If we're guessing, I'd say your initial desire to have a cat had little to do with altruism, and that the care you have for it now has much to do with...
Btw you'll generally find Catholics accept that evolution is real, since the Pope John Paul George Ringo II accepted the theory in the 90s. So your de...
I'm scared to answer because it seems like you're joking but my faith in humanity has been truly shaken. In case you're being serious, natural selecti...
People have been insisting on what science should and should not study for as long as science has been going. It doesn't stick. They're not bothered. ...
That's what the paper is about. Are you sure you read the right one? Ah, this is a matter of faith for you then. Not so much "science has not" but "sc...
About as accurate and fair-minded as one could expect. Likewise it's not Gould's fault that he was brainwashed as a child to the point where he's inca...
Jesus, say Dawkins is a social Darwinist Nazi when he's consistently said he's not and you're golden. Say Gould is a creationist when he's not sure an...
Gould is an advocate of the idea of non-overlapping magisteria, that science and religion can live happily because only religion can explore values, t...
Okay, a lapsed creationist, now agnostic. Point still stands. There's a subset of people who need humans to be a bit magic: dualists, religious folks,...
That makes sense to me. Midgley's objections seem to be of the magical human variety, wherein anything less than human that influences human behaviour...
I really don't think any improvement in my reading comprehension is going to show that she dispenses with the straw man early on when she clearly does...
He has, to his immense credit. It isn't a small discussion: it starts on the first page and ends on the last. She ends the article with the same straw...
I thank you for your input. I disagree with your analysis and do not see it as consistent with QM. As I said on page 1, whatever alternative theory yo...
That's fine, I read it a long time ago and don't pretend to have perfect recall of it. Not to Midgley's criticism as I see it. The claim that Dawkins ...
Then there is no basis for communication. He's saying that altruism and selfishness are not emotional states at any scale. If you're reading into that...
It doesn't require explaining, just read the quote carefully. Such as? Again, Midgley is arguing he doesn't mean it metaphorically at all, quite disho...
One can argue based on the evidence of this thread alone that Dawkins pitched his book at maybe too high a level for a popular science book. Fair enou...
Yes, a reminder that those with knowledge have the privilege of calm, clarity and facts, while those without require aggression, obfuscation and ficti...
He's not talking about genes in that quote, he's talking about behaviours and it's standard terminology whether you like it or not. Again, there seems...
You understand he's talking about people here, not genes. The point that you couldn't possibly have an "altruistic" gene is one I made quite a while a...
That touches on another problem with Midgley, which is that she dismisses the genetic theory of evolution on the basis that genes aren't propagated, o...
I agree, with the correction that that is but one challenge for physicalism, not the entire physicalism project. Redefining 'mind' to be any response ...
:up: Yes, we appear to be a long way from where we started. Which is good. The reigning theory of reciprocal altruism at the time was group selection,...
Yeah, it's not good. The Selfish Gene is a book about reciprocal altruism, and yet Midgley believes that 'not all altruism is reciprocal' is a genuine...
Competition in nature is not a metaphor full stop. I can kill someone with a hammer. That is not the danger of hammers but of killers. Hammers are sti...
Comments