The bottom line is that if you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient creator, then you believe in an evil, sadistic being, by definition, and one need only look at the world to see it. No being that cared about what it creates would intentionally set up the universe such that pain and suffering were possible, much less undeserved pain and suffering, and certainly not one in which pain and suffering were necessary for survival (i.e., hunters and prey).
What makes you presume that God takes pleasure in our petty suffering, or should even care how we feel? You can't apply human morality on God.
Hint: the dodos are not the intelligent design folks, it's the scientists who are in danger of becoming extinct because they can't communicate simple facts to the mainstream audience.
Science moved past simple facts decades ago, and you can't communicate to someone who refuses to listen. Trying to fix an anti-intellectual culture might be necessary for scientists to survive, but measuring polar ice caps or bird migration patterns, or curing cancer, or digging up dinosaurs, or trying to synthesize element 132 is what scientists do for a living, and society interferes with that work at their ultimate peril.
The public is ignorant, yes, but describing them as some kind of sub-human species is way out of line. You make it sound like understanding science is simply not possible for them.
Maybe it isn't. One of the most difficult things for intelligent people is to comprehend just how dumb people can be and still manage to survive.
While the Pope does have the authority to promulgate infallible dogma whilst speaking ex cathedra, this is exceedingly rare, on the order of perhaps once per century. Most Popes live and die without claiming to provide any "divine knowledge"--the last one who promulgated dogma ex cathedra was Pius XII, five popes and 57 years ago. The dogma in question was Mary's assumption into heaven, which seems perfectly reasonable if you've already spent the past 2,000 believing she was Jesus's mom.
The Church is considered to be authoritative in its interpretation of scripture, but the vast majority of dogmas and doctrines are defined by the community of bishops in council and not by the Pope individually.
The various books of the Bible were written in ancient times before the Church was really founded (claims that the Church was founded by Christ's mandate to Peter notwithstanding). The Old Testament was pretty much canonized by the Jews, although Catholic synods added a few books to it at the same time they canonized the New Testament. The Protestants ended up un-canonizing the books the Catholics added to the Old Testament, though.
You are correct, the mailbox on the pole or your front door is Federally protected and is for the exclusive use of the Postal Service. That's a good thing because it gives your mail a stronger layer of protection.
It gives a private corporation, the US Postal Service, a stronger layer of protection. Why the law can't be changed to favor mail-delivery companies in general and not the USPS in specific is my question.
UPS, Fedex and DHL don't use a "mailbox" model because it would be a logistical nightmare.
They don't use that model because the USPS has a federally-protected monopoly on that business model. If the USPS is profitable running a mailbox model, why couldn't other firms be?
But if I have a mailbox on my front lawn, it's a federal law that only the postal service (and myself) can open it. UPS/FedEx/DHL can't use the Postal Service business model of "put a stamp on an envelope and we'll pick it up" because they don't have the legal right to put mail in anyone's mailbox, or take it out for that matter.
But they still hold a monopoly on regular service. I can't hire UPS to come to my house every day, pick up outgoing mail from my mailbox, and deliver mail to my mailbox. I can't even unsubscribe from the USPS.
I'm sure systematically oppressed racial minorities DO feel a desire to commit violence against the race that oppressed them, and I'm sure the majority race understands that.
Ok, women are, statistically, smaller then males. But the same thing could be said of, say, black males to white males. So does that male white males easily victimized and they should feel constantly threatened and vigilant?
Women feel perfectly at ease around other women, it's only around men that they feel vigilant and threatened. I'll bet most white males feel more vigilant and threatened when they're around blacks.
So the definition you are choosing to use doesn't technically apply to ANY of the mentioned behaviors. In fact, the definition you choose to use is entirely inappropriate for a discussion about how altruism might arise through evolution.
To be fair, that is what you linked me to. Your definition, involving "giving without expectation of return", really hinges on what we mean by "expectation", because in circumstances other than kin-selection there is some sort of expectation that's still involved. Maybe it's not guaranteed but there's still what economists would call a positive expected value to those actions.
Encouragement of reciprocity, when it fails, decreases an individual's fitness because it amounts to giving away something for nothing. The handicap principle, when it fails to attract a mate, decreases the individuals fitness as well. Again, giving away something for nothing. Yet both these strategies actually tend to increase fitness and so the behavior of 'giving something away for nothing' is selected for.
I'd call it the behavior of risky investing. From the animal's point of view it just instinctually gives to others, of course, but natural selection is making a risky investment. And once you get to something with the capacity to reflect upon its actions and hold conscious intent, the intent may very well be altruistic even when it's motivated by an instinct that benefits our self-interest. (Of course, I'd say that man's altruism, such as it is, has limits--the constant idea of "the other" and the "us vs. them" mentality humans have probably originates from tribal times, when we needed to hunt and gather in packs, but didn't consistently have intimate social relations with other tribes. The benefits of being in a tribe far outweighed the costs of having to pay your dues, so to speak, but you still might kill the other tribe and steal their women if you thought you could get away with it.)
