If your hand contacts fire, the pain tells you that damage is occurring, or is imminent. And it makes you want to get your hand out of the fire.

The exact detailed mechanism? Who knows? i don't. Maybe there are scientists who do. — Michael Ossipoff

I think there is a clear difference between mechanism and sensation. It is possible to build unconscious sensors that avoid fire. You only need to make unconscious sensors that create automatic behaviour leading to a machine avoiding heat.

We know enough about neurons and about physics to see that it does not present a framework for explaining experience and as I have said determinists in the sciences don't believe we control our actions consciously making consciousness epiphenomenal and not a survival benefit.

There are famous physicists who have supported the position of idealism which incorporates mind into reality as fundamental. Including Sir James Jeans, Sir Arthur eddington and Martin Rees. In this sense consciousness is not seen as merely an emergent property of the brain. A similar position is held by panpsychism.

It has been recognised from time immemorial that there is a problem in describing physical objects and mental states using the same terminology. It was not a problem posited merely by Televangelicals or something. I was quite materialist and atheistic before I study philosophy of mind and psychology. I find most religious people I speak don't even understand the problem so it is not clear that dualism of the mind body problem emerges from religion.

But that photo, and the abuses of the various abusers, — Michael Ossipoff

It is a video not a photo. It is worth a look. Science is not just about facts but it can impose and support pernicious brutal theories about human status. That video highlights how theory was imposed on the world to justify abuses and hierarchies and inaction and genocide.

This video is worth a look. It documents the effects of scientific racism and the use of Social Darwinism to justify inaction during Indian Famines during British rule.

Lord Lytton cited Malthus and people were threatened with prosecution if they aided the sufferers.

Besides, if Sapolsky's supposition were correct, he would have no choice but to believe that, and those who doubt him would have no choice but to doubt, so there would certainly be no point in debating, as nobody's view could ever be changed by rational argument. — Wayfarer

Free will arguments are philosophical anyway and not scientific.

I think science could only validly deny freewill when all behaviour and mental states have been described with no explanatory gap.

My example is if a man says "I am divorcing my wife because I believe she has been unfaithful numerous times". Motivations can be based on the semantic content of beliefs states and I do not see how these can be reduced physical or deterministically or coherently dismissed.

People forget how much information is transmitted through symbols and language and not by direct access to Physical states. Even in my case, marriage and divorce are social linguistic constructs. You couldn't make sense of reality just referring to neurons, hormones,brain scans and scientific symbols. If someones says "The Chinese economy is booming" you can correlate that with a set of neurons but not extract that statements from them. So it easy I suppose, to forget that we are imposing symbols and theories on the world.

My answer was that those sensations are natural-selection's way of incentivizing you to get your hand out of the fire. — Michael Ossipoff

That I not an explanation causal or otherwise.

It would be great if natural selection had given me wings so I could fly to the shops.

You make it sound like evolution just conjures things up if they would be useful.

Now if determinists are right (they aren't) we couldn't act on out pain and also there are lots of pains we can't act on including toothache and headaches, severe pain at the final stages of cancer and so on.

Just because consciousness has its uses does not mean it can avoid having a biochemical or technical/theoretical causal explanation. If neuronal activity causes pain then how?

You have an unjustified overconfidence.

Robert Sapolsky was cited earlier in the thread.

"Most recently, Sapolsky has been reflecting on the origins of human behavior, starting deep in the brain moments before we act and working his way millions of years back to the evolutionary pressures on our prehistoric ancestors’ decisions, with stops along the way to consider how hormones, brain development and social structures shape our behavior. He also has been thinking about free will and comes to the conclusion, based on the biological and psychological evidence, that we do not have it."

It is nice to know he has resolved the free will debate.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/05/08/biologist-robert-sapolsky-takes-human-behavior-free-will/

As I have said, mutations cause new traits which could provide positive, negative, or neutral consequences to surviving and procreating. Selection pressures are processes that filter out the negative mutations — Harry Hindu

Filtering out a negative mutation is not the same as causing a property to exist like the posited emergent property of consciousness. Consciousness has to come to exist before it can be selected or deselected. It is banal to point out why a trait might persist, anything that survives either aids survival or does not prevent survival. But it is a different matter to allege or speculate the survival "purpose" of something. I don't agree that consciousness is epiphenomenal but that is popular position across academia and the denial of volition.

