Recently, I have become increasingly aware of a trend. It seems many people I respect as being intelligent and thoughtful are labouring under misconceptions regarding Atheism and Evolution. In some cases, they have been force-fed these lies in order to demonise or ridicule ideas contrary to other beliefs. I've created this blog called "Debunking Atheistic and Evolutionary Myths and Misconceptions" (though I ran out of room so it had to be shortened) in order to combat this trend.
I create this small blog here, because it's a thriving community that seems to have a significant number of these individuals. I feel I have some wisdom to impart on these matters, though I leave that up to YOU (yes you) to decide.
I do not create this in order to "convert" anybody to atheism. I feel each person needs to examine themselves and come to their own decisions. However is it not only fair that they do so with full knowledge of both arguments?
I do not create this as a forum for attacking theists or theistic beliefs. Many people have personal reasons for their faith. Furthermore, many people today adopt a very modern approach to their faith. This can often lead to them feeling they are a better person because of their religious beliefs.
I would very much like for anybody who has a question regarding atheism, or evolutionary biology to ask away, and I will do my best to answer.
I'd like to start with an argument put forward by FieryBalrog on this thread.
Here's my contention / question. My grandfather was an atheistic humanist, whose goal was the betterment / prosperity / brotherhood etc. of all mankind. He died, and obviously according to the Bible he's going to hell.
I know earlier it was mentioned that people who are good but atheistic have no rational reason to be good, but I disagree with that entirely. If you hit someone, they take vengeance on you and hit you back. If you bake them muffins, they might give you pumpkin seeds, if you massage their back they may give you a BJ. Being compassionate has lots of advantages.
Anyhow, that's not related to my inquiry, just a fundamental feeling. Now you can debate that aspect, but it's not what's important.
I could, because that isn't any rational basis for morality. Its just a form of Hobbesian social contract where people are nice to each other and enforce lawful/unlawful behaviors for purely self-interested reasons. The problem with that is, well first of all, thats not the only or even major reason why people actually refrain from immoral behavior. Second, if you punch someone in the face they might beat you up, sure, great reason not to hit someone. However if you steal their money or woman or whatever and blame it on someone else, you get free stuff and someone else gets fucked. Sounds like a great advantage so must be a good thing to do, right?
The idea behind basing morality on "do the most advantageous thing" is that it in order to be logically consistent, if the most advantageous thing happens to be to fuck someone over and get away with it, well that must be the right thing to do then.
You argue that there is no rational basis for our morality and I would strongly disagree with this.
You also seem to be implying that instead we receive our morality from religious texts, and I will do my best to answer this here too.
From an evolutionary standpoint, if we practice behaviors that benefit ourselves, genes that underpin those tendencies are more likely to be passed on, thus increasing the prevalence of that behavior type. For humans, we are undoubtedly social creatures with the ability to communicate and work together. When we work together, our abilities transcend those of us working alone. We assign roles, we carry them out and suddenly we have an aqueduct or a system where each member of a group is forfiling a different vital role. The benefit for everybody is clear. Whats more, it is a rational response on reflection of the achievements to continue the behavior that has led you to them. Behaviors that are conducive to such endeavours are favoured and passed on.
What behaviors are beneficial then? Clearly working together for a common goal. Looking after ones family is a fairly clear candidate. What is far less clear however are the benefits of treating others as you yourself would like to be treated. Love thy neighbour. Lets use the example of killing another person, for it is the easiest to see the consequences of, as they occur immediately and drastically. Imagine yourself in a tribal village, each member of the village has her or her role within the village. By killing a member of your village, you remove the person forfiling that role. It is likely that the person was highly skilled at that role, and by killing him, you have put a strain on the entire village by forcing others to take his place, as well as theirs. You kill a hunter, you may starve for instance. This can be applied to other acts, by merely injuring or disabling that person, you still stop or hinder them from forfiling their role within the community.
While a lot has changed since those earlier times, our genes remain largely unchanged. When we help somebody in need, our body releases endorphins into our bloodstream which make ourselves feel good.
Additionally, we have the ability to empathise with others. To imagine ourselves in their shoes, generally stopping us from inflicting suffering upon them.
Lastly, on the point that we receive our morality from religious texts. Last I checked, Chimps were without any Bible or Qur'an, yet they get by without killing and raping each other just fine
Thanks for reading (if you get this far). Any and all feedback and questions are appreciated.
