We’re taller…seriously, we are.

Is the Grand Canyon appreciably different than 1000 years ago? Is Everest much taller than a century ago?

Slow and steady does not mean stationary, Ms. Dani.

roach, you seem to ignore the possibility that a species can evolve in more direction than one. Speciation is exactly that phenomenon where a large group of one species evolves divergently due to breeding habits and over time becomes multiple species. The crossing of genetic lines and specialization of isolated breeding groups doesn’t produce a homogenous, averaging effect on the entire populace. Humans will never evolve to the point where there is a single face that is the average of all faces now present and is identically reproduced over all individuals. The reality is exactly the opposite phenomenon: more variety, and more exotic individuals, diverging farther and farther from each other.

Stopped evolving in the past 10,000 years? Precisely when, if you please, did the distinctions between different European peoples evolve (i.e Scandinavian vs Greek vs German vs Slavik vs British vs Spanish)? When did Native Americans split off of Asian people and begin to evolve in another direction? What about South Americans? Africans? Asians? Middle Easterners? Aboriginees?

All current evidence suggests that Native Americans split off of mainland Asia no more than 15,000 years ago. South Americans might have split off of Native Americans at some point after that. All European distinctions have evolved certainly in the past 5,000 years, some in the past 1,000 years.

My point is that evolution is NOT a uni-directional force that somehow is “driving” species to become the “ultimate super race”. Mankind’s intellect has not “intercepted” evolution and reversed it. This is a completely bogus idea.

Do you think that the fact that a person with Down’s syndrome survives rather than dying early affects my decision to seek out an intelligent, healthy, and well-suited mate and produce offspring? Certainly not. The cross of our two gene pools, which is entirely unique, will offer the world a new genetic code that has NEVER existed before. So too, does every union that produces offspring.

What exactly is YOUR problem with that?

The world of humans is getting more diverse, not less! That means there are far more opportunities for individuals of “exceptional” quality, whichever quality you measure or find important.

Just to drive the point home, consider the various breeds of dogs. Genetic studies of dogs have shown that they are in fact so genetically similar to wolves that they should be classified as the same species! Yet dogs vary in size, shape, color, hair patterns, growth rate, temperment, and numerous other factors in an enormous variety. In a sense, wolves have “evolved” in various directions. Has wolf evolution stopped? Hardly.

These hundreds of breeds of dogs that are around today….how old are they? If you do some digging, you’ll find that almost ALL breeds of dogs have emerged in the past 200 years, due to careful intervention by humans. Look at the variety that is present just in the natural variation of one “stable” species of wolf! Humans coaxed the process along a bit, but you can’t deny the results: speciation is clear.

Written history is an impossibly short blink of an eye in the overall scheme of evolution. Your assertion based on this impossibly tiny slice of time that appears almost static and a few rhetorical questions is absurd!

Humans will evolve forever, probably into many different things! We may even die out and something else will overtake us!

1) Please don’t invent “-ism”s. Doing so is hackneyed and unclever.

2) Your definition of how “success is measured” has nothing to do with any model of nature seriously discussed in biology. The “success” of a species, if such a thing can be identified, is its ability to continue to exist. The “success” of an individual animal, if such a thing can be identified, is its ability to stay alive and reproduce.

3) Even male lions cooperate; brothers, for example, will co-lead a pride and share the lionesses. Among the primates, the most competitive males will (AFAIK) likely have less reproductive success. No, brother lions don’t co-lead. They live together until they find a pride to take over, and then the stronger brother becomes the dominant male. After your mistake, you then announce to us (ie “AFAIK”) that, in effect, you don’t have the damnedest idea what you’re talking about and are simply making things up to support your specious argument.

4) “[P]ure capitalism” has never “fail”ed. Capitalism is an economic model, and is wildly successful in accomplishing precisely what it intends to accomplish: the creation of wealth. Capitalism has never had the remotest goal of promoting economic equality or supporting the economically unviable. Your Marxist intentions are egregious.

5) Despite the pretendings of highschool English teachers around the country, Dickens is a pedantic, boring hack. Regardless, holding him up in support of your economic theory makes you look ridiculous.

6) I don’t know who “we” refers to, but I struggle to improve my economic and social condition. Cooperation and competition are merely a means to that end. Yes, it really is that mercenary.

Here is a link: http://people.bu.edu/vaguirre/courses/bu332/nature_firm.pdf

There are no absolutes in the animal kingdom — success is measured by achieving the best balance of cooperation and competition. Even male lions cooperate; brothers, for example, will co-lead a pride and share the lionesses. Among the primates, the most competitive males will (AFAIK) likely have less reproductive success. So things trend toward a mean, a balance between cooperation and competition.

Now, apply this lesson to our modern economy. pure cooperation, i.e., communism, fails due to lack of incentives and free-rider problems. pure capitalism fails because too many members of the community are unwilling to subject their fellow humans to the worst rigors of a pure capitalistic society. (see Dickens.)

so we struggle, trying to find the best balance between cooperation and competition.

cheers

Francis

You dodo birds.

Not to mention language, art, music, and the tendency to ask philisophical questions such as the one Mr. Wilde has brought up. And the ability to enjoy Shiner Bock (though I’m partial to Stone IPA, myself).

None of which have much to do with survival.

As to the original question, I don’t really think that there is such a thing as an “essential nature” among nature’s creatures, beyond a tendency to survive and reproduce (the creatures failing in those endeavors don’t tend to stick around for very long). As already pointed out, the particular strategies that different species (and indeed, different human societies) have employed to that end are as diverse as nature itself, with some being altruistic and “hive-minded”, some being fiercely competetive and violent, and most probably somewhere in between.

Men who compete for the same thing (such as land), they will no doubt wish each other’s downfall in that specific endeavour, sure. The use of the words ‘enemy’ and ‘war’ when describing this situation, is melodramatic. Mini-battles like these happen in nature at all times. I want to get a better deal on a new car, and the salesman won’t budge. He is my enemy. Should I destroy him? Obviously that would get me nowhere, as other factors play in that decision. Give ‘Hobbes War’ a chance.

However, he seems to falter here:
Hence, while men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a state of war, every man against every man.

How will a common power keep them from warring with each other, unless that power is in continual battle with the lesser powers of the men? That is simply enslavement. Do as your told or suffer.

Men will always decide the most beneficial path for their goals. Sometimes the most beneficial thing is mutually beneficial to two or more people, thus creating societies.

When men are continually working knowing their work is not the most beneficial toward their goals, you can be assured a type of coercion is involved.

Yep. Just a little.

1) Me: “Survival being the source of happiness is hard-wired into life.”

You summarizing me: “[S]urvival is the fundamental driving force behind every human action.”

But those are different!

2) I’m not sure how I’m incorrect in claiming children are born thinking the world revolves around themselves. Besides, Ms. Dani claimed the same thing: “We are hard wired selfish and then learn (maturity) that the world does not revolve around us.” From what I could tell, “world [revolving] around us” and “selfish” were meant to be synonymous.

3) I didn’t claim a distinction between selfishness and self-centeredness. I said there was a distinction between selfishness and the perspective of the world revolving around oneself. Selfishness can be (roughly) summarized as looking out for numero uno — not just in safety but in ambitions and values, too. The “world revolving around me” perspective differs from this, because in in the WRAM perspective, Joe Blow only views people as they relate to Joe Blow.

She did make that value judgment. She said that when we mature, we are no longer selfish. If a mature person is no longer selfish, then selfishness must be immature. I’m saying that’s not true.

Hear, hear!