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The Drive For Altruism Is Hardwired
Dekortage writes "The Washington Post is reporting on recent neuroscience research indicating that the brain is pre-wired to enjoy altruism — placing the interests of others ahead of one's own. In studies, '[G]enerosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex... Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.' Such research 'has opened up a new window on what it means to be good,' although many philosophers over recorded history have suggested similar things."
Altruism != generosity even if they go hand in hand.
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The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others. For those that didnt know.
What does this say about people who complain about the GPL and open source? (The GPL is a cancer. Open source is un-American.)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Now we just need to develop a reliable test for this, and make it a requirement for public office.
So I guess chicks that put a man's sexual interests ahead of her own...REALLY lights up her own pleasure response!!!
I gotta make a note of this one...sounds like material to submit for an investigational grant!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
what they are saying is people are only generous because it feels good. That is, if it did not give them that feel good feeling, they would not be generous. Thus, everyone is generous for their own selfish purposes. Ergo, everyone is 100% selfish.
Go ahead, try to follow my logic. I dare you.
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Well, I wasn't, but that's because it gave me more pleasure for someone else to get it.
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Get off my launchpad!
First post
It is thus logical that a truly superior human will learn to abandon any primitive altruistic tendencies.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
If it's so "basic" to the brain then why is it the exception in human society and not the rule?
Sure you've got the basic need as a parent to provide for the family and to others of your pack/tribe. But "altruism" in its known sense as just giving to somebody you don't even know? If it's so "basic" we'd all be in the homeless kitchens in Thanksgiving (in the US) instead of at home.
I know it may be slightly warm and fuzzy, but imagine a world where we lifted each other up, instead of constantly tearing each other down. Not to say that due criticism would be curtailed, but instead that our efforts be focused on others, instead of ourselves. The world would be much easier if we weren't constantly bombarded with what could be summed up as "drama" from others and instead worked together. It's just really hard when everyone around you is a stranger, the idea of family has been all but lost, and the world is going at a pace that you can hardly keep up with.
...that's similar to that when you get food and/or sex from doing "good things", doesn't that possibly mean that doing good things is historically/genetically programmed into us as one common way to get more more food and sex? And if you are doing good deeds in anticipation of that "dinner and a movie," it isn't really altruistic, is it?
warning, possible flamebait follows:
If you're a Christian, is it impossible to be altruistic? If you do good deeds, don't you ingratiate yourself witht he Lord, thereby increasing your chance of being admitted to heaven? So, even if you don't really "get" anything for doing good deeds, you're still going to get a reward for it in the afterlife right? Which would mean it wasn't really altrustic.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
God's not gonna be pleased to hear about this one...
What this is saying is that people are basically good. This makes you wonder what influence causes us to behave in the selfish, malicious manner we have all come to love.
Batman would never in a million years type up something of that sort. Shame on you for impersonating my lord and savior.
I like basketball!!1!
If this pans out, it's gonna play hell with objectivist theory.
OK, just to give the atheistic, evolutionary response: altruism is a form of kin selection. If I act altruistically regarding my kin, my genes, through them, still make it into the next generation.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
"Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable."
So, if altruism creates pleasure in the brain, is it still considered altruism? You ARE getting something out of it, after all.
I knew I should have paid more attention in my humanities courses, particularly Philosophy.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Altruism can impart a survival and reproductive advantage, although not directly but indirectly. Altruism can benefit the survivability of your immediate community. A stronger community increases your chance of survival in hard times. Its the same argument for morality being involved.
I'd suspect a lot of our higher functions, such as altruism, charity, morals, and the like are influenced a lot more by our genetic programming than people would like to believe.
Drugs, sex, violence, pigging out, now altruism. All are chemical reactions that make us feel good without necessarily doing good. Are humanity's signals disconnected from their results?
technical writing / development
It is co-operation. The human being is a social animal because if you don't watch each other's backs, the sabre tooth tiger will first eat the other guy and then eat you. (A simplistic example of why if we are all selfish, we will all just die out).
But didn't God give man freewill? If so then why bother to "hardwire" altruism?
If the evidence is that giving triggers a similar part of the brain as food or sex, might it be that those who give are anticipating receiving food or sex?
...."
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"Honey, take a look at this paycheck. Want it?"
"Sure. I made meatloaf. Mrs. Green called and they are having a garage sale at the school, to raise money for the dance. You know about the dance, the one I told you about last week when we were picking out the wallpaper for the kitchen. Mrs. Green says they should be able to open up the whole gym for the dance, unless the football team wins at State."
"It's a really big paycheck."
"Are you even listening to me? You don't care at all! All I am to you is a cook and bedwarmer. Why won't you
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[I don't remember my point.]
sigs, as if you care.
there could be many more parts of the brain that derive immense pleasure in the P.T. Barnum Effect: scamming some poor chump out of his hard earned money. Or from the Highlander Movie Viewer Effect: lopping the head off of some S.O.B. just because he's annoying.
Altruism is also observed in vampire bats, curiously, who remember who shared blood with them previously, and who did not. Altruism is a simple kind of savings scheme. When you are lucky, you share. When you are unlucky, you borrow. It depends on a good memory and a set of rules that have to be instinctive, so everyone agrees with them. (No point if everyone randomly invents "good" and "bad" behaviour.)
Guilt, on the other hand, is waiting for the blow to fall. We don't feel guilty when there's no risk of being punished, and we don't act altruistic when there's no-one watching.
So even if the moral compass is in-built, it only activates in the presence of others.
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What you're missing is that evolution doesn't care about the individual, only the species.
In our early history, tribes that were altruistic would have had a survival advantage--the injured or sick would have been cared for by others, even though it didn't benefit the carers. They would often have recovered and gone on to father descendants, or at least care for the kids while the parents were off hunter-gathering.
Meanwhile, the Ayn Rand tribe would have left the sick and injured to die, reducing their tribe's size and its genetic diversity (and hence their adaptability) as well as possibly losing the benefit of those who might have recovered if cared for. This would have damaged the tribe's survival chances relative to the altruistic tribe.
So it makes perfect evolutionary sense that we are wired to help others of our species at our own personal expense. It's exactly what I'd expect given natural selection; in fact, my first reaction to the summary was "What, this is news?"
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If I want to give money to a charity, that's selfish, but by denying my selfish desire and refusing to give to charity, I become altruistic.
Chalk another one up to the big list of predispositions I cleansed myself of...
It's usually harder to prove something doesn't exist than it is to prove something does exist.
Some Christians do understand this in a way, but use it to (IMO) argue themselves into a corner when they say that God can only be disproven through exhaustion. Proof by exhaustion is not a realistic demand, this is why the burden of proof is generally supposed to be on the people that try to claim the affirmative. They try to duck any request to prove the existence of any deity at all, other than maybe trying to say that proof of God's signature is everywhere in nature, which really isn't a proof at all as far as I understand it.
Both sides of the argument are too often prone to argument by ridicule though, and that's irritating.
these people were obviously conditioned to expect food and sex in exchange for sums of money.
I see alot of people discussing what this means... It's all very simple. Way back in time when we all lived in small tribes we were surrounded mostly by people who we shared DNA with. Most of the people around us were immediate or extended family. We can also assume that a group of people who are sometimes generous with each other will survive better than people who are strictly selfish. If we put those two facts together and stir it with some evolution... what do you get? People who help each other are more likely to survive as a group. So if we have two tribes, one family that has only selfish tendencies and one that has generous tendencies; the generous family is more likely to survive as a whole. There's no secret here. Nothing ground breaking has happened, simply more evidence for evolution.
That would be a great argument if altruism was limited to one's family. But what drives people to perform selfless work for non-relatives? These same people may someday be in competition with you for resources of some sort. That is the exact opposite strategy to natural selection.
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So when they pass the plate in church, it's kind of like public sex?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I have no desire to believe in a super-being. Ergo, half of your assertion is inaccurate and your argument is moot.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
According to evolutionary theory: since society benefits the individual evolution ought to favor traits that help form and maintain societies. For instance: faith and altruism. I would imagine other animals that live in colonies or collectives have similar mechanisms. Perhaps not faith, but feel reward for performing whatever their limited role is before dying without the opportunity or even ability to reproduce.
What's most surprising is that scientists are still surprised by this, as if they have never heard of evolution or thought about it's affect on society. Perhaps these are the same scientists who agree that emotions are in primitive parts of our brain yet insist "primitive" animals don't have emotions.
I'm not sure why the Post is just getting around to this when everybody else was discussing it back in March:
USA Today
The BBC
Reuters. This last one has some interesting speculation on why altruism may be related to the similarly-entrenched idea that it's not OK to kiss your sister.
I was going to put something troll-ish in here about the fact that Slashdot seems to be serving up quite a bit of this warmed-over stuff recently--days and days after it's hit the mainstream news outlets. It would probably be a more effective use of time to go and read the article about Google and malware...
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
another study that aids reckless selfish people in justifying and rationalizing their habits and routines. don't get me wrong on this. my mother has worked with special / mr / autistic children since i was about 13, and she is still in the field all these years later. i, myself couldnt handle that type of work, but she genuinely cares about the children (amazing how few of those types of teachers exist in the usa anymore). my problem is that people use a supposed diagnosis to back up their actions.
"oh, sorry i threw that coffee in your face, im bipolar"
who cares? im bipolar, when i was a child they tried to put me on lithum. i was one of those kids that refused to take medication, and during the initial years of my diagnosis --i also-- used it as an excuse. my add and bipolar2 became my pass to do whatever i wanted whenever i wanted. a few years later i realized just how childish that is and snapped out of it--but alot of people dont. ever. does that make me better than them? no. i do believe i have the seemingly rare ability to judge myself and my actions. im convinced other people had it, too, they choose not to use it until it became lost in a perpetual habit.
some of those autistic children were something else. almost like savants. one was really mild mr, he couldn't add 1 and 1 regardless of how many times you told him how-- but, if you played a rap song one time, he could repeat the lyrics word for word (and did, much to my mothers disliking.)
i always thought as a child "i cant wait to grow up, adult life will be great, all this childish nonsense will be a thing of the past" only to find out, the childish nonsense doesn't disappear, it matures into something far worse.
I mean other than electroshock or a blow to the head?
As I write this, one person owes me $80, another owes me $75, one owes me $30, and two more owe me ten each. I'm storing three homeless friends' possessions in my basement for them until they can get back on their feet.
Somebody help me! I'm worse than a junkie or a runner!
-mcgrew
The idea that, if you get in competition with them over resources, they may in turn be more altruistic to you, as opposed to Joe down the street?
Neither. Evolution "cares" most of all about genes. An extremely interesting view of "altruism" from evolution's point of view can be found on Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
Humanity is a social animal. We form packs. We are hardwired to be pack-supporting; you see a huge natural disaster and people rush to the area to help...They don't turn and run the other way. A child gets lost in the mountains, and you get hordes of volunteers tromping around and getting themselves lost in the search.
This is not behaviour that is smart for the individual. Risking your own life for others? Not something you see often in the animal kingdom. But it is something that occurs among humans, and it is a big part of what we consider "good".
Philosophically, ethics falls into two distinct branches: relativism, and objectivism.
Relativism basically states that good and evil are relative...Relative to you personally, relative to your culture, relative to your psychological state. It fits with people's differing views on what is right and wrong; I think it's right, you think it's wrong, we're both correct. Basically it's worthless. If you're a relativist, morals are meaningless, because you can only apply moral judgements to yourself, and what the hell point is there in that?
Objectivism states that good and evil are objective...That there are things that everyone should agree are right and everyone should agree are wrong. Logically, objectivism must be correct, because the alternative is relativism, and relativism is worthless. But no one agrees about right and wrong, so how can it be right?
But when you look at it in terms of humanity as a social animal, it becomes a little clearer. The "Robin Hood" story is a classic example: Stealing is bad, except when you're stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, right? Obviously the group that is being stolen from (the rich) still think it's bad, but since the vast majority of people are not rich, historically it's been considered good.
Mill came up with the theory of Utilitarianism to attempt to explain this sort of thing: in a nutshell, whatever makes the majority happy is right, and whatever makes the majority unhappy is wrong. Politicians live by this one, because they never have to actually consider the greater good, they just have to make 51% happy until the next election. So adding a tax on gasoline to reduce consumption and using the money to pay for better public transit and research into cleaner energy, while probably the "right" thing to do, would never fly because it would piss off 80% of people and the guy'd get canned in the next election by someone running on a "repeal the gas tax" platform.