As I said before, I do understand the distinction you've made. It just isn't a distinction that is important in an evolutionary framework, which is all about the frequency of certain genes in the population.
Right, but this is about morality as well as evolution, and from that perspective it is insightful to see how altruism to those outside your own family, when it occurs in nature, is not very different from enlightened self-interest. If we want to construct an ethics, we could follow our instincts to altruism, and feel like fantastic altruists while doing it, but if we're serious about altruism we're going to figure out that it turns out to be in our best interest, and that by constructing an ethics of enlightened, mutual self-interest we can get to the same place more honestly. (Or, alternatively, we could become more altruistic and make sure we don't even gain a net benefit in the long run. Of course, this isn't universalizable because someone must benefit eventually--or else morality just turns into nihilism.) Another issue is that for many people, conscious thought leads them to value things differently from the way evolution values them. Think about people who don't want kids. But if you take any set of values (evolutionary fitness, personal survival and reproduction, intellectual fulfillment) you can be an egoist or altruist with respect to those values.
But in the terms we usually have to deal with, where selfishness means short-sightedness and altruism means consideration for others, even when such consideration turns out to be in your interest, there is something to be said for giving to others without a guaranteed expectation of return.
Nonetheless, you might want to check out my other reply. I think our difference in perspective had more to do with whether you looked at behavior over the long run or the short run, which does tend to distinguish the type of behavior in question from petty selfishness as well as account for your remarks earlier along the lines of "altruism is enlightened self-interest".
You can't even keep from contradicting yourself in the same post:
I'm not here to win or lose, I'm here to discuss.
vs.
I don't bring out my best argument until they have absolutely no escape route. I could have shown you the scientific definition and proved you wrong four posts ago, but it was far more fun this way. It's like a pin or a fork in chess, you really have no moves left to make, and you've put yourself in that position.
Nonetheless, I'll explain myself again, because you're either being a prick or you genuinely misunderstand what I've been writing this whole time. Your Wikipedia link says "altruism refers to behavior by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor". Fitness is defined (through a hyperlink in that very same passage) as "the capability of an individual of certain genotype to reproduce, and usually is equal to the proportion of the individual's genes in all the genes of the next generation". I agree with those definitions and will use them word-for-word in the rest of my argument.
You provided three examples of behavior which you believe satisfy the above-quoted definition of "altruism". One was kin-selection. I agree with you on that one, in that kin-selective behavior does impair "the capability of an individual...to reproduce" (although it does help to improve "the proportion of the individual's genes in all the genes of the next generation").
Another was the encouragement of reciprocity. Encouraging reciprocity does not impair fitness (again, the capability of an individual of certain genotype to reproduce) because the end result of a reciprocal relationship is improved fitness on both parts--it does not "increase the fitness of another individual by decreasing the fitness of the actor".
Third, you mention the handicap principle, in which "things that help get a mate are selected for even if they hurt the chance of survival". But such behavior does, as you say, help get a mate, which improves the individual's fitness instead of decreasing it. Thus, it does not meet Wikipedia's definition of altruism.
Now, with both of those above cases, you could say that they are altruistic in the short run. Attempting to initiate a reciprocal relationship, or acting generously to attract a mate, both temporarily harm the actor's fitness. However, since this behavior exists specifically to elicit favorable, fitness-enhancing responses (and would not exist if it was not successful at such), I think it's rather incomplete to take the short-run perspective on those issues, no different than considering a financial investor a wasteful spendthrift (or generous benefactor) because he invests prior to, and with no guarantee of, profitable return. (Perhaps it was this differing point of view behind our disagreement all along?)
Kin-selection, of course, is altruistic both in the short run and in the long run, because unlike your other two examples, its evolutionary payoff to the actor is not to his own capability to reproduce.
You've discredited nothing by redefining altruism to suit your ends.
I did no such thing; rather, I was the first to notice the possible semantic dispute and used the first definition you chose to provide. You may feel amused with yourself if you would like. I've fully explained my arguments and feel no desire to continue struggling with your poor reading comprehension.
You asserted that evolution selects for altruism even outside the process of kin-selection, defining altruism for the sake of your argument as "giving to others without expectation of return". I've discredited that assertion, and now you're rephrasing it now to evade having to recognize that.
When people see others giving away resources with nothing expected in return, do they not call that altruism?
Reciprocity and the handicap principle are both clear examples of something expected in return. The animal may not have conscious expectations, but the expectation is still there in the selective pressure. Those behaviors would not be naturally selected if there was nothing given in return--and so the continued selection of those behaviors is fully contingent upon bringing something in return.