I was unaware that anyone believed they had explained consciousness in a serious way with the backing of the larger neuroscience and science community. And theories of consciousness that have been proffered fail either because they don't really account for all the phenomena or they are vague and not causally or testable..

You may be listening to the claim of one or two scientist who get publicity but do not reflect the community at large.

Correlation is not causation and the brain basis of consciousness is founded on correlations but these usually non explanatory. Brain damage cases like the one I linked to undermine correlation claims.

I have not heard an explanation for example of why biochemical activity at neuronal synapses would lead to a private subjective severe pain sensation. Or why any physical activity should lead to an observer, subjectivity and sensation. Hopefully you can see the difference between someone examining my body and brain when I report pain and myself having the actual experience.

Evolutionary psychology modular theory of mind is very biased, where it likes to put basic traits in service of reproduction hence their puzzlement over homosexuality. Modular theories of mind predate it.

There are interesting findings in people with brain damage that challenge alot of theories.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-his-brain-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-consciousness

The mind is what the brain does — Harry Hindu

This is very controversial you are ignoring large explanatory gaps.

I don't see how selction pressures cause anything? Causes and dispositions we know of are properties of biochemstry and available dispositions

We know that we have vivid private experiences but these are not seen in the brain and there is no real explanation as how they emerge from the brain if they do. Also we know we have representations and semantic states and these are not explained at all by neuronal activity.

Your claims explain nothing mechanical or otherwise and you haven't actually given any explicit causal theory from the brain to conscious/mental states. There are a huge range of issues in consciousness studies that you seem happy to bypass altogether.

Determinism is a denial of volition. It denies that human consciousness can decide but that it is an epiphenomenon. Volitional movements are not explained yet, in biology but because science is only studying the observable biochemical cellular processes so on there is no room to insert selfs, subjectivity and volition.

Computers can now do immensly sophisticated things but we have no reasons to suspect they have minds.

It would take to long to go into all the issues in consciousness here with you. But I have studied things like the visual system and the transduction of signals from the retina. These do not explain the eventual experience of colour. I can also discuss retinotopic maps with you if you want. Retinotopic maps are posited to preserve aspects of signals from the optic nerve but these signals and maps do not capture the essence of photons/wavelengths. Also they require homunculi to eventually have visual experience.

Andrew4Handel, what is learning? Isn't learning mentally/behaviorally adapting to your environment? Doesn't having a mind allow you to adapt much more rapidly to rapid changes in the environment as opposed to adapting your body, which can take generations? Even Darwin understood the implication evolution by natural selection has on the mind. — Harry Hindu

I though I said this earlier. Determinism is a popular position in academia where the mind is seen as almost irrelevant and consciousness epiphenomenal.

You don't seem to get the point that something being beneficial does not explain how it arose. We seem to be on different pages.

I am not sure what you are saying here. The mind can be beneficial in a million ways (as well as a curse) What is missing is a causal explanation for the emergence of minds/self/sensation etc.

Before something can be "selected" as a a persistent trait it has to come to exist. We don't know of any other planets where the conditions exist for life to exist. Our planet has the right disposition for the masses of life forms it contains. These dispositions are physical and biochemical or otherwise but they have to prexist evolution. A planet with mainly hydrogen on it like Saturn is not going to see the emergence of life soon.

So consciousness can only come to exist if their is prexisting disposition for it. It is like a recipe book where you have to use specific ingredients to create the correct dish.

I am unclear what selection is supposed to explain except trivially pointing out that X survived because it was advantageous in some form. It is easy to give reasons why something might persist but these are not law like reasons for X's begining to exist. Human inventions either persist or don't based on their utility but that does not describe the invention process.

