Genetic overlap between humans and plants? IDK. Our basic metabolism is very similar to theirs, we breathe as plants do, except their have photosynthesis and we don't. Their hormonal system is also totally different from ours, and we have a set of enzymes for digestion that they lack. Maybe 20 % of common DNA between you and your begonia?

Midgley provides a simple answer to your question, by the way. She says that genes may shape emotions, rather than shape behaviors directly, at least in this case. So the idea is that genes for general benevolence and empathy for other living beings may have been selected because they proved efficacious among social species. We spent most of our prehistorical time in the company of our siblings, and so did our social ancestors for millions of years. Therefore, a hypothetical predisposition for general kindness underwritten somewhere in our genome would have most of the times benefited a cousin or another anyway, in practice.

But sometimes, a human baby gets adopted by wolves, or a begonia by a human being, and it also 'gells'.

Depends if they interfere with claims made by evolutionary theory.

But further, and this should bother anyone here who has read even a modicum of ethics, even if our behaviour is best explained by genetic imperatives, the question remains open: Ought we do as our genes say?

Cause we feed them.

Cause we feed them. — Olivier5

Damn! It was that simple!

I love cats, BTW, for what they are i.e. their selfishness included.

Explaining all behaviour in terms of selfish genetics strikes me as adopting the same logic. Even if it is right, it is shallow. — Banno

But it isn't _all_ behaviour, is it. No one is claiming you have a gene to get a cat and feed a fish. Evolution deals with the origins of biological characteristics. If we have an intrinsic inclination toward altruism, which we do, it will have had some survival benefit in the past, and must be encoded in us genetically such that the trait can be inherited via chromosomes. Whether you get a dog, a cat, a fish or none of the above isn't a question about evolution, nor whether you give to a charity for the elderly, the disabled, rescue dogs or reforestation.

if we have an intrinsic inclination toward altruism, which we do, it will have had some survival benefit in the past, — Kenosha Kid

This is an outdated view. As Banno mentioned, it dove-tailed nicely with some 19th and 20th century outlooks, but it never had empirical backing. See the SEP article on adaptation for the basics of strategies for testing hypotheses about adaptation.

I'm really not sure why this is hard to understand.

I love cats, BTW, for what they are i.e. their selfishness included. — Olivier5

Ba-dum-cheee

This is an outdated view. As Banno mentioned, it dove-tailed nicely with some 19th and 20th century outlooks, but it never had empirical backing — frank

It does have ample, recent empirical backing, some of it enumerated with references in my thread on natural morality. You have to, you know, read the journals to know what they say.

Depends if they interfere with claims made by evolutionary theory. — Saphsin

Like the Bible? The Catholics have that too. Not all creationists are literalist nutjobs.

does have ample, recent empirical backing, some of it enumerated with references in my thread on natural morality. You have to, you know, read the journals to know what they say. — Kenosha Kid

You are mistaken.

You are mistaken. — frank

Did you check the references, or do you prefer to protect your position with ignorance?

I'm leaving out explicit Young Earth Creationists, and not much different rebranded Intelligent Design folks who admit the Earth is old. Those are all definitely creationists.

And then there are those who rhetorically say they accept Evolution happened, and Darwin was maybe right about a thing or two, but if they feel the need to fill evolution with divine intervention to make the whole story work, they're probably also a kind of creationist.

Then there are people who don't directly interfere with the scientific claims of evolutionary biology, but they feel the need to add some metaphysical interpretation to it to make it compatible with their own religious beliefs. "Evolution is a process was used as a process to guide God's creation" or something along those lines. I don't think this counts as creationism. Saying that you need to be an atheist to also accept Evolution as scientific theory or else you're a creationist is a really high standard that I don't think works.

Did you check the references, or do you prefer to protect your position with ignorance? — Kenosha Kid

My position is the same as that of contemporary biology. Your's is of 19th Century biology.

Arent you curious about what scientists are saying today? It's fascinating stuff.

Saying that you need to be an atheist to also accept Evolution as scientific theory or else you're a creationist is a really high standard that I don't think works. — Saphsin

That wasn't the question. The point is rather that you don't need to reject evolution to be a creationist. Creationists believe in a creator, that is all.

My position is the same as that of contemporary biology — frank

The contemporary biology you refuse to read, thus remain ignorant about

The contemporary biology you refuse to read, thus remain ignorant about — Kenosha Kid

There is no contemporary research that says that if we have trait X, then X must provide a survival advantage.

Only neo-Nazis and Peterson incels believe otherwise.

In Dawkins' defense, what I got from TSG was the idea that shifting focus from organisms (survival of the fittest) to genes provides a different way to address observed altruism. Altruism is a bit of a conundrum because it doesn't seem to make much sense from the viewpoint of organism survival, but it may make sense from the viewpoint of gene survival. I think that is a perspective that has endured.

As for the things he got wrong. I think that he would probably admit that he has changed his mind about a few things. But I think it is also important to consider how important it is for scientists to be wrong. We really never know if a theory is right or wrong. So all we can do is attack the theory until it has won the war of attrition against all objections. This means that the unsung heroes of science are all of those guys who sacrificed their careers and reputations by supporting the wrong positions. No Nobels for those guys. But no science without them.

"That wasn't the question. The point is rather that you don't need to reject evolution to be a creationist. Creationists believe in a creator, that is all."

To memory, this isn't what anyone calls a creationist. When people say creationist, they don't mean any belief in a religious God involved with the universe, they mean a belief system that rejects Evolution. Memory of every discussion involved with the term and quick googling seems to coincide with my definition. Clearly you had different experiences, so I'm very confused.