So utilitarianism clearly needs some work...Reduce "good" into "happy" and you end up with nothing but bread and circuses, because that would make people happy, and happy == good. This, in a nutshell, is the problem with democracy.
So we have a hardwired inclination toward altruism. It definitely explains a few things. The problem is, humanity has a lot of hardwiring. We have tons of instincts, reflexes, automatic responses. Most people learn to override those things as part of their day to day life. Can't live purely on instinct. So what value is it to have a piece of altrustic hardwiring in a society that preaches just the opposite? Altruism is an irrational response, from the point of view of the thing that's about to put its squishy coropreal self in harm's way.
Still, it's nice to know that, if you're trying to be altrusitic, if you're trying to be selfless, you're instinctive responses are going to be in line with your conscious actions. Maybe everyone...most everyone...really does have some good in them, whether they like it or not.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
For one, the research doesn't show that altruism is "hardwired", despite what Shankar Vedantam writes in the Washington Post. The brain has very little "hardwired" responses, especially for such complex and abstract behavior as "altruism". There are organs, nerve bundles, and the like, and surely some consequential neural connects at all scales of influence are determined by human genetics in a very consistent behavior (eg, the 12 cranial nerves). But even those "hardwired" connections aren't well understood, nor are the possibilities that environment after conception can make them very different.
For another, just because altruism stimulates (some of) the same brain parts that sex and good food stimulate, doesn't mean that altruism is not "higher moral behavior". If higher moral behavior didn't stimulate neurons that we feel as pleasure, then higher moral behavior wouldn't feel good. Why not? Does god hate pleasure? Must all pleasure come from doing wrong? What kind of sick, immoral person thinks like that?
This is just another journalist copout: we're not really good, or even responsible for what we do, because "we're wired that way". It's stupid, immoral, and should feel awful. But journalists like Vedantam and their editors seem to like it.
--
make install -not war
Behavioral neuroscience has been putting out some interesting findings (look at any issue of Scientific American Mind), even if they are easily distorted and used as excuses for crappy behavior. That includes, IMHO, conservatives who are looking to neuro to justify their worldview - selfishness, selfishness, selfishness. But reality cuts in many ways, and at the end of the day science is going to reflect the whole of human nature expressed across all society's stripes. So while there is plenty of work supporting the reality of selfish, cowardly and lazy citizen that conservatism presupposes, the other side of human nature is becoming equally represented, in research like TFA talks about.
On an even happier note, game theory continues to undercut the "rational economic actor" that underlies the precious free-marketeering so many slashdotters jerk their knees to... All in all, it looks like, while behavioral neuro is going to spawn a thousand shitty covers of Time Magazine ("Are You Hard-Wired to Hate Mexicans?") at the end of the day, a lot of bull is going to get cut, and people will be brought down to earth, de-ideologized. That's good.
Ignore these heathen scientist and their secular morality fantasies, everyone going to heaven knows that true morals come from [insert religion] and atheists are immoral swine. Oh, and don't judge others.
So I guess these researchers have never played EVE Online?
Scammers, pirates, ore thieves, gankers, suiciders, n00b killers, bullies and griefers.
(of course, there are some nice folks still playing. I salute you, 3 people outside my corp I've never met)
Meanwhile, the Ayn Rand tribe would have left the sick and injured to die, reducing their tribe's size and its genetic diversity (and hence their adaptability) as well as possibly losing the benefit of those who might have recovered if cared for. This would have damaged the tribe's survival chances relative to the altruistic tribe.
...
I'm all for thoughtful criticism of Rand, but
1) Rand would have advised helping them for a price, NOT leaving them to die. In her novels, the downtrodden one always makes it worthwhile to be helped.
2) You can screw it up just as badly in the opposite direction. When the successful can expect to be expropriated, expect a lot less innovation. There are lots of examples of stagnant societies where anyone who produces more than others can expect to either "share" most of it (an effective ~80% marginal tax rate) or be expelled.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Any philosopher worth his salt could have told you something similar to this. No one does something they don't like to do. Period. You always do want you want to do.
It is a tautology. That you find pleasure in helping people isn't a surprise because people help others. But not all the time. So being lazy or unhelpful is in the mix too.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
It's not my argument (I think it's Dawkins). Think about the evolutionary populations. Think tribes. Everyone you knew was some sort of relative. What's good for the tribe is what's good for your genes. Evloution is the differential selection of populations, not individuals. Granted, that doesn't apply today, but I'd argue that we're no longer evolving, just homogenizing.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Of course, you're assuming that the "Universe" that we inhabit is a subset of some larger whole, and that it is impossible for us to get any information from the larger superset. I'm not so sure. Our 'subset' used to include just our solar system, and then we figured out the stars weren't just painted on a dome but were actual objects way far away - and the 'subset' then included our galaxy. Then we noticed that some of what we thought were just star clusters were actual galaxies, and our subset got a lot bigger yet.
If the 'superset' has no influence whatsoever on our 'subset', then sure, science can't pick up on it. But then again, by definition that means it has no practical, detectable effect on our 'subset' - and that's the kind of chin Occam's Razor was made to shave.
Or maybe it's just standard evolution plus game theory.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I've tried that bit about generosity being as pleasurable as sex, but the hookers still insist on cash in advance.
Have gnu, will travel.
But, taking money from you and spending it sound like work. I don't like work but I'll do it anyway for the altruistic good of society.
Philanthropy Expert: Conservatives Are More Generous
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America -- and it's making him nervous.
The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.
In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives -- from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services -- make conservatives more generous than liberals.
The book, titled "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism" (Basic Books, $26), is due for release Nov. 24.
When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: "For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice."
For the record, Brooks, 42, has been registered in the past as a Democrat, then a Republican, but now lists himself as independent, explaining, "I have no comfortable political home."
Since 2003 he has been director of nonprofit studies for Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Outside professional circles, he's best known for his regular op-ed columns in The Wall Street Journal (13 over the past 18 months) on topics that stray a bit from his philanthropy expertise.
One noted that people who drink alcohol moderately are more successful and charitable than those who don't (like him). Another observed that liberals are having fewer babies than conservatives, which will reduce liberals' impact on politics over time because children generally mimic their parents.
Brooks is a behavioral economist by training who researches the relationship between what people do -- aside from their paid work -- why they do it, and its economic impact.
He's a number cruncher who relied primarily on 10 databases assembled over the past decade, mostly from scientific surveys. The data are adjusted for variables such as age, gender, race and income to draw fine-point conclusions.
His Wall Street Journal pieces are researched, but a little light.
His book, he says, is carefully documented to withstand the scrutiny of other academics, which he said he encourages.
The book's basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.
Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone's tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don't provide them with enough money.
Such an attitude, he writes, not only shortchanges the nonprofits but also diminishes the positive fallout of giving, including personal health, wealth and happiness for the donor and overall economic growth.
All of this, he said, he backs up with statistical analysis.
"These are not the sort of conclusions I ever thought I would reach when I started looking at charitable giving in graduate school, 10 years ago," he writes in the introduction. "I have to admit I probably would have hated what I have to say in this book."
Still, he says it forcefully, pointing out that liberals give less than conservatives in every way imaginable, including volunteer hours and donated blood.
In an interview, Brooks said he recognizes the need for government entitlement programs, such as we
"I'd unravel any riddle
For any individ'le
In trouble or in pain"
What?
Assuming that the reason we have altruism is because as a species, one of our survival strategies is to work together (like ants, bees and wolves), then the brain needs a method of motivation towards the behaviors that optimize long term survival of the species (e.g. food, sex, helping others when appropriate, etc.) This attribute is probably not found in sharks.
So, your logic is, well, logical.
"But what drives people to perform selfless work for non-relatives?"
How about "the hope of getting lucky?"
Proof? Why do you think men fall all over themselves to open doors for women they don't even know, but won't lift a finger to help their wife do the dishes ...?
Kevin Smith on Prince
[G]enerosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex...
Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb.
I submitted this article, largely because it is of personal interest. I do a lot of communications-related work for nonprofit organizations (U.S. and international) and I know how hard these people work to raise money. So when scientists come along and say, "Look, people are predisposed to be generous/altruistic!", I feel like asking the old question from those Wendy's commercials: where's the beef?
I think the fatal flaw in the research is that participants were responding to hypothetical and closely monitored situations. It cost them nothing (except a little time) to make an altruistic choice; there was no actual money involved. And when people are watching you make a choice, you tend to make the one that looks more acceptable. I'd like to see another test: send people $100 in the mail along with donation forms for a bunch of charities, and see how much money those charities get back via that form. Throw in the incentive of a matching donation program (e.g. for every dollar they donate, you will also donate a dollar). I would be shocked if people sent back a third of the money you sent them.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I under no circumstances like to just give hard earned bread crumbs away just like that. Do I care if people in other places starve? Yes... but can my bread crumbs really help them without impacting me? Definitely not.
If the 1-2 % of the human population that has 98% of the capital in this world dispenced and let go of their capital it would help MUCH more than us "normal" providing for both poor and rich.
I deem the article a lobyistic plant at best to sifen even more money from the ones who barely have any.
No it isn't; that's only when you consider the specific person's genes. You are forgetting that helping the SPECIES as a whole to survive also means that at least some of your genes are passed on (remember, your genes are only unique when taken as a whole; some of them are duplicated in every member of the species).
Now, if they are helping other species and hurting their own - that's just messed up (PETA, you hear that?).
Trade always and *only* occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. That's only reason a person gives up "this" for "that". Both parties by definition benefit. It's also just a true with all actions which are chosen. As such, you are posting or reading on this thread by having traded away the possibility to have done something else at that moment. This is also true of charity. Nor is charity universal. People don't make donations to the "general charity fund". People are more likely to get married to persons of their own race. Why also wouldn't they be more charitable to subjectively more valued "biased" charitable causes? You know, people with breast cancer or who know those with that disease seem more likely to devote resources and energy to "their" charitable cause than some other non-related charity. People discriminate against some they feel are "not worthy of charity". As such, the only way to maximize wealth *and* maximize charity is free trade. That irrefutable conclusion runs 100% counter to scripted government justifications for interference and theft. First of all, the study is flawed, because it asks a politically motivated question to a demographically flawed sample. It's as groundbreaking a revelation as some conclusions about "white lies". It should also be noted charity is a *voluntary* act. Voting to take others' property (for whatever reasons, including "charitable") by a means such as taxation is not altruism. But you don't hear people advocating "no rape without representation". Rape is rape, and theft is theft. So let's keep that clear when talking about alleged "altruism". That people believe they own their own bodies, that people choose, that people willingly act, is by it's very nature selfish. That's why people are pieces of meat that anyone can do whatever they feel like doing to, which would be a more true form of "altruism".
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
If we didn't get something out of giving, we wouldn't do it.
I can say without cynicism that if I didn't get incredible joy out of caring for my infant son (who is teething, very expressive about it, and quick as a ninja monkey) I don't know that any force on earth could make me change a dirty diaper- yet somehow it's strangely enjoyable and I come back for more.
It's pretty obvious if you think about it that we get a LOT out of contributing to others. My most-satisfying jobs have all been ones where I helped people out, my least-satisfying ones have been the ones where I couldn't tell that I was making any difference for anybody. I once put together a program to teach at-risk teens how to kayak, and when I told people what I was doing and asked for their help, they thanked me for creating the opportunity to donate gear, time, money and expertise. My experience asking for help to put the program together was quite surprising- I had thought it would be hard, they wouldn't want to, but it was the opposite: people are hungry for any chance to help others.
If you look broadly, people are willing to die in order to make a difference. People join the army in time of war to serve. They strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in a crowded market, in order to serve. People will open their checkbooks and donate money, they'll give blood, they'll use their vacations to go build houses for people- there's not much people won't do for the chance to make a difference for others.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
Someone has 10 pieces of candy. He may split it with you any way they wish, and you can either accept his division or reject it completely, which leaves both of you with nothing. Most adults will accept a distribution up to about 70-30; any more than that and you think the decision-maker is greedy and you'll punish him by rejecting the deal. That is, you take a personal loss to enforce a notion of fairness. This is an "irrational" choice in economics, because you are not pursuing your narrow self-interest and accepting anything they give you. Interestingly, this is how children behave -- they'll take even one piece of candy and let the other have 9.