Heterosexuality is obviously the normal instinct, as it is essentially required for continuation of the species. — CasKev

Heterosexuality is required but what it requires is much more complex than homosexual desire.

Homosexuals just need to fancy each other. Heterosexuality has to get a different sex attracted to a different looking sex (it failed for me as an exclusive homosexual) and keep complex sexual organs in seperate bodies compatible which is a bizzare feat.. So for example the woman gets ovaries, eggs and womb and breast man gets sperm etc.

So you need a set of really providentially mutations selected. People seem to downplay the role of consciousness in sexual attraction as well.

There is huge literature in psychology and philosophy of mind and neuroscience etc. Posting links to one thinker Stepehen Pinker as authoritative (Or Darwin) is hapless.

Consciousness is used as an obfuscatory way to refer to the fact that animals react to their surroundings. — Michael Ossipoff

Consciousness is experience and awareness of surroundings. There is no explanation as to why we have experiences ( including dreams, pain and other sensations )qualia). Defining consciouness is controversial but you certainly haven't characterisied it convncingly.

You once again are conflating the trivial observation of somethings benefit with the mechanical, biochemical or otherwise explanation of emergent properties.

The benefits of consciousness do not amount to a causal explanation of why we are able to perceive anything or have sensations. (how the brin if it does "produces" experinces and sensations)

You do not seem to have a demand for thorough causally complete coherent explanations for anything. New body parts have to be created in conjunction with mutations and environmental factors but these require a biochemical thery fo properties available and caused by biochemistry and not just a reference to "fitness".

"Natural selection" seems to be verging on a trivial tautology that if something survives it is well adapted.

Harry H.You are conflating the benefits of a feature with a causal explanation.

Saying wings aid survival through flight is for example an explanation in service of evolution not a biochemical theory about the evolution of wings.

We do think in images — Harry Hindu

I do not. I think in words. In what way do I think in any images and how can you know this?

This is another abuse of "hierarchies"

"1920s, Belgian ethnologists analysed (measured skulls, etc.) thousands of Rwandans on analogous racial criteria, such as which would be used later by the Nazis. In 1931, an ethnic identity was officially mandated and administrative documents systematically detailed each person's "ethnicity,". Each Rwandan had an ethnic identity card.[11"

These identity cards formed part of the later Genocide.

I don't understand how natural selection can select something if it doesn't already exist. Hence we are left with the issue of how these emergent properties come to exist.

People seem to be conflating the benefit of a trait with a causal explanation. Homosexuals could be very altruistic and have super fertile mothers but that won't explain homosexual desire.

In "Meaning Purpose and Intelligence" (1944) Kenneth Walker quotes Julian Huxley.

"The purpose manifested in evolution, whether in adaption, specialisation, or apparent progress, is only an apparent purpose. It is just as much a progress of blind forces as is the falling of a stone to earth or the ebb and flow of the tides, It is we who have read purpose into evolution, as earlier men projected will and emotion into inorganic phenomena like storm or earthquake."

Walker then says:

"In making this statement Huxley has stepped outside the province of science, for a scientist can neither assert nor deny the existence of purpose in nature (...)"

Here is a quote from a paper by a group of evolutionary psychologist.

". One class of limitations pertains to phenomena that are truly puzzling from an evolutionary perspective, such as those that appear to reduce an individual’s reproductive success, and cannot be explained by mismatches with, or hijacking of, our psychological mechanisms by modern day novel environmental inputs. The most obvious example is homosexual orientation, which has been called “the Darwinian paradox.” Exclusive homosexual orientation seems to defy evolutionary logic since it presumably fails to increase an individual’s reproductive success. Although Evolutionary hypotheses have been proposed for homosexuality, as discussed earlier, none have received empirical support thus far (e.g., Bobrow & Bailey, 2001).
Another puzzling phenomenon is suicide.
In the United States, more than 30,000 individuals intentionally take their own lives each year (Gibbons, Hur, Bhaumik, &
Mann, 2005)"

http://www.dianafleischman.com/epap.pdf

It seems like Evolutionary psychology is trying to be deterministic and predict what behaviours we ought to automatically exhibit. So that all behaviour must subsume under an evolutionary paradox even if there is no plausible reason linking it to whatever model of evolution they are using.