Nice read! I'm not sure if you are aware of it, but Dawkins did a video back in 1987 about this very subject of cooperation being explained trhough evolution. Now, this is about morals, but it refutes FieryBalrog's "do the most advantageous thing" and screw someone over using experiments involving the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The "morality from religion" argument is retarded. There is strong evidence that Neandertals cared for the injured and elderly instead of letting them die. I don't suppose the Bible told them to do it.
But "morality from evolution" implies that when we're being "good", we're doing so because we, or people with similar genes, will get a survival/reproductive advantage when we do so. And that's not nearly as appealing as "be good just because." Or is it?
To BottleAbuser: Morality from evolution only provides the cause. The effect is that we do the right thing because A) It makes us feel good B) It helps contribute to society and thus ourselves and C) We feel obliged to do the right thing according to our individual morals.
To LTT: Hadn't seen the video before, having a look through it now. Thanks for sending it
Ah, you picked the wrong person to call out :p I'm an evolutionary anthropology major and I believe evolutionary biology is the basis for all human morality. You seriously misrepresented my argument. I myself said in that thread:
And the effort has failed, I believe. The fundamental basis for human morality is our existence as (primate (mammal (animal))) organisms with the associated ancestral feelings and emotions. Logic and rationality are just modes of thinking used for justification and exploration.
My point was that the basis for morality is biological ancestry and attendant cultural constructions, not logical, coherent argument. Arguments do not create the reality of what is good and what is wrong, they just justify and influence biological urges. Thus the basis for morality is neither rational nor irrational, but beyond the realm of rationality, and thus a good realm for exploration for religious argument. My argument in essence is that much of modern morality, even that propounded by atheists, is basically belief in a religious system, which may hook into memes that propagate for reasons of ancestral feelings. Things like "all humans deserve dignity" can't be justified on any logical basis.
OK, that said, your understanding of evolutionary biology and the way it affects human society is a bit flawed. You say:
From an evolutionary standpoint, if we practice behaviors that benefit ourselves, genes that underpin those tendencies are more likely to be passed on, thus increasing the prevalence of that behavior type. For humans, we are undoubtedly social creatures with the ability to communicate and work together. When we work together, our abilities transcend those of us working alone. We assign roles, we carry them out and suddenly we have an aqueduct or a system where each member of a group is forfiling a different vital role. The benefit for everybody is clear. Whats more, it is a rational response on reflection of the achievements to continue the behavior that has led you to them. Behaviors that are conducive to such endeavours are favoured and passed on.
I take it you haven't read the selfish gene?
The basic idea behind your post is Group Selection, a nebulous idea proposed by Wynne-Edwards in the 50s where organisms that performed actions for the "good of the group" thrived because the whole group thrived.
Unfortunately, natural selection doesn't work that way. As Dawkins points out in The Selfish Gene, which is really just an argument founded on Williams and Hamilton's arguments, natural selection operates on the genetic level. This means that unless no other mechanisms are at work, a population full of altruists and selfish bastards (as a simplification) will degenerate into an equilibrium of selfish bastards unless given very specific starting conditions, according to both game theory and observation. Take a squirrel, if one squirrel gives an alarm call, it helps out the groups chance of survival, but it increases its own risk of getting caught. The gene that governs the likelihood of sounding the alarm like that will tend to die out of the population because those who carry it will proportionately die out.
Unless....
Some squirrel populations actually do give alarm calls like that. Why?
The answer was kin-selection, which Hamilton clarified. Your kin share your genes. So, if the benefit you provide to your kin means that the genes you share have a great chance of replication, and the benefit outweights the cost, the behavior is stable. Hamilton's pretty simple rule says
b*r > c where benefit (in reproductive terms) times the ratio of relatedness (% of shared genes by those receiving the benefit) has to outweigh the cost to the organism performing the action.
This is one of the fundamental bases for human behavior. If you've ever wondered why humans are so much more altruistic towards people who are their own flesh and blood, here's the basic reason. It goes back to what I was saying about the fundamentally non-rational basis for human morality.
The other basis for altruism is reciprocal shared networks, which is another complicated topic that depends heavily on game theory. But either way, theres a reason human beings are much strongly attached to those they interact with on a daily basis, their local community, and their kin, which is one reason why global initiatives that urge you to act now! about one of a million problems across the globe are so much less compelling to people than actual immediate causes in their local neighborhood. (another example of the lack of power and truth of rational argument in morality).