Few people rescue relatives from burning buildings feeling forced into it, all sad and mopey because they are going to die. They do it because, in the moment it is the thing that feels the best, that gives them the most pleasure.
Right, my standard is the individual's well-being, not necessarily how he feels. On the other hand, that sort of behavior is calculatedly selfish on the part of the gene, even if it's (happily) altruistic on the part of the individual.
I consider altruism synonymous with self-sacrifice. Kin-selection is the only case where animals tend to exhibit self-sacrificing behavior. Altruism could also involve other net-negative sacrifices for yourself--if you decide to give up your own children so your neighbor's children may live, for instance. But that never happens, unless of course it leads somehow to lots of wild mammal sex for the sacrificing mother so that her genes are passed on after all, better than they would have been before.
Encouragement of reciprocity and the handicap principle are net-positive for the individual so they are not altruistic, no more than any other business transaction. If a supermarket donates to charity in order to encourage shoppers to shop there, that's not at all altruistic. I see no distinction between that and a mammal being generous to other mammals in order to encourage females to mate with it. Likewise, reciprocity is no different from going to the supermarket to buy bananas. You give the supermarket money, they give you bananas, and you both entered into that transaction out of your own self-interest.
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What makes you presume that God takes pleasure in our petty suffering, or should even care how we feel? You can't apply human morality on God.
Science moved past simple facts decades ago, and you can't communicate to someone who refuses to listen. Trying to fix an anti-intellectual culture might be necessary for scientists to survive, but measuring polar ice caps or bird migration patterns, or curing cancer, or digging up dinosaurs, or trying to synthesize element 132 is what scientists do for a living, and society interferes with that work at their ultimate peril.
A logical impossibility. Faith is the willful choice not to challenge a given belief, but rather, to accept it literally without reason.
Maybe it isn't. One of the most difficult things for intelligent people is to comprehend just how dumb people can be and still manage to survive.
Prove it.
Who the fuck modded this informative?
It gives a private corporation, the US Postal Service, a stronger layer of protection. Why the law can't be changed to favor mail-delivery companies in general and not the USPS in specific is my question.
They don't use that model because the USPS has a federally-protected monopoly on that business model. If the USPS is profitable running a mailbox model, why couldn't other firms be?
But if I have a mailbox on my front lawn, it's a federal law that only the postal service (and myself) can open it. UPS/FedEx/DHL can't use the Postal Service business model of "put a stamp on an envelope and we'll pick it up" because they don't have the legal right to put mail in anyone's mailbox, or take it out for that matter.
But they still hold a monopoly on regular service. I can't hire UPS to come to my house every day, pick up outgoing mail from my mailbox, and deliver mail to my mailbox. I can't even unsubscribe from the USPS.
There's a Boba Fett stamp. What is it with you people and Boba Fett? He's the most popular minor character EVER.
It's not a big truck!
I'm sure systematically oppressed racial minorities DO feel a desire to commit violence against the race that oppressed them, and I'm sure the majority race understands that.
And the plot for the next gang-bang porno suddenly comes into view.
Women feel perfectly at ease around other women, it's only around men that they feel vigilant and threatened. I'll bet most white males feel more vigilant and threatened when they're around blacks.
Do females join street gangs and participate in gang warfare? Do females get into bar fights? Do females kill each other for committing adultery?
Will this revolution in music cause a Panic! At The Disco?
To be fair, that is what you linked me to. Your definition, involving "giving without expectation of return", really hinges on what we mean by "expectation", because in circumstances other than kin-selection there is some sort of expectation that's still involved. Maybe it's not guaranteed but there's still what economists would call a positive expected value to those actions.
I'd call it the behavior of risky investing. From the animal's point of view it just instinctually gives to others, of course, but natural selection is making a risky investment. And once you get to something with the capacity to reflect upon its actions and hold conscious intent, the intent may very well be altruistic even when it's motivated by an instinct that benefits our self-interest. (Of course, I'd say that man's altruism, such as it is, has limits--the constant idea of "the other" and the "us vs. them" mentality humans have probably originates from tribal times, when we needed to hunt and gather in packs, but didn't consistently have intimate social relations with other tribes. The benefits of being in a tribe far outweighed the costs of having to pay your dues, so to speak, but you still might kill the other tribe and steal their women if you thought you could get away with it.)
Right, but this is about morality as well as evolution, and from that perspective it is insightful to see how altruism to those outside your own family, when it occurs in nature, is not very different from enlightened self-interest. If we want to construct an ethics, we could follow our instincts to altruism, and feel like fantastic altruists while doing it, but if we're serious about altruism we're going to figure out that it turns out to be in our best interest, and that by constructing an ethics of enlightened, mutual self-interest we can get to the same place more honestly. (Or, alternatively, we could become more altruistic and make sure we don't even gain a net benefit in the long run. Of course, this isn't universalizable because someone must benefit eventually--or else morality just turns into nihilism.) Another issue is that for many people, conscious thought leads them to value things differently from the way evolution values them. Think about people who don't want kids. But if you take any set of values (evolutionary fitness, personal survival and reproduction, intellectual fulfillment) you can be an egoist or altruist with respect to those values.