Obviously, we need these sorts of traits if we're to stick together and stop a rhino from charging. Surprise! Humans are a social species.
Certainly. Although the issue of communication from the superset is no more applicable to today's science. Perhaps the probabilities of quantum mechanics are influenced by a super-universe. But if that is the case, can today's science prove that? Absolutely not. Perhaps we will develop workable theories in the future, but for now that is beyond the grasp of what can and cannot be proven.
*clap* *clap*
Bravo! You and others are repeating the exact same errors I pointed out.
1. Axiom: An extra-universal is not provable through the laws of nature.
2. Axiom: Science is a tool that attempts to describe the laws of nature.
3. The laws of nature do not show a being governed by them. Therefore, such a being cannot exist. [ERROR - In conflict with previous axioms]
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I guess that from now on we will have to say that the selfish jerks suffer from a mental disease instead. They will be called the Altruistically Challenged.
2- Social animals have a higher survival rate when their pack mates are healthy, altruism helps survival, and is an evolutionary pressure.
You can't take the sky from me...
Did I?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neurotheolog
To misuse an old cliche, you must be new here.
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We are hardwired to perform altrusim, but we mostly tend to prefer our groups. This is called ethnic nepotism. A study (I can't find the link; here's a summary) performed several years ago by the political scientist Frank Salter monitored beggars in Moscow and found that Russians preferred giving to beggars in this order: Russians, Moldavians (Eastern Europeans), and Roma (a.k.a. Gypsies).
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Because the rich are generally conservative.
But mom! Some article on the internet says I'm hardwired to share mp3s.
a point well made, but you're missing the bigger picture.
/. community (and in fact world) has been indoctrinated by the state, and with evolution as their faith, they will refuse to make an honest unbiased effort to research this. i, myself, was a big supporter of evolution, but i finally got around to forcing myself to read books like the evolution cruncher [http://evolution-facts.org/] and was quite taken back by what i saw.
/what/ to believe by the state. (in case you didn't know, you don't go to school to learn /how/ to think, you go to learn /what/ to think.)
most of the
its sad that, for the most part, most evolutionists will say "you only believe in god because you were forced to go to church and your parents brainwashed you into it". to that i say, "odd, i know alot of people that don't believe in god, and their parents were generally very pious believers."... whats the difference? well. its quite simple. church is one day out of the week. maybe 2 hours at best. alot of times, self proclaimed 'christians' do not even attend. with evolution, this is quite different. children get a good 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, 210ish days a year to be taught
i think the biggest problem with christianity as a whole right now is "christians". most self proclaimed christians have no idea what the word really says, they are comfortable (lukewarm) watching networks like TBN that want to sell you something. and whats worse is, the evolutionists see that and say "these people are idiots, capitalizing on religion for money" and wow, the evolutionists are right in this respect, but they take those instances of people misled and using His name in vain (thats what that really means, using His name to futher your own agenda. take the presidents for example. "if you're against me, you're against God.")
if you consider yourself a christian, read a book called Earths Final Hours by kirk davies. im sure its available free online. that will show you just how far and corrupt the modern day "church" is.
This attribute is probably not found in sharks.
In sharks, the part of the brain that responds to altruism is replaced with a part that responds to well-aimed laser beams.
paintball
BTW, why did your god give the other apes a sense of altruism, but no desire to believe in a super-being?
For that matter, how many people have a built-in desire to believe in a super-being? Most people believe it for the same reason they believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. The only difference is, the people who encourage the beliefs never own up that it's a fantasy.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It is co-operation. The human being is a social animal because if you don't watch each other's backs, the sabre tooth tiger will first eat the other guy and then eat you. (A simplistic example of why if we are all selfish, we will all just die out).
NO! Watching each other's back against a threat in a pack setting IS selfish. That's the whole point. It's selfish to act in your own self interest - that's the concept's MEANING. When a threat that's bigger than you requires teamwork for you to survive (large predators, seasonal weather, etc), then there is both cultural and biological evolutionary pressure to do the things that help keep that team (the family/clan/tribe/pack/herd) glued together and aware of the other members' status/condition. Each member of the pack can face vulnerable circumstances (pregnancy, injury, etc), so cultivating - at that small family/tribe level - some reciprocal ass-covering is entirely, productively, and rationally selfish.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I would point out that this may lead us to understand the true foundation of morality and the laws that govern us everday. Moreover, as the article stated, it might give us clues as to why some neglect that morality when committing horrendous acts with any empathy at all.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
"Neuroscience research, Greene said, is finally explaining a problem that has long troubled philosophers and moral teachers: Why is it that people who are willing to help someone in front of them will ignore abstract pleas for help from those who are distant, such as a request for a charitable contribution that could save the life of a child overseas?"
Or certain groups who work tirelessly on emotional issues like telling gays they are bad or saving the unborn but couldn't give a rat's ass about global warming sinking entire island countries of the already-born underwater...
Hey, wait, can I interpret this article to say they those who disagree with me are acting on animal instinct while I am using higher brain functions? It feels good, so it must be true.
I was wondering when the defense of selfishness would begin. As capitalism and the free market are based on the Selfish Actor theory, which has been proven to be inadequate even before this finding, perhaps we need to rethink our economic system. Spin it all you like, people don't act in their own rational self interest, this has been shown over and over again in hundreds of different kinds of experiments. Our system is based on the premise that they will. Therefore, our entire economic system is based on a false premise. By focusing on the selfish aspects of our behavior, it actually encourages them. People would rather be selfless, but in a selfish system, being selfless means you get taken advantage of. So people choose to be selfish because our system requires it.
The natural world and systems such as our economy are incredibly complex. One could find evidence of almost anything if one looked at them carefully enough. People look to nature and natural systems, and for the most part, they see what they want to see. Selfish people want evidence that the world is selfish in order to justify their feelings. So they look at the world, they see selfishness, and they discount everything else.
There is no evidence that evolution and capitalism are effective because they involve selfishness. It is equally valid to say that they are effective despite this fact, and are effective because of the inherent cooperation involved. Do cells in your body compete with each other? Do divisions of a corporation compete? No, they both cooperate, and that is why a body and a whole corporation are more effective than a cell or a corporate division: cooperation, not competition.
But you keep on telling yourself that selfishness is natural, right, and good if that lets you sleep at night.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A discussion of altruism on Slashdot, and no one's quoted from "Star Trek: Wrath of Kahn" yet. Must be 'too obvious'.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Did I?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neurotheolog
To misuse an old cliche, you must be new here.
Seriously, a hardwired belief is not proof of the belief. Much to the contrary, it explains why every culture in the world expressed that hardwiring in widely different ways. Belief in a power greater than ourselves is the result of our dependence as infant to parents greater tan ourselves at the time, which we keep once we become those powers, so we make something up to fill the void.
Now if you'll excuse me, Zeus wants me to burn some goat fat. If I don't do it, I might get hit by lightning!
You can't take the sky from me...
People talk about the brain being this lovely, elaborate machine. In reality, it's a mass of chemical signals and nerves that were selected over millions of years by evolutionary pressures. Yes, there may be some parts of the brain that trigger pleasurable feelings when giving to others. There's also clearly parts of the brain that trigger pleasurable feelings when taking things from others.
Your mind is really a collection of competing and cooperating neurons and signaling mechanisms. Complex concepts like "altruism" get generated by billions of nerve cells doing their thing. It's a classic example of emergent behavior.
Absolutely nothing! Give the man prize for being the first in the thread to realize this.
That is technically the original intent of modern science: To investigate God's creation. As Newton wrote:
"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all, and on account of His dominion He is wont to be called Lord God, Universal Ruler." (Newton, 1686).
Quite so. And exactly my point. Yet notice how many people are ignoring my words about it being an silly statement, and arguing it as if it were my center point? It's amazingly hard to get people thinking around here.
*cough*
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Thus why I called it a silly statement.
Yet look how many people are getting into a tizzy over it? Especially those who are determined to *PROVE* the unprovable. Ok, so evolution can offer a possible explanation. Does that disprove a God? *pff* How can you disprove something that isn't governed by the laws of nature that you are using to do the proof?
i.e. Science is based on certain Axioms upon which it must build. Those axioms don't include, "there must not be anything outside the universe being described that science cannot describe."
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Romans 2: 12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. (NIV)
Even the nonreligious "Gentiles" are accountable to God since all have the requirements of the law written on their hearts. It seems these scientists have found evidence to confirm this.
Um... no. Let me direct your attention to a couple of quotes from my post. For instance: "But then again, by definition that means it has no practical, detectable effect on our 'subset' - and that's the kind of chin Occam's Razor was made to shave."
I didn't say it was proof that no such being exists, I just paraphrased Laplace with his "I had no need of that hypothesis." Ditto with my saying that (emphasis added) "maybe it's just standard evolution plus game theory.".
To belabor the point, I'm saying that extra-universal hypotheses that explicitly define the extra-universal as undetectable are epistemologically worthless. Of course it's not proof that something extra-universal doesn't exist, but unless they have some practical effect, positing them is pointless.
Conversely, if something extra-universal is posited to actually have an effect on this universe, then we ought to be able to detect it. Maybe it'll be hard, like with neutrinos, but if it has an effect, we should be able to detect it. That's why we gave up on polywater and N-rays - they were supposed to have an effect, but they didn't.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Beyond that, I would guess that the extreme altruism often seen in human beings is a combination of the basic instinct to take care of other people combined with the human capacity for abstract thought. I get pleasure from helping members of my family and tribe, and I understand that a starving person halfway across the world is a very similar entity, so I get pleasure from donating to a cause that helps somebody half a world away. I've found a way to stimulate my altruism response in a less direct way courtesy of the human luxury of abstract thought.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
In other news, Mother Teresa has been demoted from sainthood. Authorities explained: "Apparently there's no longer any virtue in being altruistic anymore." Riiiiight.
I always liked the take one of my economics professors had on the concept of rational behavior: "All behavior is rational. That's not the interesting question. The interesting question is how people are measuring the costs and the benefits."
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The best evidence I've seen that there is a God is that people think there is, and there are many books that say there is.
Now, it is true that some things people believe are false, but generally those things, which have lasted for quite a long time, were always partially true. For instance, the world isn't flat like people believed, but it is true that reference frames give the illusion of a 'flat earth.' Basically, the way I see it, is that even an incorrect interpretation of observation still requires that something was observed; it is by definition impossible to observe something that does not exist.
So, is the God that people envision an accurate representation of whatever it is that they have observed? Probably not, but that doesn't change the fact that there is likely something that was observed.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
My criticism of the article is that much of it is retreads old studies that have looked at how people with certain forms of brain damage are less empathic than the average person. Ergo logically an undamaged brain has a higher empathy/altruistic level and that is a GOOD thing. Which others extrapolate to pointing towards the existence of God, etc.
Of more interest to me is the fact that they now have done detailed brainwave pattern analysis that showed that a "horrible" AKA evil decision sets off a mental storm between parts of the brain. From what I can determine, this storm between parts doesn't happen when a so-called "good" (altruistic) decision is to be made. Which could be construed to be a form of "hard wired" design except for one problem: Socio-pathic individuals don't seem to suffer from the mental storm. Which then leads me to another interesting question: why do normal individuals react with visceral horror to a person known to be sociopath but not to an undetected one, where some extremely attuned individuals who will react with the same visceral horror to the sociopath even when they do not know whom they are interacting with?
It is as if the very concept of differentiating the so called morally good choices from morally reprehensible choices seems to part and parcel of the human organism as well as the social implications of following those implications (admiring the saint, shunning the baby killer) -- and that -- for me is an indicator of design, not evolution.
In KJV speak, then Slashdotters, what think ye?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
You can screw it up just as badly in the opposite direction. When the successful can expect to be expropriated, expect a lot less innovation.
China is a very good example of sustained innovation for many thousand years, yet it is probably the best example of "the opposite direction" we have, since it is communist. It is hardly stagnant; it is changing constantly.
There are lots of examples of stagnant societies where anyone who produces more than others can expect to either "share" most of it (an effective ~80% marginal tax rate) or be expelled.
