What hope is there for humanity if we are products of natural selection

[Wesley_Clark]

@Valteron

Wesley, the two mistakes people make about evolution are to either dismiss it outright because they think it contradicts their belief in God (as with creationists) or else to make it an omnipotent God-substitute, which you seem to be close to doing.

Evolution is nothing more than a mechanism that operates without any reference to purpose, direction or morality. Simply put, it is the explanation of how things work, and nothing more. I may explain to you how a power mower works. The fact that that a careless user of that mower may someday take off a kid’s foot has nothing to do with that mechanical explanation.

May I tell you what I consider to be one of the most charming and amusing theories in present evolutionary science? At one time, it was assumed that in human evolution, human females developed larger birth canals to let through babies with larger heads (with more brains in them). Even today, if you have ever seen a cat or cow or dog give birth, you will notice that letting out the head of their newborn is no problem at all. Now just ask a human female who has given birth what it is like letting out our giant mellon-heads!

In other words, it was assumed that the trend to larger brains put pressure on the species to develop wider birth canals because (horrible as it sounds) every time a small-opening female tried to give birth, she died in labour with the big-headed kid still stuck in her. Over many generations, wide-canal females survived better and had more offspring with big brains.

Since walking upright requires a wider pelvic gridle, it was assumed that two-legged walking was a result of this same evolutionary pressure, because females with wide pelvises could BOTH walk upright more easily AND died less in chilbirth .

That was the old theory: Bigger brains require wider pelvis to keep females from dying in childbirth, and wider pelvis lets members of that species walk upright more easily. It seemed to make sense.

Imagine our surprise when discoveries of fossils of early ancestors and proto-humans in Africa showed that they walked perfectly upright millions of years before their brains started to get bigger! The upright stance and the wider birth canal are there, but the offspring’s heads were just as small as before. Females of the period must have just popped out those newborns like a pit out of a boiled peach!

So upright posture led to wider pelvic openings, but just as a side-effect. The babies popping out of those wider openings would not have much larger brains until many generations later. Kind of like a garage with a two-car door and all you park in it is a motorcycle. But over the years, the advantage of larger brains in survival started to favour bigger and bigger brains. And luckily, the larger birth canals acquired eons earlier did not prevent this development.

But then why did the two legged-stance develop at all? Well, it is now believed that it was the result of forests disappearing in a drier climate that favored grasslands. Apes almost always walk on all fours. But in tall grass they can stand up to see if a predator is coming, or to look for a nearby tree to run to, and even take a few poorly-executed steps on their hind legs.

As our ancestors started living more and more in grasslands the ability to stand up and to stay standing, and even to walk upright, was heavily favoured by evolutionary survival needs. Four-foot “conservatives” did not see the leopards and lions coming and could not spot places to run to. They could not see the other members of their group above the grass to see how they were reacting and where they were fleeing. And two-legged apes can sprint faster than four-legged on flat ground.

So why do I find this story so charming? Because it is so typical of the completely random and unplanned nature of evolution. We like to think that human intelligence was something “meant” to happen. In fact, our larger brains are only the accidental by-product of two-legged walking that developed for a reason entirely unrelated to brain size.

So here is the punch line to this rather long story. The reason we have moon landings and space exploration, the reason we have Newtonian phsics and computers, medical science, the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, the theory of relativity Beethoven’s Ninth symphony and Plato’s Republic is that a few million years ago, some ape-like creature wanted to keep from getting his/her ass chomped by a leopard. Hilarious, is it not?

But that is just how evolution works.

I know evolution is pointless though, and I’ve pondered exactly what you’re referring to. However I’ve always heard we became smart just because several million years ago Africa’s climate changed and suddenly we lived in an environment that was full of faster & stronger predators, so we evolved intelligence and toolmaking to survive and compete. Had we not walked upright perhaps we never would’ve evolved intellect and we would’ve gone extinct.

