, as a moral philosophy is ambiguous and will only lead you ultimately to nihilism.
by Grace we proceed,
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Ephraim,
Dawkins himself points out in the Selfish Gene that if you want your kids to be altruistic, you will have to teach it to them, because the forces of nature don’t have anything that reliably draws this out. In fact, why should it? I am not a fan of Dawkins, but I think he is basically right on that point; in short, you will not prove morality out of science.
Considered as a large population over long periods of time, there may be sufficient argument to say that too much promiscuity could probably be shown to have adverse consequences. However, I don’t think the consequences are something so obviously devastating that no one would dare to try.
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I don’t understand where one gets the notion that the world is rigged in favor of evil. Can people get away with doing evil, yes. But if everyone is constantly doing evil all the time, there is no one that anyone can trust, so you’d might as well live in a cave.
Consider Dawkins’ argument with the hawk and the doves. There, he shows that an equilibrium develops because if you have too many hawks compared to the population of doves, the hawks will starve, and if you have only doves, (I think the argument was that) the population would grow until all the food would be consumed and the doves would perish.
In the same way, a large population can function with a thief in its midst, it can support a few people who cheat in their marriage, and other unethical behavior. However, it everyone steals all the time, or cheats on their marriage all the time, or commits other highly unethical behaviors constantly, there is no trust in the population and you would do better to live in a cave.
That society survives in spite of the evil things people do is not the same as saying that the world is rigged in favor of evil. Certainly, this is wrong, as Dawkins’ hawk and dove argument above unquestionably shows. If you have a society that is lawless and iniquitous, you have chaos. In fact, the equilibrium is very much shifted to the side of people who are fair and just with one another. There is no limit where too many nice people would cause trouble. The question is how many wicked people can be supported in a society that predominantly contains nice, law-abiding people.
Even a mob or a band of thieves have to live by some rules. If they cannot even cooperate at some level amongst themselves, they get less than nothing for their efforts. Yet even a mob that becomes too domineering eventually suffers consequences. Even today, you see small kingdoms wherein a power struggle can mean that the whole family of the unlucky ruler is obliterated. So it is certainly not that case that everyone who screws around gets to see their gene pool maximized in the best way.
The place where the science has some ambiguity is if one only sometimes screws around. A “good” con artist can probably get away with his philandering, but there is a limit. By faithfully collaborating and building resources, you are far more likely to be successful and to raise children that are successful.
So I think this argument that
is gravely overstated. From a purely scientific point of view, one can easily show mathematically that this is fallacious. The thing that science cannot say is whether you will perish or not because you do a few evil things. Moreover, when a society follows the rule of law, and the laws are just, it functions just fine with no limit to scalability. In a system of free trade and a fair infrastructure for handling displacement, the society benefits all the more.
So the scientific question is not whether “the game is rigged for evil”, the question is “how much evil can be supported in an otherwise good society before the whole thing falls apart or at least becomes unscalable?”
by Grace we proceed
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There is a whole area of evolutionary biology that Wayne is alluding to here that applies game theory (from math) to evolutionary systems. John Maynard Smith won a Crawfoord Prize for his work in it. Evolutionary game theory - Wikipedia
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When I was an M.Div. student at Fuller Seminary, I did a paper on Behemoth and Leviathan for my Job class. These are the two creatures God talks to Job about near the end of the book. I ran across a scholarly article that has helped me with the problem of evil and bad things happening to people.
You recall when God first had this long monologue in which he asked Job where he was when God created everything. God started out with inanimate objects and then went to animals. Job listened and conceded that God was right - but this wasn’t enough. The scholar I read argued that what God did next was to invite Job to first be a creator god and then a hero god (“Gird up your loins” sort of like when Elmer Fudd in “What’s Opera, Doc?” had his spear and magic helmet) who would deal with mythical creatures. These aren’t a hippopotamus and a crocodile . God even said, “Look - I’ll help you do your divine tasks.” So Job designed a defective animal and went about battling Leviathan in a pretty inadequate fashion. Then Job repented as he realized, because he wasn’t God, his understanding of God’s ways was limited.
If we approach God’s ways in the same way that we do when we analyze problems created by other people or things (such as Earth’s crust) we will always come up short. We know God through His energies (a term we Eastern Orthodox use) but we cannot know His essence. There are reasons for everything but much of the time we cannot know why things happen that are terrible, such as that train that killed dozens of people in India, the other day. We can say that those people died because the ceremony they had was too close to the railroad tracks but why didn’t someone just tell people to have their rite farther away? It seems an obvious thing to do, doesn’t it?
Surely (I know, “And don’t call me Shirley!”) if physicists can live with a lot of uncertainty in their field, we ought to be able to do the same.
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