Heterosexuality is not explained yet it is taken for granted because of it obvious benefits to gene transmission/reproduction.

Something is only a solution if the environment is consistent day in day out.

No it isn't. You need to know why minds exist to understand how they are produced, especially in a world where there is evolution by natural selection. You do believe in that don't you?


I don't understand the aversion to watching a Youtube video in order to better understand what it is that you all are actually talking about. What are you all scared of? — Harry Hindu

There is no reason for minds to exist. The only valid explanation is an explanation of how consciousness is produced.

Consciousness is involved in numerous things, composing symphonies, language, doing math, reading books, sexual pleasure, pain, concept formation, thought, dreaming ad infinitum.

The explanation for biology is biochemical and refers to specific biochemical behaviours,it is not "evolutionary". Natural selection can only select something after it begins to exist it can't produce consciousness (or gills) on demand. conscious has to begin to exist before it can be of any use.

You haven't really proposed any argument apart from telling people watch this etc I have a degree in psychology and philosophy. I know how neurons work and about different brain structures, I know about fMRI etc (I had to write a critical essay on brain scanning techniques) etc and studied the search for neural correlates. I had to read seven books on the philosophy of mind for my course and I have also read Dennets Consciousness explained.

I watched a video by Stephen Pinker where he claimed "We think in images" But I don't I think in words. That to me is poor quality broadcasting that youtubers are liking unreflectively.

Why don't you think about what your consciousness enables you to do, and what you can and can't do while you aren't conscious. — Harry Hindu

That is a irrelevant to explaining how consciousness is produced.

Determinists and epiphenomenalists and eliminativists believe that consciousness has little to no role in action.

And that is the problem that evolutionary psychology attempts to solve. Do we have minds and other animals don't? If so, then why? Why would minds evolve in humans and not other species? What problems were minds meant to solve? — Harry Hindu

Biochemistry is the field that explains how body's are created. I don't see how evolution could give a causal explanation of the mind?

The mind in the humans goes beyond solving a few survival problems. There is a difference in explaining the benefit of a feature and describing how it emerged. Having wings is obviously beneficial to a bird but that is not an account of how the come about.

At bottom evolutionary explanations rely on things like genetic mutations and emergent properties, when something emerges it can then be propagated or made defunct by the environment.

Huge numbers of species go extinct so it is not as though there is a natural force that demands life must go on at all costs. There is a huge range of species with different behaviours you can select for your model of man. People select species whose behaviour they want us to "ape". Religious people cite animals when its in their interest (such as for models of relationships and childrearing hitting children).

It is all a bit arbitrary.

It should be obvious that the body influences the mind and the mind influences the body. How is it that natural selection only influences the body and not the mind as well? — Harry Hindu

The problem is not the mind body relationship but how mind comes to exist at all. Our minds are full of a huge range of things including awareness of bodies but also a large vocabulary and a wide range of memories and knowledge and much more.

The thing is we have have a wide knowledge of the brain,neurons and neurotransmitters and of physics and biology but none of that predicts the emergence of consciousness so there is a large explanatory gap.Defining consciousness is controversial as well.

It has been a classic trick to manipulate people with ideas and paradigms that are semi plausible so that large groups of people conform to the latest ideas. People Followed Victorian ideas, religious ideas, social darwinist ideas and fascist ideas and so on. So telling people "this is what you are" or this is what society is a way of prompting behaviour. How are we supposed to act on evolutionary and evolutionary psychology claims?

I am a gay antinatalist so is that going to be reduced to some natural selection tale? I am always skeptical and I don't see myself being coerced to believe anything (as an adult) as if driving by unconscious natural forces.