And then finally you said:
Lastly, on the point that we receive our morality from religious texts. Last I checked, Chimps were without any Bible or Qur'an, yet they get by without killing and raping each other just fine
Which is pretty hilarious. Please read Jane Goodalls own book "In the Shadow of Man" or any number of works on chimpanzees. They are one of the most interesting social primates and have a lot of crazy behaviors going on. The males often hunt in kin-selected packs as early humans are speculated to have done, and form tightly knit natal groups. Among other things, these groups sometimes wage war on other male groups and kill all the males and grab all the women and sometimes kill the infants. Chimpanzees are much more complex creatures than you are giving them credit for.
On January 30 2008 15:16 LTT wrote: Nice read! I'm not sure if you are aware of it, but Dawkins did a video back in 1987 about this very subject of cooperation being explained trhough evolution. Now, this is about morals, but it refutes FieryBalrog's "do the most advantageous thing" and screw someone over using experiments involving the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Here it is in 5 parts:
I know about the prisoners dilemma :p I did a paper on the iterated prisoners dilemma and the idea behind reciprocal altruism being repeated shared interactions to build trust.
However, it doesn't logically justify anything. It can't. The existence of the prisoner's dilemma doesn't tell you that co-operation is morally right. It just says, in certain circumstances (open-ended repeating interaction), cooperating may net you the highest net personal benefit. However in others, co-operating is always the lower-benefit move (closed-ended repeating interactions, one-shot interactions) so in that case does that justify defection in those cases? Now you have go beyond rationality and appeal to some sense of fairness and justice to say "no, defection is wrong even if its a one-shot prisoner's dilemma."
Lets say you have a long interaction with a drug dealer. Every week you leave a bundle of cash under a lamppost and he leaves a bag of drugs under a bench in a different park in the city. You suddenly find out that he is going to die in 5 weeks, and you know that he knows this, and that he knows you know this. Mathematically, in terms of net personal benefit, the best move is now to defect every week for the next 5 weeks. But does it become morally justified?
On January 30 2008 16:50 Alethios wrote: The effect is that we do the right thing because [...] We feel obliged to do the right thing according to our individual morals.
Alethios, I'm not sure if we're working on the same definition of "cause." If X causes Y, Y is because of X, not because of Z. Right?
Me, I'm comfortable with describing "moral behavior" as being (historically) shown to be advantageous to one's genes.
FB, the implied argument is that if there's only 1 day left before the drug dealer dies, he won't be able to retaliate if you defect, and he knows this, so he will predict that you will defect and defect to minimize his own losses. Therefore, he will defect, and you should defect. The Nash equilibrium is indeed that you should both defect. The base case is true.
However, if you try to use induction on this, you'll find that for every day except the last one, the drug dealer has the next day to retaliate (respond by defecting). Which was the reason you were both cooperating (mutual benefit, plus the threat of retaliation in the case of defection). This will apply to every day but the last day. If, somehow, you justify it for the n-1th day, you could use the same argument for any day, and you'd never have cooperated in the first place (with the knowledge that at least one of you will die first).
Oh, I'm sure there's a possible situation in which the logical course disagrees with most people's morals. I say it's a problem with those people's morals.
Also, probably a matter of word choice, but game theory does logically justify certain choices. Maybe not in a moral sense. But then again, you might argue that "justify" means something that I don't think it means.
[QUOTE]On January 30 2008 17:25 BottleAbuser wrote: [QUOTE]On January 30 2008 16:50 Alethios wrote:
FB, the implied argument is that if there's only 1 day left before the drug dealer dies, he won't be able to retaliate if you defect, and he knows this, so he will predict that you will defect and defect to minimize his own losses. Therefore, he will defect, and you should defect. The Nash equilibrium is indeed that you should both defect. The base case is true.
However, if you try to use induction on this, you'll find that for every day except the last one, the drug dealer has the next day to retaliate (respond by defecting). Which was the reason you were both cooperating (mutual benefit, plus the threat of retaliation in the case of defection). This will apply to every day but the last day. If, somehow, you justify it for the n-1th day, you could use the same argument for any day, and you'd never have cooperated in the first place (with the knowledge that at least one of you will die first). [/QUOTE]
You could say that about a one-shot too. "The best move is to cooperate because if both of you co-operate you maximize benefit."
Yet mathematically the best move in a one-shot is still to defect no matter what the other guy does.
The problem with saying "the drug dealer has the next day to retaliate" is that he's not just responding to your moves, he also has the option to pre-emptively defect. And since both of you are now trying to pre-empt each other, in every situation your pre-emptive defection gets you a higher payoff faster than if you put the defection off for longer.
