Fair comments. I say again that I have and would never claim that I can ‘prove’ that there is a God. The word proof relates to natural things; God is supernatural, so the terms don’t relate. The point is what is plausible on the balance of probabilities. Ultimately for all of us that involves belief, for you can no more prove your theories of origins than I can prove the existence of God.
Yes. The question is not value but origin.
Your questions could all be posed of the variety of competing beliefs submitted for the origin of the universe.
You state that the Big Bang contradicts a creator because a cretor would require time and spec in order to act. On what basis do you assume that? The creator could exist in a time and space we don’t understand. This is, after all, the argument of the virtual particle (‘we don’t know what caused it therefore it is uncaused’).
And why are previous or parallel universes any more plausible than an intelligent agent? There is no empirical evidence to support these notions. None. Block time is simply another attempt to consider time in a different way. It, like all other non-linear theories, encounters substantial philosophical objections. ‘Models’ and ‘explanations’ are not proof, indeed they barely qualify as evidence.
The debate over whether the natural universe had a beginning is one that we will never conclude. A logical view of time suggests strongly that time (as we understand it) had a definite beginning, and until one of the alternatives can move beyond the realm of textbook day dreaming, I suggest we treat them with the scepticism they deserve.
An untested theory or model is no more plausible simply because you put the word ‘scientific’ in front of it. Lok at the increasing scepticism over global warming models, and these involve in many ways far less complicated events and predictions. Science only confers credibility when used honourably.
I’ll do better. Google it. You could also google the term “Nature red in tooth and claw”. It’s a very well worn phrase.
I’m very familiar with the phrase “nature red in tooth and claw.” What I was challenging you about was the phrase “tooth and claw society.” You defined it as a society “based on the evolutionary premise that actions are motivated by survival,” and you insultingly implied that it was common in the literature.
So yet again you’ve been caught being condescending regarding a point where you were wrong. I guess it would be too much to ask that you acknowledge it.
1> The pressure is not just lack of population GROWTH, it is a probable DEPLETION of population. This will be exascerbated by the likelihood of competition impacting disproportionately on female and young members of communities because they would be targets of aggression. This then reduces the ability of the group to replenish.
2> Your comment about your neighbours leafblower may relate to 2010, with a fully evolved sense of morality, but that wouldn’t have helped earlier groups who face extinction from the causes I have outlined. This is the whole point. If the aversion to murder evolved, there is an awfully long time in whihc is development is likely to have wiped out the population.
3> I haven’t even mentioned infant mortality or disease.
3> Your point about the successful ‘killers’ prospering is an interesting one, however it relies on the assumption that those successful will be ‘fully’ successful, and this is unlikely. Let me give you an example. The first nations people of my country were resident here for around 500 years before British colonisation (mid 1800’s). Anthropologists maintain that this people group were no more than 50 years from extinction due to competition for resources and the attendant ‘warrior’ mentality. Disease also played a part. Even the dominant tribes were experiencing negative population growth.
Gee whizz you are a sensitive chap. The expression tooth and claw is well known. A tooth and claw society operates on the principles of ‘tooth and claw’. It’s not that complicated is it?
“On into the 20th century, the enthusiastic Darwinist Richard Dawkins used ‘red in tooth and claw’ in The Selfish Gene, to summarize the behaviour of all living things which arises out of the survival of the fittest doctrine.”
There we go…happy now?
Meaning
A reference to the sometimes violent natural world, in which predatory animals unsentimentally cover their teeth and claws with the blood of their prey as they kill and devour them.
Do you not realize that what you’ve described here is exactly the selection pressure that would naturally (no supernatural influence necessary) result in an empathic instinct in a population? Congratulations, I hope now there will be no more nonsense from you about how the empathic response could not have resulted from evolution!
Ever hear of The First Rule of Holes?
Why? The empathetic instinct is not a reaction to anything. It is ‘hardwired’, as many have been at pains to state. Indeed, as populations diminish, any survival instinct would push the survivors to fight even more for resources, particularly breeding options.
Keep trying.