Actually to me this is talking about stagnant capitalism like in ancient Rome or modern US where the rich are parasites, feeding of the hard work of the producing workers. The biggest driver of producing is usually having not enough of something, the wealthy Paris Hiltons or old Nero usually don't have any drive to produce but only to spend and go down in a spiral of decay and drugs.
Since when is the Washington Post a respectable neuroscience journal? Now, if the author had even cited the original paper (PubMed) I might be impressed, because that would imply he read it. That said, the original was published in PNAS (see link above), which is pretty prestigious, but I haven't actually read it, and I've seen some god-awful stuff get printed in PNAS (and Nature and Science) simply because it sounded cool.
There are also lots of examples of dynamic societies where only those who "produce" at a rate that is wildly outside the statistical norm ever have to "share most of it". This is what we refer to as "progressive taxation". Properly applied, it works better than any other scheme of taxation.
It is indeed Richard Dawkins, from "The God Delusion" to be precise, where he proposes that altruism originally derived from the concepts of kinship and reciprocation in tribes. Essentially this is just survival of the fittest applied to groups rather than individuals; enhancing one's own survival and procreation chances by working as a team. It's not just humans either; plenty of animals exhibit similar behavior, both within their own species (meerkats taking turns to act as lookout instead of foraging for food) and with others via various symbiotic relationships (sharks and remoras).
This finding also strengthens his theory that if something appears to defy a Darwinian explanation, such as altruism, then it is almost certainly a "misfire" of something else that does. That altruism stimulates the parts of the brain responsible for finding food and sex points quite strongly to what is misfiring here and why altruism makes people feel good about being charitable. If I recall correctly, Dawkins even suggested sexual desire as a likely misfire that drove people towards altruism - anyone got the book on hand?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Thank you.
The most important observer is oneself. When you choose to behave a certain way, you are also choosing to be a certain kind of person. When you act selfishly or altruistically, you know about it. It changes who you are. This can probably be over-analyzed in terms of reinforcing neural pathways in the brain or somesuch. What matters is that we cannot escape our actions, regardless of who may or may not be watching, no matter the praise or punishment. It's the source of endless nobility and endless tragedy.
I would say it only activates in the presence of self. If not, something is missing from that self - so even then the actions define the person.
"A good marriage is based on both sides giving."
We were talking about sex, where the hell did this marriage stuff come from?
The GPL has nothing to do with altruism. Like all licensing, the GPL is intended to protect the interests of the owner.
1. The "reward" center is not the feel-good center. Reward is used in the behavioral sense -- reinforcement. Feel-good often happens at the same time. That is not due to the reward system. They both activate in parallel. Thus "enjoy" as used in the article is incorrect.
2. The origin of the reward system is the substantia nigra. It is indeed in a primitive part of the brain. As mentioned in the article (re: Damasio et al) in humans, during testing on morality/altruism/etc. it acts on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This is the most recently developed part of the brain. Questions of morality, or even just confusing morality with brain science, requires this recent development.
3. When part of the brain "activates" on a scan (both metabolic PET and hemodynamic MRI), that does not mean the system results activity. The scanner cannot differentiate between excitatory and inhibitory activations. In fact, "activation" is less interesting. 85% of the brain is excitatory and is spontaneously driven. The interesting stuff happens when spontaneous activity is inhibited.
4. The dopamine "reward" system is in fact inhibitory. It inhibits random or undirected activity, and "sculpts out" desired activity from the possibilities. When it is activated, the dopamine system "lights up", but as it does it stops activity elsewhere.
The WP isn't alone. I've seen actual research articles published -- meaning got peer reviewed and accepted -- that confuse scan activation with excitatory activity.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
What you say is certainly a core tenant of many Christian denominations, but not all. Whether or not there is original sin, whether or not divine grace is given or earned, the extent to which goood works can "get you in" to Heaven are all points of dispute and debate between different sects.
Do otherwise "good" people who generally do the "right" thing (in other words, they commit rare and seemingly minor sins, without malice or evil), but don't believe in Christ, still get into Heaven? If you think so, fine, but many Christians say no, which actually undermines the logic of Pascal's Wager: if I'm only following Christian teaching because I'm heding my bets in case God exists, God would see right through that that I'm not a true believer, and thus it wouldn't earn me anything. So I'd have to really *believe* in order to reap the benefits, in which case, I don't need the logic of Pascal's Wager to believe.
Now, another interesting argument is that "acting" Christian is necessary first in order to allow for the possibility of *true* belief, so by assuming the trappings you open your heart to the real thing. Something like method acting evoking real emotion, I suppose.
With quantum theory there is no objective reality and A does not necessarily equal A.
Thus does Rand's house of cards collapse.
>The GPL has nothing to do with altruism. Like all licensing, the GPL is intended to protect the interests of the owner.
Such an intention does not at all rule out altruistic motive. On the contrary, one interest of the owner may be in promoting freedoms that others may want, i.e., an altruistic interest. The GPL promotes four such freedoms. Therefore, the GPL is a tool that promotes this altruistic intent.
I don't want to diminish the scientific achievement of (starting to) identify the regions of the brain involved in altruistic versus non-altruistic behaviour.
But we've known that humans are fundamentally social creatures for a pretty long time. It's been a scientific conclusion for like 50 years. This is only news to the unimaginative homo-centric people who think anything slightly complicated about humans has to be explained in terms of free will or culture.
You can't take the sky from me...
People have evolved to feel good being generous because it has proven helpful for people and for society as a whole in the past. Therefore, by transitive logic, people are generous because it is helpful and promotes the wellbeing of society.
That it makes them feel good is simply an intermediate step, mechanism, or bonus.
Congratulations! You just disproved Christianity, or at least one of its main doctrines. If people's brains are hard-wired to believe in God, then the entire concept of Free Will goes right out the window. You have to believe in God because your brain is so wired. Ergo, there is no God, at least not for Christians who believe in Free Will.
My blog
Not necessarily. It's worthless in the sense that such a hypothesis is worthless to science. It is not worthless from a theological/philosophical perspective unless one cares to exempt theology and philosophy from being part of the sum of human knowledge.
Specifically, theology addresses the questions that can be logically consumed, but only if one bases the logic on different axioms than science is based on. Science is based on two axioms:
1. Observable axiom: scientists can accurately observe reality, and then propose theories and laws to explain their observations.
2. Naturalistic axiom: everything in our universe can be explained by the laws of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.
Everything in science stems from there. If we cannot correctly observe and deduce the laws of nature around us, then all the work we've done to explain them has been nothing more than mental masturbation. Thankfully, these are fairly self-evident axioms.
Theology is based on different axioms:
1. A being exists who is superior to the very universe itself.
2. That being created humans for a personal reason, and cares about their development.
Everything in theology stems from those axioms. If the axioms are false, then it is also nothing more than an exercise in mental masturbation. However, these axioms seem just as self-evident to a great many people. (It used to be the majority prior to Science setting itself up as the new religion while Theology set itself up as the enemy of Science.)
The two systems are not necessarily in conflict. There is only a conflict if one is forced. e.g. If a scientist decides that the age of the universe is 20 billion years (it's been revised quite a few times) and that it's impossible that the universe might be a different age, he might collide with a theologian who has decided that the universe is only 6,000 years old (something which a strict reading of the Bible does not necessarily support), the two might get upset at each other and butt heads. The truth of the matter is that the scientist is not yet sure of the age (though he's reasonably certain that 6,000 years is a bit shy) and the theologian needs to take another pass at his texts because his domain is not that of science.
A little humility on both sides prevents a drawn-out (and mostly useless) argument.
FWIW, I just bumped across this link which directly addresses this argument.
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Well...atleast we don't have slums around here (yet) and it's not like people who earn more would actually do more work (and thus produce more), often quite contrary.
There can be other motivators for innovation (when you have _enough_ income to begin with) than money, like happiness. Shitloads of money wont buy it, but altruism might well do so. Sharing IS benefical to society as whole, no matter what your multimillionaire overlords might want you to believe.
PS. I'm not saying things are perfect here and they are surely going for worse (mainly because politicians are beginning to favor big business instead of public as whole). Just from my POV - seeing the slow but gradual change here in finland - I consider social democratic market economy better for society as whole than straight out capitalism.
What, so scientific research is redundant because philosophers have already come up with everything?
Here's a clue: Philosophers suggest lots of things. Scientists are the ones who actually bother finding out which of those suggestions are reliable.
http://outcampaign.org/
That's just as ridiculous of a statement as the bolded one I made in my original post. Besides not giving to the possibility that such wiring was intentionally put there by a Creator, it fails to take into account the number of people who consciously ignore that sense. Just as we do not always act altruistically (despite having a wiring for doing so), we do not always believe in a God that our wiring says is there.
I sincerely hope you were also being cheeky? Because if you weren't, I'm afraid that it makes my original point all too clearly.
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I moved back in with my parents after I got laid off, and use their connection, you anonymously insensitive clod!
Get off my launchpad!
Well, give yourself a hand.
Get off my launchpad!
If you do good deeds, don't you ingratiate yourself witht he Lord, thereby increasing your chance of being admitted to heaven? So, even if you don't really "get" anything for doing good deeds, you're still going to get a reward for it in the afterlife right? Which would mean it wasn't really altrustic.
I'm probably making a mistake for making a religious comment on Slashdot, but here goes:
The point of doing good deeds in Christianity is not to increase your chances of going to heaven; rather Christians are called to do good deeds in response to being forgiven of their wrongdoings. Being allowed to enter heaven comes from choosing to "accept salvation." One way of looking of this is that if one chooses to acknowledge Jesus their ultimate ruler then they become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Not only is this person going to heaven, but they are called to live as according to the requirements of a citizen of heaven while they are still here. As such a citizen, they are asked to do 2 things above all else, love God and love and care for those around them as they would themselves.
There is, in Christianity, a notion that how you live in this life changes how you exist in the afterlife. However this proportionality is secondary in most Christian understandings to if you ultimately decide to follow Jesus or not.
NOTE: I hate speaking about Christianity as a whole because there is a wide spectrum of belief. I have tried to be ecumenical in my description as I can be. If my explanation seems inaccurate from your perspective, let me know, I'd love to improve it.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
This is in contrast to cooperation, which can very often be in your self-interest, is not necessarily a self-sacrifice, and therefore not the same as altruism.
Mine is Good
It is not good deeds and being good that gets you to heaven. It is a gift (grace) from God to everyone who wants to believe in his Son. The good deeds come as a consequence of accepting that gift, for you can not truly believe in the Lord and continue to do what you know is wrong.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Meanwhile, the Ayn Rand tribe would have left the sick and injured to die, reducing their tribe's size and its genetic diversity (and hence their adaptability) as well as possibly losing the benefit of those who might have recovered if cared for. This would have damaged the tribe's survival chances relative to the altruistic tribe.
That is a gross mischaracterization of what Rand referred to as "rational self-interest". The pursuit of rational self-interest does not necessarily preclude so-called "altruistic" acts. Rand's opposition was to the principle of "ethical altruism", which is a totally different beast. "Ethical Altruism" essentially states that one has a moral duty to forgo self-interest.
If one wishes to contemplate Objectivism's ethics, one must first contemplate Objectivism's epistemology. It would be more accurate to say that the "Ayn Rand tribe" would rationally assess the likelihood that caring for the sick and injured would have a positive affect on one's own well-being or "happiness" before choosing to provide assistance, or not.
...and what does this say for the mindset of warmongers?
Seems clear that due to this uncovered evidence, the majority of us will follow this natural tendancy when we are secure enough in our own needs.
Peter Kropotkin pointed this out over 100 years ago
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I wrote a paper a few years back for a philosophy of biology class defending altruism as an adaptive trait. Generally we look at selection as a process that takes place within a group for (or against) an individual. The problem with altruism, obviously, is that self sacrifice is not adaptive for an individual. Coming from Wyoming I tend to think of prairie dogs as an example of this. The one that stays above the surface screaming its little head off to warn the others is more likely to get snagged by a predator. However, if the process of selection includes the fitness of the group and not just that of the individual then altruism is really no problem at all. Within the herd the individual is going to share genetic traits with much if not most of the others. Just as a parent is often willing to risk it's own life for its offspring, which makes sense for individual selection, an individual risking its life for all its cousins is still protecting at least some of its own genetic traits. In effect the act of sacrifice is actually selecting for altruism as it allows the herd, with all its altruistic tendencies, to live on. Altruism is an adaptive trait, ergo "hard-wired", and should present no problem for evolutionary theory and no advantage for ID "theory".