Right now scientists work with genetic algorithms to try to solve engineering problems. If you set up parameters for a jet engine and tell the computer to ‘evolve’ a jet engine out of hundreds of component parts arranged in different fashions after 200 generations or so you get a more efficient jet engine than the one you started with. The parameters of evolution as we have lived it are to survive and reproduce, and behaviors, outlooks & morals that promote that get passed on. We are no different than the computer programs, we are just really good at what we are designed to do, which is survive.

My real concern is that I don’t know how we find meaningful morals, if we are even capable of meaningful morals, or what. If I give money to help end childhood mortality in Africa, I am just promoting survival of the group I identify with (humanity as a whole). Yeah I’m helping to end pain and misery, but the only reasons those pains and misery exist in the first place is because they help us survive as individuals & as groups. Where do you turn to to find meaningful standards in that situation?

If we were all living in a genetic algorithm computer program and we were evolved to be efficient jet engines but we got lucky and became technologically proficient enough to escape that program, where do we turn to find new standards? You can’t just go on following those standards, trying to be the best jet engine you can be because those standards are totally amoral and brutal.

[Marley23]

@Wesley Clark

Anyway, when you really realize what bullshit it is it becomes sad.

I have no idea why this is sad. I think you’re being a little melodramatic, really.

What hope is there for us if everything we have (good and bad) is just a tool to propagate our species as individuals and as small groups?

What hope are you saying this eliminates? All this would mean, I think, is that we have an evolutionary nudge (or an extra motivation) to help the ‘greater good’ in addition to making our own choices. It’s not as if evolution forces you to do anything.

There is no objective definition of good.

Old news, if you ask me.

What is good is just what promotes survival of individuals and of groups.

Is it supposed to do something else? When I give money to charities, in some fashion I’m attempting to help those individuals and groups survive. That’s my goal. Should it be something different?

So where do we get meaningful morality if all we have to moralize on is based on amoral genetic self interest?

I’ve never really understood why people insist morality is only meaningful if factors like nature or evolution or humanity aren’t involved. Why does morality have to be handed down from on high? Yeah, we made it up, and morality rarely lacks some element of self-interest, even if it’s only “helping people makes me feel good.” I don’t see the wrong there.

[Apos]

You are labouring under the illusion that the ability to reduce things means that they are no more than the accounting of their parts. Sure, there may well be an underlying explanatory substrate to why you feel love. So what? It’s still love. You still feel it. It still has all the qualities you have always admired in it. If you come to a deeper understanding of its origins, how it works, and so forth, why is that bad?

It would furthermore be an example of the genetical fallacy to presume anything from its origin or functioning implying anything about what one should or should not use it for or think of it.

As I’ve argued, of course, I agree with you that much of conventional morality seems to have more to do with defending one’s own privalege than it does any sort of coherent moral standard. I’ve pointed to the protection of animals from suffering as something that it is both probably ethical, but generally too burdensome on how people enjoy living their lives to get much consideration, despite the arguments for it being pretty sound. There are any number of other problems with conventional morality (for instance, Unger’s example of why anyone that considers someone who wouldn’t save a drowning child for fear of getting their clothes wet should also consider anyone who buys luxury items to be just as equally monstrous).

[Apos]

Right now scientists work with genetic algorithms to try to solve engineering problems.

Isn’t that in part an answer to your question? Humans evolved through evolutionary processes, but that doesn’t prevent them from having and pursuing goals and values of their own reasoning and design.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Apos

You are labouring under the illusion that the ability to reduce things means that they are no more than the accounting of their parts. Sure, there may well be an underlying explanatory substrate to why you feel love. So what? It’s still love. You still feel it. It still has all the qualities you have always admired in it. If you come to a deeper understanding of its origins, how it works, and so forth, why is that bad?

It would furthermore be an example of the genetical fallacy to presume anything from its origin or functioning implying anything about what one should or should not use it for or think of it.

