If I may just single out your post, as it seems to reflect a lot of other similar responses, and say that I think there is just such pure poppycock on so many levels.
Thanks for expressing your opinion.
First, do you actually believe there is a gene which controls altruism?
No. That's why I didn't say that I did. That's the first point dealt with.
Furthermore, do you think that at some time in the past, there were groups of these social primates, and in those groups NONE of the individuals had any sense of altruism, until one altruistic "eve" started this whole behavior off?
No. From the time there were social primates, there was cooperation. Clue is in the social part. You'd have to go back to a non-social species. Cooperation is a fairly basic strategy, even insects have it, so it's not some insurmountable leap for cooperative behaviour to come about. Something as simple as an interrupted adrenaline pathway can alter behaviour drastically.
These types of stories that evolutionists love to tell, presumably without embarrassment for the sheer audacity of these far out presumptions, really do give me a chuckle.
You realize that you told the story right, not me? I don't know the exact route for how altruism evolved, but I can't see it as an insurmountable problem for a variety of reasons that I previously expressed.
Every thing, every action, every behavior you can think of, is easy enough to explain by simply saying "can't you see the advantage this would have...nana?" .
But don't get me wrong - I agree that just-so stories are really rubbish explanatory structures. It is after all, one of the reasons I reject Genesis (how comes snakes have no legs? Why is our child birth agonising?). And yes, evolutionists have been guilty of so doing - and more have been falsely accused after being challenged 'how could x possibly have evolved' (they gave a possible way, not a just so story). You have an itchy creationist-retort trigger finger there.
Even if you believed every aspect of evolution, including the accidental brilliance of it that you are suggesting, these types of wild fairy tales of chimps or man existing without some behavior (for centuries presumably) and then suddenly getting a weird mutation, (that we can only imagine in our heads because we don't need evidence), then spreading like wildfire through the population as if this was the most important new feature of reproduction selection is far more ridiculous than any Noah's Ark tales that you would find so unconvincing.
Agreed - which is why I am convinced that nobody would be surprised that the story was created by a creationist.
So if you don't mind, can you walk us through a few of the steps of how this first mutation started in your scenario?
I have no idea what the 'first mutation' was but the evidence suggests that it would likely have started as a copying error in a germ line cell. And like with anything in evolution, 'first mutation' is really nonsense since the effect of any genetic change is contingent on any previous mutations that may have occurred.
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