The big thing is that we can actually see evolution in action. Resistant diseases exist, and they can be grown in petri dishes through slow (generations timeframe) introduction and increase of antibiotics (for things that are not viruses, those don't care about antibiotics one way or another.) There is no similar evidence for divine intervention, unless you're going to say that God wanted to save that petri dish full of disease, and gave them gifts to help them, a la Jonah and the vine.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
The Architect: It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication, a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the one. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis, love.
Ramen
"Generosity is inborn. Altruism is a learned perversion." - Robert Heinlein, quite a few years before this study came out.
To say that altruism is "learned" is too passive. It is not only learned (as one can learn things from cause-and-effect observations in the natural world). It is also taught, as in, instigated by other human beings who have their own selfish (and often sinister) motives.
Evil person: You should think about other people's needs instead of your own.
Potential dupe: (recognizing the existence of 6+ billion "other people") Which other people?
Evil person: (dons politician hat) That's my job to tell you whom you should think about. Pay attention!
Potential dupe: But what about my own needs?
Evil person: How selfish of you to ask that question! (dons social engineer hat) Now, on to the schools!
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
yes.. i've seen many people generous with the same smile that a paedophile, a pig or a sex abuser has...
i prefer being just "fair" than beeing a generous fucker
have a nice day!
?
I guess the scientific community has finally proven that my brain is highly dysfunctional. I can't say I'm surprised though, my ex used to communicate this to me regularly.
As you point out his genes actually gain a survivability boost. It probably feels good in order to reinforce the behaviour.
Deleted
Very well put (although you surely will get flamed for those suicide bombers)!
The most obvious hint I receive is when I travel by public transport: There are loads of people I don't know, but I can fairly rely on a safe journey. Nobody tries to kill me, nobody tries to rob me (as a rule) and if I or anyone else has trouble to manage his luggage or is to frail to manage to enter or leave the train he *will* get help from someone. It's just amazing how we can think of humans to be "egoistic" when actually altruism is the very thing that keeps our society working. It is often not rewarded and surely not enforced but in normal living it's just the most important thing to rely on. The next time you're in an elevator with people you've never seen before, just think about the simple fact that you're very probably *not* to be killed and eaten. This should tell us something.
For eternal happiness, send $1 to "Happy Dude, 1742 Evergreen Terrace".
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
You think lack of fear - "complacency" - is the root of evil? You believe the "most guilt-ridden or paranoid of people" are the most altruistic - or at least behave the least selfishly? On the contrary, I suspect they are the ones whose sense of guilt is most imposed by others - and therefore most susceptible to being lifted when that enforcement is gone.
The instrumental argument that all human motivation can be reduced to selfishness is frequently used to rationalize away guilt and responsibility for atrocious behavior. But that requires convincing oneself and others that the argument is valid. This need is even stronger for those most sensitive to or apprehensive about the judgment of others. Are the defenders of this argument insecure because of others who (perhaps hypocritically) claim superiority? Or do they secretly believe that others behave better, and are simply afraid that other people will find out - or that they will have to admit it to themselves?
Regardless, the point doesn't hold water. All people are sometimes selfish. It does not follow that all people are always selfish. Attempts to prove that they are hinge on very fuzzy or peculiar definitions of "selfish" combined with absurdly reductionist models of human behavior, often relying on an assumed human rationality that simply doesn'h hold up (e.g. misuse of the "rational man" of economics). Science is incapable of proving the point one way or the other. In the end, moral and ethical judgments must be left, as always, to human beings.
You can't prove that people are essentially selfish - though you can try to pursuade others. The question is, why? For selfish reasons?
Gee, I have a link that I can reference, too.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
You know, intelligent beings in general couldn't find altruism if they Googled it. That's the tongue in cheek explanation for the need to have it hardwired. If it wasn't we'd have cut down all the trees before we ever swung out of them. Intelligence at our level is to blame, I suppose. We're generally not smart enough to know what's best for us and if it wasn't built in, we'd be as good as zombies.
So let's go with this premise for a bit: most of our "good character" requires a built in urge. Can we really conclude that the war on terror is moot because our ultimate instinct will save the day? Would the mechanism for intelligence be extrapolable as an inheritance of smart experiences, based on the idea that good results become encoded in genes? Hence, is it possible to use genetic algorithms to arrive at intelligent computers?
So it's pleasurable...and therefore has selfish backing. That pretty much invalidates the whole damn thing.
The human animal is really not so complicated.
Every human being will do anything they can get away with if it means a net personal gain in the end.
You need no further explaination for 90% of human behavior than that solitary sentence.
Question everything
TFA is talking about finding that humans are not making the pure rational decisions (like the examples above) and it is hard wired.
f _needs
People who are being altruistic are satisfying *their* own needs. Self-actualization, self-esteem, and belonging. There is nothing irrational about it. See Maslow's Hierarchy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_o
There are also mathematical models that show the best strategy is to cooperate until the "other person" cheats you, or you are facing the last interaction with that person. This extends to the "extended family". If I look after children of the group, the group looks after my child when I am not there. Again, all very rational.
All this research may be valid unless it can be found that the brain hardwires itself along the way.Even over generations if a single lifetime isn't a convincing amount of time.
Dunno why this is released when all the questions arent answered.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Numb3rs is a rather well-produced series about two brothers, one a mathematician and the other an FBI agent. I understand that academics from some major universities act as consultants for the show, in order to assure that the math used to help solve crimes is legitimate, and that the scientists themselves are portrayed fairly. I'd never heard of "tit for tat" in this context until they used it in a recent episode.
That book does look interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Finally, an explanation for writing Free software. What else could a programming geek possibly use for stimulating his brain pleasure centers?
Wow. I was just pointing out that it's surprising how many people's ethical structures can fail at their security in the knowledge they won't be caught, but how deepseated the idea that "someone is always watching" is. I agree with you that being confident in oneself can engender more consistent actions. The weak-willed, as it were, do seem to have a tendency to crumble. The Stoics and all that jazz. I wasn't expecting to get my ass blown off for posting earlier. Perhaps I should have posted on shiney.happy.people.net instead of slashdot. Nice response, though, Geof.
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Yeah. A cheeky post deserves a cheeky response.
My blog
I went back to the store, which is on the other side of town, because I thought they'd undercharged me a few hundred dollars for a TV (I didn't check my receipt until I got back home). It turned out that I was wrong, but I'm still glad I checked and I'd do it again.
One of the people in customer service said pretty much what you did about how she wouldn't have mentioned it.
Then again, I'm certainly not perfect. I never did pay an extra $3 or so for that box of pizzas, but the cashier insisted on scanning them for me even though I was in the self-checkout lane because I had a dozen boxes. Again, I didn't notice it until later, but it was only $3 and most stores have a policy where if it scans wrong it's free. I still kinda wish I'd paid for it, but I can't feel that bad when the self checkout at the very same store didn't give me almost $20 worth of change I had due (I had just been to the ATM and had nothing but $20s). I guess it evens out, or else I'm just getting better at rationalizing *shrug*
and give their time as a way of staying connected to the cause. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, ya know. But volunteering doesn't register as work -- it feels good!
By the way, notice how hard people search for reasons to explain what's *wrong* with helping others. "They're truely selfish because they're only helping to feel good themselves." Sheesh. Regardless of the motive, they're helping -- what is the critizer doing? Oh yeah I thought so -- less than nothing.
Sorry, I wasn't sure whether you were advocating the position I criticized or not. It's hard to tell sometimes :) I do agree with you however: it's unfortunate too many people don't get beyond the "just don't get caught" stage.
And my two posts were modded Troll. As you say, this is Slashdot...
"Enlightened self-interest" can think its way into justify the Golden Rule by arguing that by acting nice to other people, they might return the favor and create a society of nice people (which is presumably better than a society of backstabing jerks).
But if this is true, then why does it need smarts to make it work?
If everyone being nice benefits all, then if a mutation caused social animals to tend to be nicer to each other, the whole pack/tribe would benefit. If the "nice" pack/tribe is propering and the "not nice" tribe/packs are struggling, then when hard times happen, the "nice" ones may have a better chance of making it through the bad times.
The problem is when the other guy isn't reciprocating. If you are Nice and the other guy is just taking advantage of it, then "Nice guys finish last". Maybe thats why people get so enraged when they think they are being taken advantage of -- as a counter to our "niceness" urge...
What, no one's supposed to feel good? And there's no way we'll let them just *be* good?
Anyone who doesn't feel good helping others, or who feels good hurting others, is what we call a sociopath. Now science is starting to show us what their chemical handicap is. And anyone who helps others, no matter how it makes them feel, is altruistic. Our biggest heros make big sacrifices for others. Altruism is still altruism even if it makes us feel good at the same time. Only our sophistric intellects could twist things to the point that we argue that there's no such thing as altruism.
Everyone is, to greater or lesser extent, a social creature, taking pleasure in helping and in the successes of others. How great the extent is the measure of a man. The more we balance our head and our heart, the more positive our life becomes.
And let's not forget what humans in history have done to receive that feeling as that center of the brain lights up.
It's not as simple as saying if that part of the brain lights up the person is good. Personality disorders already record people who abuse others in order to feel needed, superior or even another's saviour which equates roughly to a substance abused who will do bad deeds to get it.
If this research is true then I know a few selfish SOBs that are seriously brain damaged.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
Feeling good, is supposed to be bad now?
Those of us who volunteer is of course well aware how it makes you feel. It makes you gain self-confidence, gets you more deeply in touch with reality and has benefits on many scales beyond just "feeling good". It develops you as a person in all respects depending on what you do of course.
Feeling good is just the beginning. In time, being altruistic becomes part of your nature as a true human being.
Are you adequate?
And of course, the altruism isn't universal. We haven't been living in big city populations long enough to be evolved to it one way or the other. I personally don't like being solicited by strangers, but I'll quietly provide some help to someone I know even without being asked.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
1. Did you even read the link I gave you?
2. What the heck is "flood geology?" If you were listening to what I said, then you'd know that theology has to accept that which is proven. Geologists don't know anywhere near everything about geology, but they do know quite a bit. Theologists have to accept that the known geology of the Earth must (assuming the event happened) be the resulting geology of the event. Which means that any scientific (or faux scientific) theories put forward based on how the flood affected geology must accomidate the already known geology as well as make testable predictions.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
1. Axiom: An extra-universal is not provable through the laws of nature.
2. Axiom: Science is a tool that attempts to describe the laws of nature.
3. The laws of nature do not show a being governed by them. Therefore, such a being cannot exist. Except that that's not what he said. He merely suggested a natural explanation for something that some people like to claim, without evidence, is the result of supernatural meddling.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If your primary motivation for performing an altruistic act is the pleasure it brings, then it is not virtuous. It is not even an expression of genuine love. True love means total self-giving, especially when you don't want to give or don't feel like giving. It means giving with no expectation of anything good or pleasurable in return.
Yup. I think both that author and you are misrepresenting things. There's really only one axiom of real note between religion and science. Science essentially assumes that things are knowable. It acknowledges the unknown, but doesn't accept the 'unknowable in principle'[1]. Religions, on the other hand (and there are more than just those that assume your particular first axiom, "A being exists who is superior to the very universe itself." - how about the polytheistic religions?), assume the supernatural - which is, by definition, beyond human ken and forever inexplicable.
Of course, a whole lotta things that have been confidently advanced as totally inexplicable, and demanding a supernatural explanation, have been discovered to be quite handily explainable. Lightning, reproduction, the apparent design of living things, etc. Time has, so far, not been on the side of the theists, as there are fewer and fewer gaps to wedge the supernatural into.
I already quoted Heinlein once in this topic, but I figure it's too apropos not to do it once more: "One man's 'magic' is another man's 'engineering'. 'Supernatural' is a null word."
I was pointing out, rather pointedly, that geologists are a lot more than "reasonably certain" that the Earth is older than 6,000 years.