Its the same here. Trying to justify arguing against the Nash eq. here is just as wrong. Reduction-ad-absurdum by induction doesn't work because as long as the time limit is open ended (i.e. "with the knowledge that at least one of you will die first") the reciprocal co-operation is in equilibrium. Only when theres a definite end point, does it degenerate into mutual defection.
This is actually of importance in the real world in studying cartel behavior. Its one of the reasons its so hard to keep cartels together for long.
I was justifying cooperation with the threat of retaliation the next day if the other one defected, so it wouldn't work for the non-iterated version.
Your argument (knowledge of the endpoint leads to fast defection) runs contrary to experimental results, where the famous tit-for-tat strategy did pretty good. From what I know, every strategy knew that it would be paired with another given strategy exactly 100 times.
You could argue that this is a result of illogical strategies, but when the goal is to accumulate the most benefit... it would be logical to choose the most successful strategy. I suppose I could say that knowledge that another agent COULD be illogical, and developing a successful strategy based on that knowledge, is logical.
wow I was going to comment on this but then FieryBalrog said everything I wanted to say better than I could've.
evolutionary psychology can give so many amazing insights into human behaviour if you're willing to accept things that make sense but sound bad on the surface (low 'truthiness').
other good books that are somewhat related: Steven Pinker - How the Mind Works Jared Diamond - The Third Chimpanzee
I see i've got a lot to reply to, i'm glad it's sparked some stimulating discussion.
I'd best get started.
On January 30 2008 16:57 FieryBalrog wrote: Ah, you picked the wrong person to call out :p I'm an evolutionary anthropology major and I believe evolutionary biology is the basis for all human morality. You seriously misrepresented my argument. I myself said in that thread:
And the effort has failed, I believe. The fundamental basis for human morality is our existence as (primate (mammal (animal))) organisms with the associated ancestral feelings and emotions. Logic and rationality are just modes of thinking used for justification and exploration.
My point was that the basis for morality is biological ancestry and attendant cultural constructions, not logical, coherent argument. Arguments do not create the reality of what is good and what is wrong, they just justify and influence biological urges. Thus the basis for morality is neither rational nor irrational, but beyond the realm of rationality, and thus a good realm for exploration for religious argument. My argument in essence is that much of modern morality, even that propounded by atheists, is basically belief in a religious system, which may hook into memes that propagate for reasons of ancestral feelings. Things like "all humans deserve dignity" can't be justified on any logical basis.
I'm sorry if any misrepresentation has occured, it certainly was not my intention. That being said, I reproduced your entire argument to Ancestral's question. If your argument was incomplete, why did you post it? Furthermore, you chose to post the argument in a thread filled with people known to (on occasion) willfully misrepresent Darwinian arguments and representatives. This video for example.
Continuing:
On January 30 2008 16:57 FieryBalrog wrote: OK, that said, your understanding of evolutionary biology and the way it affects human society is a bit flawed. You say:
From an evolutionary standpoint, if we practice behaviors that benefit ourselves, genes that underpin those tendencies are more likely to be passed on, thus increasing the prevalence of that behavior type. For humans, we are undoubtedly social creatures with the ability to communicate and work together. When we work together, our abilities transcend those of us working alone. We assign roles, we carry them out and suddenly we have an aqueduct or a system where each member of a group is forfiling a different vital role. The benefit for everybody is clear. Whats more, it is a rational response on reflection of the achievements to continue the behavior that has led you to them. Behaviors that are conducive to such endeavours are favoured and passed on.
I take it you haven't read the selfish gene?
The basic idea behind your post is Group Selection, a nebulous idea proposed by Wynne-Edwards in the 50s where organisms that performed actions for the "good of the group" thrived because the whole group thrived.
Unfortunately, natural selection doesn't work that way. As Dawkins points out in The Selfish Gene, which is really just an argument founded on Williams and Hamilton's arguments, natural selection operates on the genetic level. This means that unless no other mechanisms are at work, a population full of altruists and selfish bastards (as a simplification) will degenerate into an equilibrium of selfish bastards unless given very specific starting conditions, according to both game theory and observation. Take a squirrel, if one squirrel gives an alarm call, it helps out the groups chance of survival, but it increases its own risk of getting caught. The gene that governs the likelihood of sounding the alarm like that will tend to die out of the population because those who carry it will proportionately die out. [Part of text omitted]
Our dispute doesn't seem to be over any scientific grounds. I realise that my argument from an evolutionary standpoint was not meticulous, but nor was it ever meant to be. The thread was created in order to "Debunk Myths and Misconceptions", not educate theists to tertiary level. I chose a simple example showing how we could derive some part of our morality rationally through our Darwinian past.