I think evolution by natural selection is the best theory we have. Sure the mind is a difficult thing to explain, but it seems to me that science has a much better track record in it's short history compared to religious and philosophical explanations. Give it time and don't be afraid to read books and watch videos on the subject, as I posted above in my response to Reformed Nihilist. — Harry Hindu

I have a degree in philosophy and psychology and I have had to read a lot of on the Philosophy of mind. I had to read Dennett's "Consciousness explained" I am well versed in the major issues in consciousness. The problems for explaining mental states are not comparable to other problems science has solved. (including the privacy of mental states making them only first person accessible/ semantics et al)

Dennett is a consciousness eliminativist (which frankly is a ridiculous position) symptomatic of materialist trends that rather than trying to explain mental states honestly are keen to deflate the threat they pose to the materialist perspective. Studying philosophy of mind had a big impact on my opinions. It is not a minor topic and it is clear our only access to reality is through consciousness so it is a fundamental issue to understanding reality and not a trivial fact.

I believe explaing things in their own terms and not subsuming them under an ideology.

Genes don't even care about their survival. They don't even possess knowledge. Genes just do what they do. We can have many reasons for doing the things we do, but it all narrows down to survival in the natural and social environment. We can either possess the knowledge for the reasons we do the things we do, or delude ourselves into thinking that the things we do and what we are are really "special" to the point that scientific theories can never explain them. — Harry Hindu

Here's what Dawkins says in "The Selfish Gene"

"What is the selfish gene? It is not just one single physical bit of DNA Just as in the primeval soup, it is all replicas of a particular bit of DNA, distributed throughout the world. If we allow ourselves the licence of talking about genes as if they had conscious aims, always reassuring ourselves that we could translate our sloppy language back into respectable terms if we wanted to, we can ask the question, what is a single selfish gene trying to do? It is trying to get more numerous in the gene pool."

I don't think you can translate purposeful language back to mechnical language in the way he wants to.

Also I don't think evolution is at all sufficient to explain being human because our fundamental feature is we have a rich consciousness that has not being explained by science and any theory of our psychology is defunct in my opinion unless we explain consciousness.

Psychological Theories are already confounded because of the private nature of consciousness and mental states making them inaccessible. Also even without consciousness the mind is the most complex thing to explain because humans have a wide range of mental faculties whose definition is controversial and a huge range of causal influences and competing psychological models and perspectives etc

Evolution is a truth — TheMadFool

Evolution consists of numerous claims not just one truth. The truth might be "some form of evolution has happened". A lot of claims recieve validity because they come under the banner of evolution. That is a problem because it has led to some pernicious claims.

Truths can be good or bad.

Cancer is a bad truth. Winning the lottery is a good truth.

I have said elsewhere that discovering evolution would be like a cow discovering she was heading for the slaughterhouse. I don't see why any new piece of information or theory should have no implications but rather the reverse. Evolution narratives certainly undermine some religious claims especially in Christianity.
For instance when I was growing up I seemed to have an underlying sense of hope. God was supposed to be watching over me and had a plan for me etc. Cruelty in nature and human cruelty was attributed (incoherently) to the fall of man. I was badly bullied in school and Bad behavior towards me confirmed this picture somewhat. I could cope with human fallibility etc.

Now your left with the terrible behaviour and no purpose or divine protection or hope. It is harder to explain what happened to me without the excuse of this tale of fallen nature. Also things that seemed benevolent like creating a family now seem futile and purposeless and not a pinnacle of Gods plans. It's like religion is just anther narrative justifying human conduct.

So if something is good for our species, it cannot also be good in itself? How do you make that leap of logic? That's like saying that we can't eat food because it tastes good, because we all know that we eat food because it nourishes us. Both can be true. They are not mutually exclusive. — Reformed Nihilist

Personally as someone who overeats I find the enjoyable taste of food a treadmill. (See obesity, tooth decay, heart disease)

I think music is one of the few pleasurable things that isn't a vice.

I agree that helping others is an independent good, the problem is that it is subservient to mindless.
reproduction.

As an antinatalist I feel a sense of futility when helping people. For instance the population of Ethiopia has tripled since the 1980's and Famine aid. Malnutrition related disease are a big problem there.

Empathy and helping people is not an unmitigated good. The same instincts have been posited to play a role in war and prejudice.

