Williams' Lament: "Natural selection maximizes shortsighted selfishness no matter how much pain or loss it produces and, from a human point of view, is grossly immoral."
"Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on this earth to rise above." - Katherine Hepburn's character in The African Queen
I try to remind myself of this as often as possible:
"For the truth of the matter is that people have mixed feelings and confused opinions and are subject to contradictory expectations and outcomes, in every sphere of experience."
posted by Lizzie @ 7:02 PM
With what other than condemnation is a person with any moral sense supposed to respond to a system in which the ultimate purpose in life is to be better than your neighbor at getting genes into the future generations, in which those successful genes provide the message that instructs the development of the next generation, in which that message is always "exploit your environment, including your friends and relatives, so as to maximize our (genes') success," in which the closest thing to a golden rule is "don't cheat, unless it is likely to provide a net benefit"? - G.C. Williams The system he describes is natural selection, and most living, feeling beings are its victims. The impact of natural selection on our lives should be thought about, and combatted. I am interested in integrating insights from biology into how we think about life, and civilization. Love and education are our tools to resist the tragic impact of natural selection on the world (and traditional cultures and religions everywhere).
1 Comments:
Hi I've been reading your blog for a little while and really look forward to hearing what you have to say.. i haven't finished reading the last Lewontin piece yet but will soon-- anyway I wanted to tell you that at times like these, when actual scientific findings based on actual evidence, and even the scientific method itself are under attack in such a major way in this country, then blogs like your's have an important role to play, including for what you are argueing for and also because you are trying to reach out to people who may not yet undderstand the importance of this.
Anyway I would like to talk to you further.. and would like to introduce you to www.worldcantwait.org -- as this Bush regime takes us along a road and to a society none of us want to live in, we are building a movement to drive out this regime. please check out this site and let others know.. Nov 2nd-- the beginning of the end of the BUsh regime.
Hopefully will get to talk to you sometime. MIna
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