[1] Sure, there are things like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but if you actually study QM you find that the reason you can't know a particle's position and velocity to arbitrary accuracy is because it doesn't actually have a position or velocity to arbitrary accuracy.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
His argument was basically that it is an either/or situation ("or maybe"). If one is true, than how can the other be?
Yet that was not my argument at all. My argument is that there is a natural law for everything that happens in the universe. However, if they are the laws of an extra-universal being, then the universe is balanced according to his will. The situation is potentially therefore an AND, not an OR.
Science has its answer (or answers given that it's just as likely to change as science does), but that doesn't prevent theologians and philosophers from deciding if such aspects of nature represent God's signature of his handiwork or simply a grand coincidence.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
See, it makes no sense to me why you'd do that considering that I just made a point of the fact that the universe (and probably the Earth) is most likely older than 6,000 years. I linked to that site NOT to make the point that it is in fact 6,000 years old, but to demonstrate a non-christian weighing in on the division between theology and science.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I also do not believe in 'dis-organized' religion. I will take the 'organized' religion, with it potential pitfalls like over-institutionalization and the potential for ritualism over a churchless 'fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants'/'make-up-as-you-g
Regarding the last example in the article, there IS a big difference between pulling the feeding tube from the patient, and feeding him the killer drug. In the first situation we have a built-in guarantee the patient gets some benefit from dying, since he was not able to survive independently of medicine. The second situation opens up many more possibilities for murder. Applied broadly it would be more harmful society, thus the law is correct to view it differently.
This is a complex logic that probably wouldn't have occurred to the law makers, same way it failed the author of the article. But emotion guided the law makers correctly.
I could give a similar logical explanation to the "don't kill a baby" scenario. Again it would be too convoluted (however correct it might be) for fast decision making, again emotions would have guided correctly.
altruism is not a "savings account" and doesn't "kick-in out of guilt". that is precisely the opposite of altruism, which is giving or acting even in the face of significant risk to one's self.
what the parent describes has far more akin to game theory, specifically tit-for-tat models.
as for the guilt argument, i can only hope that i never get stuck in a tight jam with pieterh, and no one is watching. we see in others what we see in ourselves.
interesting? perhaps, but in an off topic way. incorrect? totally.
simple is as simple does.
People donate to charity, but donating to charity is not as good as actually doing stuff to help people.
Sheesh. RTFA, and _then_ comment, rather than spouting off on your own personal beliefs, like a typical Stupid Slashdotter.
This is just another journalist copout: we're not really good, or even responsible for what we do, because "we're wired that way". It's stupid, immoral, and should feel awful.
I see you have not modified your research and debating skills since age 2.
Anonymous Coward hasn't learned to read.
Shut your fucking face for the good of the readers.
--
make install -not war
Works for me. :)
:(
BTW, I've got your Silverlight replacement problem all worked out. Now if only I could find time to write the article on it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
damn straight!
It seems that always these scientific studies of the biological roots of "moral" decisions, which are intended to show that "morality", "free-will" and "cconsciousness" are illusions (don't ask who it's fooling), invariably end with the researcher losing his "objectivity" and making moral decisions about the research!
"Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable."
Huh? I see that the experiment wonderfully showed how the brain responds to moral decision making and where those decisions take place, but where (and how) were they able to show that "altruism was not a superior moral faculty"? To do so would require a scientific definition of "superior moral faculty" and then an experiment designed to prove it wasn't that.
"The reason people are slow to answer such an awful question, the study indicated, is that emotion-linked circuits automatically signaling that killing a baby is wrong clash with areas of the brain that involve cooler aspects of cognition. One brain region activated when people process such difficult choices is the inferior parietal lobe, which has been shown to be active in more impersonal decision-making. This part of the brain, in essence, was "arguing" with brain networks that reacted with visceral horror."
Must be amazing to watch these debates being played out on the screen of the brain, but this also just sounds like the old "good vs. bad conscience" scenario, with the pro-anti antagonisms played out by the brain.
"U.S. law, for example, distinguishes between a physician who removes a feeding tube from a terminally ill patient and a physician who administers a drug to kill the patient.
Hauser said the only difference is that the second scenario is more emotionally charged -- and therefore feels like a different moral problem, when it really is not: "In the end, the doctor's intent is to reduce suffering, and that is as true in active as in passive euthanasia, and either way the patient is dead."
Here he takes upon himself to make a "moral" decision based upon his own interpretation of what is "right" and "wrong", what possible scientific basis can this statement have? For example, his analyses assumes that the only important factor is the final result of the physical system (patient dead), without any regard for the state of the brain of the physician and relatives involved in making the decision. It is rather odd for a brain researcher to analyze a system and ignore the state of the brain! While the patient is dead in both cases the resulting state of the brain of all involved could be very different!
The strongest evidence offered here against free will was the case of patients who had damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Oddly, the article emphasized that they did not make "immoral" decisions, but rather made difficult decisions without anguish. What would be good evidence against "free-will" would be damage (or a drug) that would take away all sense of morality or restore it (in the case of psychopaths), or even increase/decrease the amount of empathy a person has (empathy drugs in the water supply anyone?)
In conclusion, In defense of free-will, I would find it surprising indeed if decision-making did not cause brain activity and am rather surprised that every time this brain-activity is observed it's assumed to "prove" somehow that free-will doesn't exist. Again, to disprove something scientifically you first need a working definition of what it is!
So let me get this straight: you get to save money, AND you don't have waste two hours of your Sunday? It's like a bizarro version of working a part-time time job. Your wealth increases in exchange for not doing unpleasant things and not believing in retarded crap.
I keep seeing couple of misconceptions in this thread, which show up quite often elsewhere, and I just thought I'd help clear them up:
First, psychological altruism != ethical altruism != evolutionary altruism.
Psychological altruism is the tendency to act from certain non-selfish motives; see below for more on this.
Ethical altruism is the doctrine that the rightful object of ethics is the wellbeing of other people, and that selfish considerations are entirely amoral if not even immoral. Not all people who are psychologically altruists (people who are motivated to do certain acts for non-selfish reasons) subscribe to the doctrine of evolutionary altruism; you could be an ethiical egoist (holding that what is ethically right is looking out for yourself) and also a psychological altruist (motivated to do nice things for other people regardless of what you get; maybe you don't even enjoy doing it, but you feel motivated for some unselfish, possibly irrational reason).
Evolutionary altruism is a precise technical term specifying a quality of certain inherited traits such that they confer a fitness benefit on other individuals at a cost (or at least, at no benefit) to the fitness of the individual organism with those traits. Note that this is a quality of *inherited traits*, not of the individuals who bear those traits, and that the benefits conferred are strictly reproductive fitness. Giving a person suffering a painful death a painkilling drug to ease their suffering is not evolutionarily altruistic, though it may be psychologically or ethically altruistic; being sterile but otherwise a normal, productive member of society is evolutionarily altruistic but not related to psychology or ethics at all.
Now the second, and more important point: psychological altruism is not "sacrificing oneself for the good of others" or "putting others before oneself" or even "doing good for others regardless of the costs to oneself". There are plenty of small acts of kindness and charity that we rightly call altruistic, which people would not have done had it cost them more, e.g. someone would probably not donate to charity if it meant they were not going to be able to eat this week; thus demonstrating that there was self-interest involved in the consideration of that act. Altruism is simply doing good for others regardless of the BENEFITS to oneself; acting from a desire to help other people, without asking "what do I get out of it?", even though you might still ask "what will this cost me?". Ethical altruism requires that you put others before yourself; but the article seems pretty clearly to be talking about psychological altruism (in particular, as an inherited trait, which may or may not be evolutionarily altruistic; if being nice gets you laid more, it's not evolutionarily altruistic).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It comes down to this: Either
- You are correct, in which case those who disagree with you are either stupid, ignorant, or stubborn -- all three of which are reasons to hold someone in contempt and surgically neuter them to prevent the possibility of them breeding.
- Or you are NOT correct, in which it doesn't matter what you think because you're a goddam moron. So you might as well be a moron with some gusto and hate those who are smarter than you are for whatever reason you please.
Either way, you can and should despise those who disagree with you. Of course, you can always get around this by changing your views to agree with the other person -- if you have good reason to think that they might be correct. So ultimately, you can always either be correct and despise the incorrect, or be too stupid to held accountable for hating those who are correct. It works out very nicely.Leninism is based on the selfishness of the Communist party, and willingness of the people to work very, very hard for the benefit of a party that doesn't need their help. It has zero to do with, say, the welfare state or charity. And you'll note that during the same period, America had welfare, public education, farm subsidies, and a massive military-industrial system that is for all intents and purposes just a massive work-fare program employing over 20% of all working Americans.
Oh, and lets look at the pride of lions again. Notice how all of the female lions work together and share their kills? Or how they leave food for the male lions, who don't even have to hunt? I guess they're engaging in some kind of selfish capitalist behaviour that just LOOKS like a communist society. They probably have a barter system or something that I'm just not seeing. Hey, while you're at it, why not try to claim that ant colonies and bee hives are models of capitalism too!
You get an A for effort, but an F for content. And the professor may suggest that you be placed in the "special" class for retards who fail at basic reasoning.
For example:
Families are the very epitome of cooperation in Human society -- but you can find hundreds of books and thousands of papers on the subject of intra-familial competition. Siblings compete with each other from the moment they're born, despite simultaneously cooperating. That period where babies wail all night and keep their parents from sleeping? Research has shown that it's quite literally an reflexive behaviour that evolved to allow babies to establish dominance over their parents. Meanwhile, parents begin transferring chores and labour to their children the very moment that they become physically capable of it. And yet no one would question for a moment that parents and their children are cooperative.
Always beware of, and soundly beat the asses of, those who try to create dichotomy where it needn't exist.
Of course, we're not particularly capitalist. They say that about 30% of all working Americans work either directly or indirectly for the government or military. I don't know what the figure in Canada, Mexico, or the EU is, but I doubt it's much lower despite their vastly smaller military squanderage.
My father, a reverend who performed a lot of weddings, always had this to say about marriage: that it's not about sharing 50%-50%, it's about sharing 100%-100%. Of course, he went through two divorces himself... whether that's a qualification or a disqualification for expertise on the subject is really up to you to decide.
It follows that the most advanced Humans are the American white-trash, who spend all their money on beer and wrestling pay-per-view, watch Fox News, and never leave the couch except to obtain more deep-fried veal-burgers and vote for the GOP (at least until you can vote for the GOP using a remote control or a $15 cell-phone). They resist all of their "primitive" instincts for advancement, ethics, knowledge, altruism, and personal growth.
Besides, your analogy has the answer contained within it. Being at home on Thanksgiving, you get to EAT -- and not just some orphanage-grade soup either. You get to eat turkey and stuffing and pie. You don't think that lights up the reward centers of the brain? And later that evening, you might get to have sex with your spouse, which also lights up the reward centers of the brain.
The fact that you don't want to think through these very obvious deductions suggests that you just don't WANT to see them, because this research threatens your GOP-inspired worldview. It's sad, really. But it's not really your fault; the Republican sub-species has never been able to deal with facts and logic. It's just who you are. I'd no sooner fault you for it than I'd fault someone for being disabled or for being short.
Wasn't there an episode of the Dilbert animated series on that very subject?
That's why there is no such thing as a moral Christian. You can't follow that system of belief and still be a good person. You can't believe that the serial child-rapist is more deserving of reward in paradise than the selfless atheist, and simulataneously lay claim to an "elevated" system of ethics. A truly good person simply can't believe that a murderous war-monger like George Bush is going to heaven while a compassionate pacifist like Gandhi is in hell, simply because Bush sucked up to the right deity.
here we do not have a church tax, but someting near.
the 8/1000 of the tax we pay may be donated to a church with the excuse of charity ( in italy mainly to the catholic church who use only 23% of those money for charity) or remain to the state alwais for charity purpouse.
it does not cost you nothing, BUT!!!
if you do not specify who you donate to your money is divided between the various churches and state based on the % of those who chose.
given that about 80% of the peolple do not choose, and that maybe the 90% of those who choose are chatolich, this mean that 90% of those money go to the chatolic church.
You must be one of those people that believes in some magical soul floating around, letting us do things for no reason. Sorry, no. Our behaviour is dictated by a biomechanical brain. We do what we do because our brain makes us do it, and the reward system is ultimately what governs it.