At some level or another, co-operating with "moral" behavior is beneficial. Upon reflection at an achievement, we can rationally derive a moral code, which goes on to become the new benchmark. Whats more, we can rationally decide to follow our own personal moral code today because it makes us feel good.
While I agree that the fundamental basis for our morality is indeed our evolutionary development from our Darwinian past, I strongly disagree that logic and reason do not enter into the mix when forming our personal objective morality. As far as I can tell, you have not made a counter argument to this proposition.
On January 30 2008 16:57 FieryBalrog wrote: And then finally you said:
Lastly, on the point that we receive our morality from religious texts. Last I checked, Chimps were without any Bible or Qur'an, yet they get by without killing and raping each other just fine
Which is pretty hilarious. Please read Jane Goodalls own book "In the Shadow of Man" or any number of works on chimpanzees. They are one of the most interesting social primates and have a lot of crazy behaviors going on. The males often hunt in kin-selected packs as early humans are speculated to have done, and form tightly knit natal groups. Among other things, these groups sometimes wage war on other male groups and kill all the males and grab all the women and sometimes kill the infants. Chimpanzees are much more complex creatures than you are giving them credit for.
Clearly "killing and raping each other" was the wrong example here. I apologise, what I instead should have said is that "Chimpanzees are without a religious text, but still almost certainly maintain their own moral code to follow."
To go slightly off topic for a moment, but remaining on Chimpanzees. What I find particularly interesting about Chimpanzees is that the closer you look, the more similar to us they seem. One wonders whether if they had to correct mechanisms, could they learn to talk and act like us? Which obviously leads to interesting questions about where they should stand morally and legally.
On January 30 2008 16:50 Alethios wrote: The effect is that we do the right thing because [...] We feel obliged to do the right thing according to our individual morals.
Alethios, I'm not sure if we're working on the same definition of "cause." If X causes Y, Y is because of X, not because of Z. Right?
Perhaps we are working with the same definition. My argument was probably unclear. My point is this: Given we receive some degree of morality through evolution, where does this leave us? Once we have that morality, the effect on our every day decisions is that when we do act morally... we feel good about doing it, and so forth.
Keep meaning to read Pinker... watched a lecture of his however, pretty inspiring!
On January 30 2008 17:53 BottleAbuser wrote: I was justifying cooperation with the threat of retaliation the next day if the other one defected, so it wouldn't work for the non-iterated version.
Your argument (knowledge of the endpoint leads to fast defection) runs contrary to experimental results, where the famous tit-for-tat strategy did pretty good. From what I know, every strategy knew that it would be paired with another given strategy exactly 100 times.
From what I remember the strategies didn't know how long they would be interacting for? Because, if you think about it, if theyre interacting for exactly 100 turns, "Tit for Tat, defect no matter what on the last turn" always does better than Tit for Tat.
Its interesting to note though that "tit for tat" seems to be a general characteristic of human morality when dealing with non-kin, which makes sense. However, it still can't be a logical basis for morality. Even if "tit for tat" was a good long-term strategy, if the basis for any morality is optimal self-benefit, then you can never tell someone not to do something, except for the possibility of getting caught and losing trust and therefore suffering punishments. If I find a wallet on the street with loads of cash, why should I track down the owner and give the money back, when I will almost certainly never see or interact with them again? That kind of specific situation shows us that morality is a non-rational theory of behavior, and that the whole idea behind moral action is not supposed to be optimal self-benefit, which is only a side "bonus". The basis behind our action should not be "don't do this or you'll get punished in some fashion". Thats the idea behind law, not moral thinking.
Both have a role. Genes lay the foundations, but your experiences are what shapes your personality.
Facts please because if you take two babies twins ( so it is two ppl with the same genes ) and raise them in different families, when they will be adults their behaviours wont be the same.
No offense but i dont agree .
Culture and education >>>>>>>>>>>> Genes regarding human social behaviour
Btw: saying that genes are important in human social behaviour is a standart idea among racist people.
Both have a role. Genes lay the foundations, but your experiences are what shapes your personality.
Facts please because if you take two babies twins ( so it is two ppl with the same genes ) and raise them in different families, when they will be adults their behaviours wont be the same.
No offense but i dont agree .
Culture and education >>>>>>>>>>>> Genes regarding human social behaviour
Btw: saying that genes are important in human social behaviour is a standart idea among racist people.
However-- If you take two twins and raise them in the SAME family they won't be the same either... So what that shows is that they are different somehow other than the way they were raised and their culture.
EPT