As I’ve argued, of course, I agree with you that much of conventional morality seems to have more to do with defending one’s own privalege than it does any sort of coherent moral standard. I’ve pointed to the protection of animals from suffering as something that it is both probably ethical, but generally too burdensome on how people enjoy living their lives to get much consideration, despite the arguments for it being pretty sound. There are any number of other problems with conventional morality (for instance, Unger’s example of why anyone that considers someone who wouldn’t save a drowning child for fear of getting their clothes wet should also consider anyone who buys luxury items to be just as equally monstrous).

The problem is that the system under which we operate has no concern for our input or well being. So a new system is necessary. If all we are going to do for all eternity is in one form or another try to figure out how to survive and pass on our genes to be obedient to a set of parameters that is unconscious and amoral then we are wasting our talents.

I don’t feel understanding why we do what we do is bad. I think it is great. I don’t feel we need morality to come from ‘on high’, nor do I even feel it is possible. What I do think we need is a set of morality that is actually based on ourselves and organic life itself, instead of one that uses us as tools to throw away and manipulate, which the current system does. If we help people out with charity for example, we aren’t really helping them as much as we are helping natural selection, which is an amoral system. We feel we are helping them, but both of our emotions are designed by natural selection. We only help those useful to the group or those whose DNA is similiar to ours by and large. And most of our help is just designed to pass on their genes better.

Why is this bad? Because those rules have no concern for us. Plus I’m sure there are far more effective and constructive rules and parameters for existense other than ‘pass on your genetic information and form groups to do it’.

I understand that existence itself is amoral and that organic civilization is a speck in the cosmos, that our standards do not apply anywhere else and that good & evil are just based on individual & group survival. That doesn’t bother me per se, what bothers me is how the system is totally indifferent to our well being and perhaps this is the best we can shoot for.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Marley23

I have no idea why this is sad. I think you’re being a little melodramatic, really.

And nobody does it better. You should see me at Pizza hut when they don’t refill my drinks fast enough.

[AHunter3]

Wesley Clark:

I’ve always heard we became smart just because several million years ago Africa’s climate changed and suddenly we lived in an environment that was full of faster & stronger predators, so we evolved intelligence and toolmaking to survive and compete. Had we not walked upright perhaps we never would’ve evolved intellect and we would’ve gone extinct.

But given enough time, some species would have stumbled, evolutionarily speaking, into individual-conscousness + social-hive-nature, and then there you’d have it. (It may not be the Holy Grail of evolutionary opportunity — there may in fact be important opportunities that have not been realized, at least on this planet yet — but it’s certainly fantastic)

We are no different than the computer programs, we are just really good at what we are designed to do, which is survive.

No, we are designed to thrive. Survive is just bare-bones prerequisite material.

My real concern is that I don’t know how we find meaningful morals, if we are even capable of meaningful morals, or what. If I give money to help end childhood mortality in Africa, I am just promoting survival of the group I identify with (humanity as a whole). Yeah I’m helping to end pain and misery, but the only reasons those pains and misery exist in the first place is because they help us survive as individuals & as groups. Where do you turn to to find meaningful standards in that situation?

What you are really asking is “Is the universe, and the various laws of nature that apply to human behavioral patterns such as the rules governing natural selection etc, benign?”

In fact, since we can’t assess that at all outside of the feelings we have about “how things oughta be”, what you are asking is “Do the feelings we have about how things really ought to be — the idealistic heart-warming hope-bringing stuff that imbues life with dignity and appeals to our sense of goodness — have any connection to the traits that the laws of nature are going to select for and cause to persevere within us as a species?”

You can’t just go on following those standards, trying to be the best jet engine you can be because those standards are totally amoral and brutal.

Again, “brutal” need only enter the picture if there’s some kind of disconnect between “the best jet engine you can be” and “the most efficient jet engine possible”. You’re afraid there’s no connection between “efficient” and “best” (or between “good” and “well-equipped for survival”).