Do you really doubt for a second that the pleasure centers of the brain don't light up in a scam-artist's head when he runs a successfull game of "cups"? Or that a wallstreet trader doesn't get a similar rush when he makes a cunning trade and wipes out the economy of a third-world nation? Or that George Bush doesn't get a little rush to the pleasure center of his admittedly chimp-like brain when he signs an execution order for a prisoner?
We have LOTS of instincts. This research shows that altruism is one of them -- something that anthropologists and evolutionary biologists have been claiming for decades. It's just nice to now have some physical proof.
Well, you could always anthropomorphize something or just imagine up a few associates.
The process of becoming self-aware involves the formation of an ego which observes the universe rather than being an integral part of it. Our responsibility for this separation causes us to be hard-wired for guilt, causing us to seek to re-integrate ourselves with the universe through the act of consciousness. Altruism is an artefact of this process of atonement.
Using weasel words like "most likely" when you're referring to a six-orders-of-magnitude difference in 'opinion' is, well, weaseling. And I'm calling you on it.
This is a point where 'theology' is just wrong. Testably so. There are theologies that try to reconcile Genesis with the actual age of the Earth, and there are theologies that just say "God made it look older to test us", and those aren't ruled out (since, by definition, they make no testable predictions contrary to what science actually shows). But the theologies that claim that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that the scientific evidence supports this - those are just flat wrong.
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Actually Altruism has a much simpler and more primative basis. Our primary urge is to survive, and that includes our urge to survive in groups. Giving to other members of your group increases their ability to survive, and therefore your ability to survive. That is why we feel good when we are altruistic - because we are increasing both our own odds of survival, and our group's odds of survival.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
This is one of the core beliefs/tenants of Buddhism- that we are all inherently good and that helping others is the path to true happiness. So, it's actually old wisdom, not a new discovery.
Put it on your excellent and thoughtful blog. ;)
My blog
People engage in "altruistic" practices because they LIKE doing so. Therefore it is not actually altruistic; it's done for one's self.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Of course, that's why I used quotes when replying to the OP (and the same is true for the book title, it's just a short way to summarize certain characteristics, imperfect but "good enough")
Food I dig, it's that stuff I put in my mouth while I'm programming... But that sex part, what's that all about?
Not about altruism perhaps, but something at the end of the article troubled me:
'U.S. law, for example, distinguishes between a physician who removes a feeding tube from a terminally ill patient and a physician who administers a drug to kill the patient.
Hauser said the only difference is that the second scenario is more emotionally charged -- and therefore feels like a different moral problem, when it really is not: "In the end, the doctor's intent is to reduce suffering, and that is as true in active as in passive euthanasia, and either way the patient is dead."'
Am I the only one that does NOT see this as a difference based solely on emotion?
In the first case, the doctor returns the situation to what it was previously - the patient about to starve through being unable to eat. In the second case, the doctor introduces a new factor - the lethal drug. I think people are more comfortable with passive rather than active measures, because it lets them leave the question of their intent open to interpretation. For some, altruism might mean that preserving life has a higher priority over reducing suffering, for others the opposite. But, beyond emotion, I think that with passive measures, there is always the possibility of hope. A friend told me once how a patient twitched a thumb after she pronouced him dead. Two weeks later he left the hospital, alive and well, to her mingled relief and embarrassment. She continues to make a point of speaking aloud the various steps of assessing a patient's responses just in case they can hear her. For her, the lethal drug option would be too final, excluding that 'what if I'm wrong?' possibility that haunts the fallible. In one case the patient is definitely dead, in the other there is a tiny possibility that they might not be.
Why do you assume that a person teaching altruism has selfish motives?
Because it is a psychological fact. There is no action that any human being will take which does not contain a selfish aspect. In other words, if the human considers taking an action and asks himself, "What's in it for me?" and comes up with nothing, then the human will not perform that action.
I'm going to make a grand assumption here that you're a pretty liberal person. That said, would you consider donating money to the Ku Klux Klan? It would be a completely selfless action. Nothing in it for you. Totally altruistic. Donating money to poor and oppressed minorities would be more selfish of you, since it would help people that you like and that would make you feel good.
how can altruism arising from selfish motives be a bad thing if the alternative is selfishness anyway?
I never argued that altruism could arise from selfish motives as I believe such an idea is bogus. Furthermore, you assume that selfishness is immoral. It is not. Selfishness is amoral. Morality comes from our choices in how to act upon the selfshness from which we shouldn't try to escape. This is a tough concept to grasp if you've been taught that "selfishness is wrong" for your whole life. The lesson "selfishness is wrong" may be somewhat appropriate for kindergarteners (and also for those grown-ups who see great wisdom in certain books), but as people gain in understanding and wisdom than more nuanced lessons in morality are required.
Do you believe that it is always wrong to tell a lie?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
It's pretty obvious if you think about it that we get a LOT out of contributing to others.
That blows holes in the "selfless" claims to "altrusism", doesn't it?
If contributing to others really was selfless, then you would get NOTHING out of it.
In fact, if would be even more selfless if you were HARMED by contributing to others.
In fact, you can take that a step further and be even more selfless if contributing others harmed not only you, but all your loved ones, too, and also helped your enemies to harm more of your loved ones.
Why not go whole hog and realize that it would be most selfless of all if contributing to others harmed you, harmed your loved ones, helped your enemies, and also violated every sense of morality that you had.
For example, if you were to spend all of your money to help the new Neo-Nazi party build and deploy a nuclear weapon against your family, millions of oppressed people, and for the purpose of increasing Neo-Nazi party power worldwide, then that action would be really, really, really selfless of you.
THAT is altruism. The fake "altruism" that people insist upon is actually really selfish in comparison, as you've admitted that you get "a LOT" out of doing it.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
4 posts in a thread, all falsely modded as flamebait at the same time.
Someone has mod points they don't deserve, a personal grudge, and no moral fiber.
You can't take the sky from me...
The metaphor used in the news item ("hard wired"), although apt for /., is misleading.
It is one thing to hypothesise that brain activity has EVOLVED to make altruism pleasurable; it is another entirely to say it is WIRED to do so, with all the connotations of inevitability and even creationism that entails.
And the experiment itself doesn't appear to account for highly significant cultural variables, such as the meaning of money and charity for the subjects. Those meanings need qualitative analysis.
Similarly the experiment fails to account for the distinction between imagination and action - a glaring omission for an ostensibly cognitive-behavioural experiment. Simply thinking about giving money to charity doesn't necessarily produce the same brain response and actually doing it.
Also the claim that such a response is "like food or sex" is flimsy. People respond to both these things in very complex ways that aren't necessarily simply "pleasurable". For instance a person might have an eating disorder.
It's typical dumb sociobiology, making grand pseudo-ethical claims with inadequate evidence, IMO.
Here's a clue, people: when you see someone trying to glorify selfishness and denigrate selflessness, RUN. That person is a very selfish person, and will likely not think twice before hurting you if it profits them.
That is a very insulting statement for you to make because I specifically think you are talking about my ideas.
First, I do not glorify selfishness. I exalt rational self-interest as moral and defend selfishness as amoral. But I think that you would gladly spin that statement as my choosing to "glorify selfishness" because it serves you to have my ideas ignored, suppressed, or otherwise be unheard.
Second, because I exalt rational self-interest I specifically regard the choice to harm someone else ("harm" meaning, deprive them of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud) for the sake of my own profit as an immoral choice and the behavior of a predator. Predators do not deserve to live in society! You are likening me to that individual that I specifically hold in contempt through deliberate mischaracterization of my own ideas. The fact that I exalt rational self-interest means that I seek to make win-wins with people, not predatory behavior. I interact with other people only when the interaction makes both people stronger. I do not want to be a mugger or a leech and will not allow anyone else to mug me or mooch off me, either.
You can hate my ideas for what they are, and that is totally fine with me. It's silly of me to expect that everyone will unflinchingly accept all of my own opinions. But it is wrong of you to miscast my ideas as something they are not. Please educate yourself about my ethic before you defame it. If it sucks as badly as you think it does, then let it fail based on its own lack of merit instead of based on your failure to understand it.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
what they are saying is people are only generous because it feels good.
Accept.
That is, if it did not give them that feel good feeling, they would not be generous.
Accept.
Thus, everyone is generous for their own selfish purposes.
Accept.
Ergo, everyone is 100% selfish.
Non sequitur.
The correct next statement is, "There is no action which does not contain a selfish motifivation."
Take generosity, for example. If you give money to someone who "needs" it, then A) it helps the other person instead of you (unselfish), B) it might harm you if that person then decides to use that money against you (very unselfish), and C) it makes you feel good (selfish). There is (at least) one unselfish part of generosity, and (at least) one selfish part of genorosity. And it follows with every other action you choose to take. There may be one million unselfish parts to the action you choose to take, but if there isn't at least one selfish part, then you won't take that action.
Try to dispute my logic. I dare you.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
However you frame it, we are all entitled to roundhouse-kick the people who disagree with us in the face. :p Think about it -- if you're correct, you'll probably cling to your views despite the occasional roundhouse-kick from idiots (who would probably roundhouse-kick you anyway, since that's the kind of thing that idiots are known for), whereas if you're incorrect, you might eventually have some sense beaten into you.
Oh, brother. Ask any scientist what the age of the universe is, and you'll get an answer in the range of between 10-20 billion years. The exact answer will tend to change with time as science learns new things about the universe. Sometimes the estimate decreases, sometimes it increases. There are quite a few factors that keep messing with the estimates. So when I say, "most likely", I mean that while the universe's age is up for debate, it would take a radical shift in current knowledge to show the universe as 6,000 years old.
Feel happy, warm, and fuzzy yet?
1. Don't be thick. I made the explicit point that theology must reevaluate itself in the face of knowledge about God's creation. The 6,000 year figure is a guesstimation based upon the genealogy between Adam and Jesus, not an exact figure given by the Bible on when it happened. The parts before that have always been open to some interpretation. Specifically, Genesis 1:2 has always given scholars trouble because it says "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters," suggesting that the Earth existed prior to its creation. It can also be interpreted as, "the earth became formless and empty".
2. I lack the ability to read Hebrew, so I've never been able to fully test a theological theory of mine. And that is that the "days" spoken of by Moses are length of his vision, not the physical period of creation. The Catholic church already accepts something to that affect, including the whole ball of wax with evolution. As a critical thinker, I cannot accept evolution as fact as of yet. At least not the theory in its current form. There simply is too much lacking in the models for abiogenesis and macroevolution. Again, if the universe is run by an extra-universal being, then the laws of nature are his laws of nature. So I don't see any reason to question the idea that creation might have been a seemingly natural event.
3. Your link raises a lot of questions that have not all been successfully answered. However, until the event can be scientifically proven to have happened, trying to disprove the details is pointless. Certain aspects can be argued (e.g. the construction according to the Bible), but even there we are missing the specific materials and techniques possibly used in construction. Furthermore, the extent of the flood is not known. According to the Bible, the Flood was sufficient to wipe out mankind of the day. But was it truly a global flood, or simply one of the prehistoric deluge disasters?
The Bible discusses that the Nephilim existed both before and after the flood. And in fact, the Biblical reason for the flood was to wipe out the Nephilim cross-breeds. These cross-breeds were the giants who were later seen in the land of Israel. (The most famous being Goliath.) There has been some suggestion that contemporary but separate homo-species may have interbred with humans, creating the legend of the Nephilim. However, there is still not enough known about these periods of history to make a clear determination. Books such as the Torah have been so mystified over the years that the historical records they may contain are often difficult to interpret according to their original intent. What might have made perfect sense in Moses' time, now seems like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.
In any case, are you quite done forcing a confrontation? Unless you'd care to further prove my point for me?
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That's exactly where it's destined to go. The only problem is getting it done. I not only have to write it (which as you know, I never do by halves), but I have various charts and technology demonstrations to complete. It's a lot of work, but I think the result will be worth it. :)
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How about you give me pleasure first, and then I give you money?
Co-operation has always co-existed with competition, from the first multicellular organism onward.
Why does this still confuse allegedly sentient beings?