There is no contemporary research — frank

That you will bother reading. That's how ignorance yields stubbornly bad positions. If you're not going to do the research, keep quiet on the state of the art.

That wasn't the question. — Saphsin

It was precisely the question:

I disagree with Gould on NOMA, but creationism implies divine intervention & rejection of Evolutionary Biology.
— Saphsin

Creationism implies a creator. — Kenosha Kid

Creationists like Catholics and even IDers don't reject evolutionary biology, although the latter bastardise it.

When people say creationist, they don't mean lack of any belief in a religious God involved with the universe, they mean a belief system that rejects Evolution. — Saphsin

They mean a God who created the earth and stars and plants and animals. Some creationists, like many Catholics, believe that evolution is true, but does not apply to humans. Some, like IDers, believe evolution is true but guided by God. Some believe it is true en tout. It's just usually that the evolution/creationism argument is between fundamentalist nutjobs and evolutionary biologists. But we ought not tar everyone with the same brush. In fact, I lived with a creationist who believed in evolution.

This means that the unsung heroes of science are all of those guys who sacrificed their careers and reputations by supporting the wrong positions. No Nobels for those guys. But no science without them. — flaco

This.

As an antidote to the endless spurious claims to expertise in a field that anti-Darwinists like @frank must necessarily make, there was a text book on evolutionary genetics last year that has a solid review of genetics and the importance of natural selection, and Google books has the first few chapters available: https://books.google.com/books/about/Evolutionary_Genetics.html?id=XNqUDwAAQBAJ

It's a nice book because it places more emphasis on experiment and observation, with some recent examples of empirical natural selection. It's aimed at first year undergraduates so it's not too technical. OUP iirc.

But further, and this should bother anyone here who has read even a modicum of ethics, even if our behaviour is best explained by genetic imperatives, the question remains open: Ought we do as our genes say? — Banno

That is a good point, and I would add, given our genetic code, is it possible to even answer this question in a non self interested way?

That is a good point, and I would add, given our genetic code, is it possible to even answer this question in a non self interested way? — Pop

Well that opens a whole can-o-worms. For those of us who view humans as devices to propagate genes, our purpose is to propagate genes. Can we transcend that particular purpose? Can we come up with a new purpose "in a non self interested way" until we understand how our brain, conscious and emotional, is processing information about our world?

Okay, cool. TSG is forty years old, and even at that time one-sided and misses some important stuff. Sounds good. It's not my field but I could imagine this is all true. And if Pigliucci is right to characterize Dawkins as dug-in and dismissive of alternative views then that's interesting, but it's mainly consumers of popular science books who would need to be wary, as working scientists aren't taking their cues from such stuff anyway. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, this was my original point: that Dawkins set scientific literacy back by an order of decades. Perhaps I ought to have said 'popular' literacy or somesuch. And as I said somewhere back there, science has indeed gone on chugging quite in spite of Dawkins' antiquated views. But of course everything you quoted from Pigluicci is exactly right: the reality of multi-level selection alone should make everything written by Dawkins a waste of anything but good fire kindling. Plasticity, evolvability, epigenetics - if you know any of this you know how laughable and unscientific the view set out in TSG is.

And I don't think the comparison to Quine is fair. Science doesn't work like philosophy. You don't study geocentrism in order to get a more rigorous sense of heliocentrism. You acknowledge that it once existed as a superfluous view, now ridiculously outdated, and you do the work of calculating the orbits without caring one iota for pre-copernican science. To the degree that Dawkins bothers me, it's no different from someone citing Ptolemy regularly and having it taken seriously as a 'strong setting out of a position to engage with, even if just to dispense with'. No. That's not how science works. You dump the old shit and forget about it.

Well that opens a whole can-o-worms. For those of us who view humans as devices to propagate genes, our purpose is to propagate genes. Can we transcend that particular purpose? Can we come up with a new purpose "in a non self interested way" until we understand how our brain, conscious and emotional, is processing information about our world? — flaco

I agree with how you explain humanity, but there must be a way. Consciousness is an evolving process of self organization so it seems it will at some point transcend this impasse. Can you think of a solution?

And I don't think the comparison to Quine is fair. — StreetlightX

You're probably right, but I suppose I'm imagining the beginning of a research program, or the realization that a new theoretical framework is needed. The old framework should be determinate enough that it either won't accommodate new research or it is really obvious how uncomfortably they fit together. I suppose I'm kind of thinking of apo's vague and crisp thing, and crisp can help you advance by failing in a way that's easy to see and persuasive.

Of course, once you switch horses, the old horse is only worth thinking about for historical reasons or if the new horse runs into trouble that would make you wonder if the old horse had something to it that you should have brought along and that you can use in the new model, horse number three.

I agree with how you explain humanity, but there must be a way. Consciousness is an evolving process of self organization so it seems it will at some point transcend this impasse. Can you think of a solution? — Pop

I can not think of a solution. But I am hopeful.

Is consciousness the key? It certainly seems to be at the forefront when we consider philosophy. But a lot of cognitive research seems to support the ancient notion that we are actually ruled by our emotions. So maybe emotions are the key. Meanwhile, perhaps we can take as a temporary purpose that we not destroy ourselves or our earth.

I also read that Pigliucci blog post you cited. If you reread it right now, you get a different impression of this current discussion.

Do I need to know about Quine? Where's a good place to start?