But in the terms we usually have to deal with, where selfishness means short-sightedness and altruism means consideration for others, even when such consideration turns out to be in your interest, there is something to be said for giving to others without a guaranteed expectation of return.
Nonetheless, you might want to check out my other reply. I think our difference in perspective had more to do with whether you looked at behavior over the long run or the short run, which does tend to distinguish the type of behavior in question from petty selfishness as well as account for your remarks earlier along the lines of "altruism is enlightened self-interest".
You can't even keep from contradicting yourself in the same post:
vs.
Nonetheless, I'll explain myself again, because you're either being a prick or you genuinely misunderstand what I've been writing this whole time. Your Wikipedia link says "altruism refers to behavior by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor". Fitness is defined (through a hyperlink in that very same passage) as "the capability of an individual of certain genotype to reproduce, and usually is equal to the proportion of the individual's genes in all the genes of the next generation". I agree with those definitions and will use them word-for-word in the rest of my argument.
You provided three examples of behavior which you believe satisfy the above-quoted definition of "altruism". One was kin-selection. I agree with you on that one, in that kin-selective behavior does impair "the capability of an individual...to reproduce" (although it does help to improve "the proportion of the individual's genes in all the genes of the next generation").
Another was the encouragement of reciprocity. Encouraging reciprocity does not impair fitness (again, the capability of an individual of certain genotype to reproduce) because the end result of a reciprocal relationship is improved fitness on both parts--it does not "increase the fitness of another individual by decreasing the fitness of the actor".
Third, you mention the handicap principle, in which "things that help get a mate are selected for even if they hurt the chance of survival". But such behavior does, as you say, help get a mate, which improves the individual's fitness instead of decreasing it. Thus, it does not meet Wikipedia's definition of altruism.
Now, with both of those above cases, you could say that they are altruistic in the short run. Attempting to initiate a reciprocal relationship, or acting generously to attract a mate, both temporarily harm the actor's fitness. However, since this behavior exists specifically to elicit favorable, fitness-enhancing responses (and would not exist if it was not successful at such), I think it's rather incomplete to take the short-run perspective on those issues, no different than considering a financial investor a wasteful spendthrift (or generous benefactor) because he invests prior to, and with no guarantee of, profitable return. (Perhaps it was this differing point of view behind our disagreement all along?)
Kin-selection, of course, is altruistic both in the short run and in the long run, because unlike your other two examples, its evolutionary payoff to the actor is not to his own capability to reproduce.
I did no such thing; rather, I was the first to notice the possible semantic dispute and used the first definition you chose to provide. You may feel amused with yourself if you would like. I've fully explained my arguments and feel no desire to continue struggling with your poor reading comprehension.
You asserted that evolution selects for altruism even outside the process of kin-selection, defining altruism for the sake of your argument as "giving to others without expectation of return". I've discredited that assertion, and now you're rephrasing it now to evade having to recognize that.
Right--but this just boils down to the difference between evolutionary purpose and actual purposes held by actual people.
Yes. As I just pointed out to you, even by that standard, reciprocity and the handicap principle are not altruism.
Reciprocity and the handicap principle are both clear examples of something expected in return. The animal may not have conscious expectations, but the expectation is still there in the selective pressure. Those behaviors would not be naturally selected if there was nothing given in return--and so the continued selection of those behaviors is fully contingent upon bringing something in return.
Right, my standard is the individual's well-being, not necessarily how he feels. On the other hand, that sort of behavior is calculatedly selfish on the part of the gene, even if it's (happily) altruistic on the part of the individual.
I consider altruism synonymous with self-sacrifice. Kin-selection is the only case where animals tend to exhibit self-sacrificing behavior. Altruism could also involve other net-negative sacrifices for yourself--if you decide to give up your own children so your neighbor's children may live, for instance. But that never happens, unless of course it leads somehow to lots of wild mammal sex for the sacrificing mother so that her genes are passed on after all, better than they would have been before.
Encouragement of reciprocity and the handicap principle are net-positive for the individual so they are not altruistic, no more than any other business transaction. If a supermarket donates to charity in order to encourage shoppers to shop there, that's not at all altruistic. I see no distinction between that and a mammal being generous to other mammals in order to encourage females to mate with it. Likewise, reciprocity is no different from going to the supermarket to buy bananas. You give the supermarket money, they give you bananas, and you both entered into that transaction out of your own self-interest.