The value is the origin: if people are sensible enough to realize the value of that stuff, they can of course work consciously to promote it – and if they’re not, we can of course (a) postulate a whole bunch of different cultures that each try different stuff, and (b) figure that cultures fall by the wayside if they fail to hit on the valuable stuff while others keep on keeping on by dint of having valuable stuff.
But as nifty as that second step might be, I’d argue that we’re pretty danged solid on the “people are sensible enough” step; just add your answer of “yes” to my answer of “yes” and throw in “yes” after “yes” from other folks hereabouts, and it quickly becomes obvious that we can of course notice the value of that stuff, whereupon it’s not too surprising that we can all sign on for a moral code that condemns rape and murder while praising acts of benevolence, and thus and such, because we prize the good results; answering the question of value means we can then get by with “mere reason” or “enlightened self-interest” or whatever you want to call it.
Only if you base your assumptions (for that’s all they are) on today’s human. But evolution necessitates we step into the shoes of animals millions of years ago. There is no way you can suppose they had anything like this level of sophistocation. It is more probable that in the ‘tooth and claw’ struggle for survival, empathetic responses would be abandoned before they have any chance to take root.
You also need to address the conflict between the notions of ‘hard wiring’ and ‘survival instinct’. If you claim that a survival instinct is behind the development of empathy, I suggest these objections put that idea in serious trouble. If empathy is ‘hard wired’, then no amount of appeal to ‘people are sensible’ will answer to where the ‘hard wiring’ came from.
The empathic instinct is a reaction to selection pressure, just like all our other instincts. If you take two tribes of a primitive social primate, there will be one that’s on average somewhat more empathic. The tribe that’s more empathic will have a survival advantage over the other (for the reason you pointed out in your example). The one with the survival advantage fares better, produces more little primates that survive to adulthood.
Over thousands and thousands of generations, a social species will develop in such a way that its members have empathy for each other.
This is all very basic evolution theory. I’m not sure where you learned evolution, but your idea seems to be a distorted caricature of the way it works.
No, it’s probable that – even in the wild – such responses have value within the group, be it a tribe or a clan or whatever; even animals hunt in packs. And animals go plenty further, as well; reciprocal altruism isn’t just useful in the here and now among sophisticates; it’s found in the jungle; it aids survival. It happens. It works.
What, it can’t be both? Possibly we’re “hard-wired” to get hungry in certain situations, and yet sensible individuals can in sober moments of course realize that eating is good for us. Possibly we’re “hard-wired” to be afraid of the dark, or to enjoy sex, or to have a fight-or-flight reaction kick in under various circumstances, or whatever – but none of that precludes sensible individuals engaging in sober reflection from accurately concluding that, while such impulses aren’t always helpful and so routinely need a dose of scrutiny, they do more good than harm in the long run.
So, okay, figure we’re hard-wired to sympathize readily with others – and sometimes that’s helpful, and sometimes it’s not. And it’s far from the only impulse competing for one’s attention; do you risk your life to help someone in danger, or does the ‘survival instinct’ outweigh the feeling of empathy? Do you rest when you’re tired, or do you keep on until the work is done? Do you flee in stark terror or do you grit your teeth and set your spear to kill the lion so you can eat tonight? The existence of an impulse doesn’t end the debate; it starts one.
I’m not sure why aigonz thinks there’s this dichotomy between “hard-wired” and “survival instinct.” I mean, the survival instinct itself is hard-wired.
The problem we have is you putting the word “society” on the end and then pretending that this is some kind of acknowledged sociological term with a well known meaning. It ain’t. You made it up yourself.
Just to be sure I googled the term “tooth and claw society”. First result… this very thread. Other results had no apparent connection to scientific literature of any discipline.
You may now commence your usual hand-waving and goal-post shifting.
Where is your rebuttal of my argument? All you have done is to restate your ideology. Try answering these points directly.
1> If empathy evolved, it was not always present.
2> Until it was, populations had no reason to constrain their ‘tooth and claw’ fight for survival.
3> The already fledgling populations would not survive ‘thousands and thousands’ of generations of a ‘tooth and claw’ fight for survival.
1> Altruism in the wild is observable NOW. But the claim is that it evolved. My point is how did the earliest population survive until it did?
2> If it is both (hard wired and survival) then a> you contradict other posters here, and b> yu will need to address BOTH of my points above.