If there is no over riding point then I don't see the point in anything, it is just a set of distractions. I didn't used to see life as meaningless as a child for some reason. I thought it was going somewhere. I thought it had a purpose. I am hoping it turns out to have a meaning.

Just because my parents didn't have me for the same reasons I had my kids, doesn't mean that I don't have meaning, or that life is meaningless. I created my own purpose in life. — Harry Hindu

One of the problems for me is my parents made me believe Christianity was absolutely true (by intimidation among other things) Abandoning it lead to a loss of meaning.

For example I had numerous rules like I couldn't watch TV, listen to the radio, shop on sunday and so on. I left due to the horrible atmosphere but it was traumatic and what I discovered was that no rules and no morality could be justified. Before I was told to do X because God said so..

If God does not exist and isn't a moral authority there are no moral facts or moral authority.. That lead me to nihilism. Having to abandoned one extensive belief system made me highly skeptical and demanding better justifications for things.

But nihilism and a sense of futility is a terrible experience. I don't like to see it endorsed as a scientific theory. If science is saying life is pointless and meaningless then we certainly should not reproduce.

i have issues with the idea of making your own meaning but that would constitute a whole new thread"

Do we mindlessly procreate, or do we procreate for a reason? — Harry Hindu

What I said is that evolution deflates the reasons we give for reproducing. What ever reason you have for having children by having children you are just carrying on the cycle of reproduction. To carry on reproducing is doing what our genes allegedly "want" us to do. Our genes don't care about our survival but their survival (see Dawkins) I am not defending this view but saying that evolution can easily give a deflationary account of anything

I think there are lots of good reasons not to have children which I have discussed elsewhere but obviously antinatalism isn't an evolution friendly belief.

Determinists of any shade don't believe our reasons matter because we are supposed to have no free will.

I think the problem with humans is they can control their reproduction and reason about it, but choose not to. Any reproduction that is not done on a coherent basis is mindless.

.continuing the existence of the species, leaving a mark in the world, ensuring that some part of you continues to exist after you die, etc., — Harry Hindu

All that exists after a parent dies is copies of some of their genes. I don't see any need to do that and haven't. If death is the end then when your consciousness ceases you will have no idea about the fate of your grand children and whether or not they reproduced. I actively don't want to leave my genes behind or continue the species because life has a bad track record and is prone to suffer and I dread to think of my descendants accumulating in the future doing who ever knows what.

Your genes could go in all sorts of dubious directions.There's no telling.

For example the couple who wrote the book "The population bomb" deliberately had one child but she went onto have four of her own and that is not what they wanted.

To me life is about dealing with death. Trying to approach death with dignity. Trying not to be harmed too much before death. Death makes life temporary and futile in my opinion. It's a leap in the dark.

My parents don't ask me to pray to them, nor tell me that my happiness is tied to doing everything they say. — Harry Hindu

We were talking about creation and I am pointing out your parents created you. What is the difference between your parents creating you and a god creating you?

Parents often create their children for a reason because humans have desires and reasoning.

People have children for dubious reasons. My parents spent my entire childhood indoctrinating me into religion. There is a difference between an unthinking species reproducing without motives and humans who can have motives. A lot of cultures have expected children to revere their parents and they have even being worshipped. I don't thinking taking gods out of the picture frees you from being created with dubious motives.

You seem to be attacking a narrow notion of a creator rather than the general concept. A parents with benevolent motives (are there any?) is more likely to help a child than a dogmatic parent.

My experience of a lack of meaning probably derives from my upbringing. Having children for incoherent or bad reasons undermines meaning. I think meaning is often just derived from benevolent relationships. Anyone can reject their parents reasons for having them.

What is the point of surviving eternally? — Harry Hindu

What is the point of surviving at all?

I'm not too keen on being in service to some entity that created me just for me to be indebted to it for all eternity. — Harry Hindu

But you are indebted to your parents in the same way. You only exist because of them. being created doesn't mean you owe a debt. I have argued this in my "No consent" thread.