Rational Self Interest, the benign form of Selfishness (which you and so many others so easily confuse), INCLUDES helping others:
- helping you creates a positive environment, which helps me
- helping you may leave you in my debt, which helps me
- helping you may increase my positive PR value, which helps me
- helping you may make you more self sufficient, therefore less dependent, which helps everyone, which helps me
etc etc etc
~!J!
Ah, I see. "Most likely" equals "essentially certainly" in your vocabulary. Useful to know. Leaving aside the age of the universe - which is still uncertain but no one doubts it's over 10 billion years - the age of the Earth has been pretty well stable at 4.5-4.7 billion years for a long time. You might want to hip yourself to isochron dating before you suggest that there's any rationally perceptible chance that the age is off by six orders of magnitude.
You might want to gather some more knowledge in that area, then.
Ah, if only that were true. Sadly not all of 'em do.
Ah, and here's the real meat - you don't want that to be true. Your use of the term 'macroevolution' is a revealing code word. (I mean, that's like accepting that you can 'microwalk' to the grocery store, but people walking across a continent - that's 'macrowalking' and requires miracles.) Tell me, are you familiar with 'ring species'? If one of the intermediate species went extinct for whatever reason - say Birula's Gull - we'd have at least two separate species. Why can't this happen with populations distributed in time as well as space? What prevents such changes from accumulating indefinitely?
Tell ya what - I'll grant you abiogensis, and say that we don't really know how that could happen. (That's not really true - we do have some decent ideas - but as I've pointed out before, things that were confidently asserted to require magic, like lightning, have turned out to be more mundane. I'm fine with saying, "We dunno, yet.")
But as to evolution after the origin of life - Why is it that the genomes of all life, when compared, form a nested tree where branches and mutations can be traced in detail and with quite rare ambiguity, and by remarkable coincidence that tree matches up essentially perfectly with the independently generated (indeed, generated before genetics) "tree of life" based on physical classification? It didn't have to be that way at all. For example, plants have certain variants of cytochrome C, and animals have different variants, and the pattern of mutations matches up with the proposed evolutionary tree extraordinarily well. But, corn that's been engineered to use the mouse version of cytochrome C grows just fine. The 'creator(s)' didn't have to arrange the genomes so they just happened, to a probabilistic impossibility, to match the phenotypic evolutionary tree. But golly, they do.
Perhaps you have problems with complex new adaptations arising without a conscious designer. Here's an example you can check on your very own body. Lay your fingers on the side of your jaw. Now, trace along the edge up to the very top of the jawbone. Notice how close your fingers are to your ear canal. Inside the inner ear are three bones, the ossicles: malleus, incus, and stapes. They are carefully arranged to transfer sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea as efficiently as possible. How could such an amazing mechanism arise? (One that's been cited, even, as evidence for 'design' - just Google around a bit.)
It
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Hmm, interesting experiment, but I am not sure it is not biased.
t m
While it seems possible to tell a gipsy from a non-gipsy due to skin colour and clothing (roma females tend to wear colourful stuff with flower patterns, my personal observation), it's pretty much impossible to tell a russian from a moldovan without engaging in a conversation.
People from Moldova tend to speak Russian with a specific accent, which is different from the accents typical to other ex-USSR peoples; so I am assuming they figure out the beggar is from Moldova by parsing their 'I need money' message and then mapping the accent to a country. I think this is the only way to do it, unless the beggar is wearing^ a national costume, or is dressed up in their country's flag.
The problem is that when people give money to beggars, they do it 'on-the-fly' and I've never seen anyone engage in a dialogue.
I am from Moldova, and Russian was my first language - so my Russian sounds like a russian's Russian. Also, moldovans with non-Russian as their first language can easily get rid of 'the accent' if they really try to. So I'm not sure we can trust the observations of that study.
^ The study claims the beggars "were dressed in the distinctive garb of Moldova", but I find that hard to believe - this is what one of those 'skins' looks like: http://www.galenfrysinger.com/moldovan_costumes.h
The saddest poem
And yet again, you force words in my mouth that were not spoken. WHEN did I suggest that there is a serious chance that the age is off by six orders of magnitude? Quote me. Specifically, where did I say it?
It seems to me that you are simply hearing what you want to hear. And THAT is how you are forcing a confrontation when none exists.
Oooo. A "codeword". Explains everything, doesn't it? (Excuse me while I roll my eyes.)
And here we see that you have no idea what you're really talking about, but you're going to defend it to the end, anyway. From the tree of life website:
Darwin's "Tree of life" is not useful to the modern evolutionary scientist, as a variety of new research into the factors that change life (such as recombination, gene loss, duplication, and gene creation are a few of the processes whereby genes can be transferred within and between species) make the concept of the Tree of Life outmoded. More info: http://www.physorg.com/news92912140.html
And again, you demonstrate that you know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to actually know what the hell you're talking about. Here:
If you'll pardon my crassness, bullshit. You're intentionally forcing an argument because you belive you already understand both sides of the argument, and y
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"[Geologists are] reasonably certain that 6,000 years is a bit shy [of the age of the Earth]". My point, again, is that they are not "reasonably" certain that it's "a bit shy" - they are bet-your-life-sure that the Earth is around one million times older than that.
Oh, and you're claiming I'm the one who only knows "enough to be dangerous"? Sure, the 'roots' of the tree of life are fuzzy, since it's tied in with abiogenesis and happened too long ago to leave useful fossils and there's the gene transfer problem alluded to in your selective quote. But that does not mean that the vast majority of the tree, particularly almost everything after the major lineages diverged, is 'controversial'. A quote you didn't include from that PhysOrg article: "Thus the TOL is great for fossils and museums and dinosaurs and most of visible life, over the last billion years." And gee, that in particular appears to be where you have problems - you know, with "macroevolution" and all.
The dual nested hierarchies of phylogeny and genetics is incredibly strong evidence for evolution, on top of all the fossil evidence, the practical utility of evolutionary algorithms, etc. etc. and etc.
Oh, and comparing human and cheetah genetic diversity points out why the Flood didn't "wipe out most of humanity" in anything like the way the Bible portrays. There's a huge difference between ~100 reproducing individuals for the cheetah and the 5,000 minimum specified in the article. How many of those "reproducing females" were on the Ark?
Gee, as long as we're doing direct quotes, how about one of mine: There are theologies that try to reconcile Genesis with the actual age of the Earth, and there are theologies that just say "God made it look older to test us", and those aren't ruled out (since, by definition, they make no testable predictions contrary to what science actually shows)..
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So you take it out of context, then use brackets to add words that I didn't say? Nice work. You've just shoved words into my mouth. Here is what I actually said:
"The truth of the matter is that the scientist is not yet sure of the age (though he's reasonably certain that 6,000 years is a bit shy) and the theologian needs to take another pass at his texts because his domain is not that of science
The whole kitten caboodle is fuzzy. It isn't just controversial, it's outmoded. The structure cannot support modern evolutionary science any longer. FTFA:It's that simple. The TOL continues to be a nice model of evolutionary theory, but making a model of a theory does not prove a theory.
So your point is that now you're changing your argument? "If humans went through a similar 'pinch point' anywhere in the last 100,000 years, how come transplant rejection is such a problem?" Excellent question. Why don't you feel free to explain the answer?
(That, BTW, is a retorical question. I already know the answer. Here's a hint: It has less to do with a difference in the number breeding pairs there were and everything to do with their adapability to the environment.)
"Don't be thick. I made the explicit point that theology must reevaluate itself in the face of knowledge about God's creation."
Let me repeat myself. The universe is probably older than 6,000 years. Not by another 10,000 or 20,000 years, but by several billion years. Now if you want to keep beating your head against this same wall, go right ahead. Just don't expect me to pay any attention.
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I figured we'd have a separate thread to deal with the ad-hominem stuff. Feel free to provide a direct quote where I claimed to know "all the answers". So long as we're, y'know, asking for direct quotes and all.
Well, I started by pointing out that "extra-universal hypotheses that explicitly define the extra-universal as undetectable are epistemologically worthless." I did not, for example, say that I thought the universe was "20 billion years [old] and that it's impossible that the universe might be a different age". I did say that it's essentially impossible (as in, so improbable that it's not worth worrying about) that the universe is only 6,000 years old.
You said, "but I didn't say that the Earth was only 6,000 years old", and I pointed out that the odds of that being the case are basically negligible, but you phrased things to imply that that was a reasonable possibility.
I then had to relate it back to the initial point - where theology makes testable predictions, it does indeed fall under the purview of science, and so far not many theogically-inspired theories have withstood scientific scrutiny. You bring up things like Noah's Flood and the Nephilim, and I pointed out that there's oodles of contrary evidence to show they didn't happen the way they're presented in the Bible. Then you admitted that you have problems with unspecified "lacks" in evolution, I pointed out a sliver of the panoply of evidence supporting it, and you responded with the typical creationist-style out-of-context quotes.
And the ad-hominem stuff, like the above. Then there's this gem:
The fact that I disagree with you, and am specific about where and why, implies not that I might have a point, but that I'm only resisting you for some psychological reason unrelated to the actual facts. Oh, wait, you try to put that in and then backtrack by saying:
I disagree with your contentions about the differences and relationships between theology and science, and I've expressed that clearly. I've also pointed out where you've phrased things (IMO) misleadingly, and explained why I think it's misleading. Evolution's one of my hobbies, so I'm happy to point out where people are misunderstanding it (willfully or otherwise). That's not the same as picking a fight. Your original post has been moderated as flamebait, so I'm not exactly alone in my estimations here.
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"the theologian needs to take another pass at his texts because his domain is not that of science."
"If you were listening to what I said, then you'd know that theology has to accept that which is proven. Geologists don't know anywhere near everything about geology, but they do know quite a bit."
"I just made a point of the fact that the universe (and probably the Earth) is most likely older than 6,000 years. I linked to that site NOT to make the point that it is in fact 6,000 years old."
"when I say, "most likely", I mean that while the universe's age is up for debate, it would take a radical shift in current knowledge to show the universe as 6,000 years old"
"Don't be thick. I made the explicit point that theology must reevaluate itself in the face of knowledge about God's creation."
"Let me repeat myself. The universe is probably older than 6,000 years. Not by another 10,000 or 20,000 years, but by several billion years. Now if you want to keep beating your head against this same wall, go right ahead. Just don't expect me to pay any attention."
Long story short, I agree that the universe is ancient and disagree with the 6,000 year figure. You continue to argue with the 6,000 year figure. I think we're done here. Good day.
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That altruism is hardwired into the brain (selected for by evolution) was already published nearly 30 years ago by Edward O. Wilson in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book On Human Nature (recently had to write a thesis paper on the subject). I'm surprised this article doesn't even mention that.
Interesting that the clearest and most relevant quote you make here was posted after the comment you're responding to. You don't seem to grasp that I understand that you think it's 'unlikely' that the Earth is 6,000 years old - I do get that.
My specific problem is that saying that the "universe is probably older than 6,000 years" strikes me as similar to saying "there probably was a George Washington" or "we probably did send people to the moon in the late 1960's and 1970's" or "the moon probably isn't really made of green cheese" and so forth. Using the word "probably" in such a context is misleading at best.
Perhaps I'm oversensitive thanks to the schmucks I've already linked to, but I've really run out of patience for treating young-Earth creationism as anything but the balderdash it patently is. And if you didn't want a discussion about this stuff, why'd you post an inflammatory comment on a discussion forum?
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Actually, it's 'whole kit and caboodle'. No biggie.
From your own cite: "Surely a tree is the right model for most multi-cellular animals and plants," Doolittle explained... So, again... how come the genetic and phylogeny trees match up so well?
I said "a similar 'pinch point'". The cheetahs were just shy of being wiped out. Down to (a minimum of) 5,000 reproducing females is low, but at least an order of magnitude (and possibly two orders) larger than the cheetahs. And the cheetah population was a couple orders of magnitude larger than the supposed human pinch point described in Genesis (eight people total, four reproducing females at most). (The tradition in Islam's a bit better, that there were ~80 people on board, but still everyone's supposedly descended from Noah's three sons.) That's not "similar". I'll grant that there was a pinch point, though.
Okay, then, can you explain in detail how human adaptability to the environment - compared to the cheetah, a similarly-sized mammal - creates genetic diversity in the major histocompatibility complex? I'd be fascinated. It's not like cheetahs have an entirely different immune system, like plants or whatever.
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