1. thescian
  2. Darwinism isn't depressing

Darwinism isn't depressing

By thescian on May 2, 2007.

Robert Wright who runs Bloggingheads.tv writes Darwinism isn't depressing in IHT:

...survival machines are unfairly maligned. The name suggests, well, machines devoted to their survival. In truth, though, natural selection builds machines devoted ultimately to the survival of their genes, not themselves.

Hence love. A love-impelled grandparent sacrifices her life to save a child's life. Too bad for the grandparent, but mission accomplished for the love genes: They've kept copies of themselves alive in a vibrant vehicle that was otherwise doomed, and all they've lost is a vehicle that, frankly, didn't have the world's most auspicious odometer anyway. Love of offspring (and siblings) is your genes' way of getting you to serve their agenda.

...

Transcending the arbitrary narrowness of our empathy isn't guaranteed by nature. (Why do you think they call it transcendence?) But nature has given us the tools - not just the empathy, but the brains to figure out how evolution works, and thus to see that the narrowness is arbitrary.

Tags
Prime Stream

More like this

The Great Bloggingheads Mess
I sort of feel like I ought to have something to say about the recent controversy over creationists on bloggingheads.tv, which has caused Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer to renounce the whole site. If you're too lazy to click through those links, the basic problem is that bloggingheads has twice…
Talking to Craig Venter
Last week I appeared on bloggingheads.tv, talking about life in all its weirdness with science writer John Horgan. The folks at bloggingheads.tv wondered if I'd come back, perhaps bringing along a scientist to talk to. I said, Of course. The scientist I've invited along is Craig Venter. In the…
The Blogginheads.tv Controversy
Since the bloggingheads "diavlog" with David Dobbs and me was the first science-oriented installment to come out (more or less) since the repudiation of Bloggingheads.tv by Carl Zimmer and Sean Carrol, and now Phil Plait and PZ Myers, I think I should say something about why I did it and what I…
Homosexuality and evolution
I made the mistake of reading some of the comments on those last youtube videos. There were some good ones, but they were also laced with the usual grunting assholes complaining about gays and "trannies" and quoting the Bible and making racist remarks about Africans. Let us pass over those…