I am of the opinion that there is no such disconnect. While Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t hold copyright or patent on them, I can trust that most readers of this post will know the ideas I speak of if I wave my hand in his general direction and say “those ideas”, yes? The Sermon on the Mount / Sermon on the Plains stuff. Love your enemies, forgive, don’t punish, share, treat others as you would be treated, etc. That stuff. I am of the opinion that it is indeed those traits that are affirmatively selected for by the forces of evolution w/regards to our species (and of any other hypothetical species that are also individually conscious and also part of a society).

[Apos]

The problem is that the system under which we operate has no concern for our input or well being.

Well, it has no concerns whatsoever. It’s, essentially nothing more than some complicated patterns that emerge from our particular happenstance. You are acting like it is a system that WANTS us to be any certain way, and that’s just not the case. It’s not even true that every feature of ourselves serves some explicit advantage for reproduction.

So a new system is necessary.

Why though? It is only our present situation that places moral actions in any context. Killing someone is considered bad because we are beings with wills that oppose being killed. If we weren’t there wouldn’t be any meaningful context to speak about killing being wrong. Is killing cartoon characters in a story wrong? No.

Our basic morality seems well suited to both who we are and what we want to be. It’s developed, via both reason and history, and it’s an ongoing debate, one of the most fruitful and interesting in human history. Why does it’s exact origin matter?

If all we are going to do for all eternity is in one form or another try to figure out how to survive and pass on our genes to be obedient to a set of parameters that is unconscious and amoral then we are wasting our talents.

See, I’m not getting what you are saying. At one moment you seem to be saying that our every motivation and desire is ultimately because of some evolutionary need. And then on the other hand you speak about needing something more, or having desires and ambitions and talents that are more. Which is it?

If passing on our genes is something we value, then what’s wrong with maximizing it?

And how do you explain me, who will never, by choice, pass on any genes? I don’t want to. I’m a product of natural selection, but natural selection at one point took a turn that decided that for a particular place and time that may now be long irrelevant, by and large, more creative and willful minds could be good for survival. And thus now we have them. If that’s not bad for survival, the worst that will happen is that we cease to exist as a species. But that doesn’t mean that in the meantime I can’t live my life as I value it.

If we help people out with charity for example, we aren’t really helping them as much as we are helping natural selection, which is an amoral system.

Again, that could be a substrate, sure. But how does that negate the idea of helping them being a good and moral thing to do and thus something you should do? If you’re doing it, and that’s good, what’s the problem? So what if it also happens to help perpetuate the species?

We feel we are helping them, but both of our emotions are designed by natural selection. We only help those useful to the group or those whose DNA is similiar to ours by and large. And most of our help is just designed to pass on their genes better.

In general, your statements are wrong. It may be that our inclination to help others first developed as a means to help pass on familial genes. But we’ve clearly taken that drive and done something with it that has little to do with the original need in the way back when. We care for the sterile. We care for those as distantly related to us as possibly can be. We even care for other species. What more should we care about before you admit that it’s not all gene perpetuating? Neutrons?

Why is this bad? Because those rules have no concern for us. Plus I’m sure there are far more effective and constructive rules and parameters for existense other than ‘pass on your genetic information and form groups to do it’.

But only if we have them. And we do. So?

I understand that existence itself is amoral and that organic civilization is a speck in the cosmos, that our standards do not apply anywhere else and that good & evil are just based on individual & group survival. That doesn’t bother me per se, what bothers me is how the system is totally indifferent to our well being and perhaps this is the best we can shoot for.

I think you are looking at “the system” as if it was a direct comparison to some religious theology designed by someone. It’s not. The “system” that we function in day to day is called civilization, society, webs of friends and families. I don’t understand why their origin in a partilcuar unintentional clausal chain would possibly make any of that worth less or less valid.

[Marley23]

@Wesley Clark

The problem is that the system under which we operate has no concern for our input or well being. So a new system is necessary.

What system are you suggesting? How are you suggesting it would be created?