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Author Topic:   Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?
Peter
Member (Idle past 1738 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 123 of 438 (505341)
04-10-2009 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Cedre
03-28-2009 8:28 AM


I think there is a bit of a disconnect in here (and I admit I haven't read ALL the thread so forgive me if I trundle out something that's already been dealt with -- been away from the site for a while and probably should catch up better ).
The disconnect hinges on a couple of points in the originating post.
The originating post talks about people acting selflessly with no though to any future benefit to themselves. This is somehow then turned into an evolutionary problem along the lines of 'But how could such behaviour have evolved if it provides no benefit?'
The disconnect is that evolution has very little to do with individuals and everything to do with populations.
It is likely (with such a physically weak species as homo sapiens) that a population (or community) which has some selfless individuals in it would fare better than a population filled with self-serving individuals.
This would tend to select in favour of populations that include individuals with 'self-less' traits.
I didn't think that was hard to figure out. Strength in numbers only gives a benefit if the numbers co-operate with one another.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Cedre, posted 03-28-2009 8:28 AM Cedre has not replied

  
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