What I dislike about these kinds of "evolutionary" arguments is that they tend to assume that the differences between the genders are genetic, even when there's no evidence for that. Even as late as the Victorian ages, several of the traits we now think of as immutable part of being male or female were swapped around. For the Victorians, blue was for girls and pink was for boys, and all women had the potential to bec…
"Even as late as the Victorian ages, several of the traits we now think of as immutable part of being male or female were swapped around. For the Victorians, blue was for girls and pink was for boys, and all women had the potential to become insatiable, incurable beasts for sex, one reason it was so important to keep chaste. This model of sexuality fit what the people experienced in their daily lives, just as ours do…
Is There Anything Good About Men?
131–140 of 237 posts
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#132The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes. Since Dawkins became fashionable, it is now normal to portray human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA. This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of…
>Since Dawkins became fashionable I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says: "We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives." As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplis…
If evolution explains everything, it explains nothing.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#133"His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought" << could not agree w/ this more, people are WAY too sensitive on both sides & fail to realize what really matters in life (including freedom of thought).
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#134The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes. Since Dawkins became fashionable, it is now normal to portray human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA. This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of…
Attacking Dawkins (of whom I am not even a reader) by citing some other guy's fall into religion, depression, and eventual suicide is not only tasteless but utterly irrelevant.
> The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes
The problem with your comment is that in the very first sentence it makes a huge assumption that we are not slaves to our genes. Compelling arguments may well be made otherwise but not by some attempt at an "appeal to assumed general knowledge" for want of a better description.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm on the opposite side of that. I find it amusing when people try to justify certain actions with corollaries found in animals. The amazing thing about being human is that we can overcome instinct, and it doesn't even require superhuman effort. Regular old human effort will do.
You've never seen a dog overcome instinct? It's not a uniquely human ability.
sliverstorm's point is valuable and it is annoying to see it ignored. Dogs and other pets routinely overcome instinct to win favour by their human masters. And what are humans but pets of society?
It pisses me off when people don't concede that they were wrong and promise to do better next time. jordan0day, admit that your simplistic argument was flawed, and vow to re-examine your assumptions.
Damn but 99% of arguments need a moderator. Startup opportunity?
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The highly questionable practice of applying game theory to human psychology is also dangerous IMO. It didn't get anyone anywhere in the cuban missile crisis, and it won't help us understand the "problem of altruism" either. People are not rational! This is demonstrably true. Even if they were uber-rational, they never have enough data about the world to make useful rational decisions WRT maximising gene propagation…
People don't need to be rational for game theory to accurately describe our behavior. We may not be rational, but in aggregate, the results are. That is, our behaviors may be influenced more by our instinct than our reasoning. Our instincts are the result of a random exploration process where only certain strategies could win. Rational reasoning is not required.
As I see it, that's pretty much the founding concept of game theory.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#137The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes. Since Dawkins became fashionable, it is now normal to portray human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA. This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of…
>Since Dawkins became fashionable I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says: "We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives." As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplis…
I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books.
Well perhaps both you and Dawkins are naive - or perhaps only you are...
It should be rather obvious that ninety percent of the impact any book or idea system is the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch for Dawkin is "we are controlled by our (selfish) genes". If Dawkins includes caveats, well, how sweat of him but it really doesn't change the basic effect of writing a book called "The Selfish Gene". All your caveats are fine too but I suspect only reading the executive is definitely facilitated by evolution...
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
>All heritable behaviors that lead to men or women not reproducing don't stay in a population very long I'm not sure about this. What I mean is that I can clearly see the logic here, but I'd love to see a discussion for instance on the continual existence of evolutionary destructive traits such as homosexuality, which by all accounts has not only been around for a great deal of human existence, but also other species…
> What I mean is that I can clearly see the logic here, but I'd love to see a discussion for instance on the continual existence of evolutionary destructive traits such as homosexuality, which by all accounts has not only been around for a great deal of human existence, but also other species. It allows excess parents without having excess children. Assume your objective function is to pass along genetic material tha…
Exactly; in short, "The Selfish Gene" is not called "The Selfish Individual" for very good reason.
It's not about individual reproduction; it's about the survival of genetic material. Furthermore, genes aren't a rigid blueprint; they're highly affected by the environment and by simple chance; it's not as if "oops, this family evolved a gay gene and now all of their kids will be gay and they will all die out".
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Since Dawkins became fashionable I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says: "We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives." As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplis…
If evolution explains everything, it explains nothing.
A meaningless platitude.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm on the opposite side of that. I find it amusing when people try to justify certain actions with corollaries found in animals. The amazing thing about being human is that we can overcome instinct, and it doesn't even require superhuman effort. Regular old human effort will do.
You've never seen a dog overcome instinct? It's not a uniquely human ability.
This very fact means that the two of you are operating on the wrong definition of "instinct."
"Instinct" simply means anything that is inborn. There's nothing in the animal manual that says that instincts can't contradict each other in an animal. Hate is instinctive, as is love. It's not that humans defeat their instincts, it's that some of our instincts defeat other instincts.