I am referring to a deflationary account of human attributes as ultimately coercive to encourage reproduction. My nihilism doesn't come from Evolution but it is exacerbated by it.
I highlighted it concerning the search for an evo explanation of homosexuality. I think it is insidious to make peoples attribute subservient to brute survival/reproductive success.

For example John Travolta featured in a science journal article about the evolutionary reasons for being a good dancer . But it failed to mention that he has long been speculated as being a closeted gay and one of his children died of a genetic illness. So using his photo undermined their theory by itself. But it shows this desire to encroach on everything with evolutionary motives.

Survival isn't a good thing? Religion seems to be all about survival, too - the survival of your soul. Believing that you will continue to survive after your death, and behaving in a way to achieve that, isn't much different from running away from a predator to survive. — Harry Hindu

Survival without an afterlife is temporary Religions are about eternal survival not just surviving so you can reproduce.

We don't "mindlessly" reproduce. Many animals don't reproduce when resources are scarce. — Harry Hindu

What is the point of reproducing?

I think alot of evolutionary claims have implications and are not just value free facts.

In analogy, someone might tell you that you were adopted and you declare that your adoptive parents are your true parents and you love them dearly. However you could inherit genetic disorders etc from your biological parents.

So I don't think that scientific facts or claims are neutral so that we can transcend them and make our own reality.

Evolution does not "imply" anything other than genetic material being produced and distributed through a particular mechanism. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

But in the evolutionary literature things are described in terms of adaptive pathways and adaptive "benefits". There is a hierarchy and a notion of defunct or harmful forms.

I could agree with proposition that both humans and amoeba and raindrops are impressive phenomena but humans get called "meat bags" and "Just another animal" We are not compared to other animals in a complementary but in a deflationary way.

Raymond Tallis wrote a book about this "Aping mankind" (Which I have yet to read.)

It is clear that humans have numerous abilities other animals do not have especially an infinitely flexible vocabulary of thousands of words. You can say all animals are amazing without having to deny unique capacities of humans.

In these debates I feel like people are just ignoring a lot of what has been said because I have debated these things and read debates and followed media discussions and they are very trivial, reductionist, dichotomous and deflationary.

Dawkins in particularly has used science as a weapon against religion and wildly supported Lawrence Krauss's "A universe from nothing" book comparing it to Darwin. evolution may or may not imply there is no God (although I don't see how) but to actively use it in this kind of pursuit is value ladened.

That's not 'on one account', — Wayfarer

Dawkins writings are contradictory. I already quoted him here as calling us Gigantic lumbering robots.

Saying we should some how transcend evolution does not mean that you have not presented a thoroughly deflationary account. I can cite his strategy in "The Selfish gene"

What I am referring to is the way things are primarily described as survival apparatus. For instance homosexuality is supposed to have a primary explanation in terms of enhancing fitness.

Here is a quote from a paper by a group of evolutionary psychologists

"Exclusive homosexual orientation seems to defy evolutionary logic since it presumably fails to increase an individual’s reproductive success. Although evolutionary hypotheses have been proposed for homosexuality, as discussed earlier, none have received empirical
support thus far (e.g., Bobrow & Bailey, 2001)"

http://www.dianafleischman.com/epap.pdf

The implication being that things have to ultimately be reduced to their evolutionary purpose. This the deflationary account.Nothing can exist unless that it is at some stage subservient to evolution. I can cite many cases where things have being giving hypothetical evolutionary explanations (music/dancing/religion etc) rather than being accepted as spandrels.

The Nazi and eugenicist interpretation of evolution was that we could actively cull the weak and aid evolution. Natural selection is open to this interpretation if it is seen as improving fitness. So for example it is not in our interest to prop up people with poor genes leading to sickness because it could condemn our species as a whole. For instance we advise against interbreeding because it has been shown to cause disabilities. So I don't think that negative applications of evolution are irrational. The idea we should or could transcend evolution is idealistic. It would only be possible to a non determinist who considered human behaviour flexible enough and spandrel like to transcend innate traits.