Richard Dawkins is right

joelbear

the world's destiny is up to the selfish gene.

i'll just get some popcorn.

except now, instead of physical strength or abilities its all about resource management.

ballistic

I always said it's about what's in the jeans.

drew sagan

I agree. Humans are shellfish by nature, it's in their jeans.

joelbear

yes yes, sit down you two, back to the topic.

the more i marvel at the world the more it seems clear that whatever the future holds it will be determined by the old war of the survival of the fittest and the numerous means our genes move us into action. our genes makes us think and feel. we are them and they are us.

Brigid

Perhaps....but could we not create noble purposes for ourselves? That is, merely for the utilitarian purpose of perpetuating our existence.

~Brigid

greendawn

It's all done through proteins, genes are used as the code based on which proteins are made and somehow they direct the body's development and functions.

joelbear

define noble purpose?

silentWatcher

define noble purpose?
---------------------------

to get into her jeans.

duh.

kls

Jeans jeans all this talk of jeans . Whatever happen to getting into someones fur

tetrapod.sapien

we are them and they are us.

exactly joelbear!

we are but the expressions of genes. the expressions of eons of data executed. kangaroos are the expression of their genes. bacteria the expression of their genes. puppies and bats and spiders and centepedes and brocolli and carrots and grass and trees and parasites. all the expressions of their genes. it's their genes that want to survive, not them.

the hardest thing for many to accept, emotionally, about evolution, is that all their thoughts and hopes and dreams and beautiful poetic experiences, and their physical traits and beauties and faults, are the result of their genes in the cut throat race for survival over geologic time spans. genes against genes. have you fallen in love with a pretty girl? and she loves you back? and you want to have children together? yes, this is beautiful, to us, but not to our genes. they just want to pass their data on. why do we love? because we have become too complex and smart (good things indeed) to do the dirty deed of our genes, animal style. we need more than simple sex (don't quote me on this, i'm not as highly evolved as you lovers), to explain simple sex to ourselves, you know?

technically, we share a common ancestor with *every* single living thing. take my list from the paragraph above, and you are related to them. evolutionary biologists already knew this, but genetics is detailing and solidifying the theory as well, in really cool ways. i find it thrilling, actually, just to sit back and think about it. you would think that the great elephant of africa is more closely related to a rhinoceros, for example. not so. the closest living relative of the great elephant, is the rock hyrax. we know this thanks to genetics, just to impress the significant impact that genetics is having on evolutionary biology.

but the truly fascinating thing about us humans (to touch on what you brought up brigid [been liking your posts btw]), is that although technically we are indeed merely the expression of selfish genes, we have also hijacked biological evolution to an astounding degree via culture. and not just culture in the sense of music and fashion and whatnot. really, in the most basic sense, culture stems from our ability to think abstractly, and gain knowledge that we can pass down from generation to generation. religion is an expression of abstract thought and culture. and ironically, so is science. without this ability, we would truly be apes (as we once were), and know nothing of the theory of evolution. culture has hijacked biology with humans to the point where we can barely fathom, with all our imaginations, that we are merely the expression of genes. we are SO rich, intellectually, compared to other organisms on this planet. to think that we are not here because of us, and that we are not that special, is rightly a foreign thought.

the selfish gene was more than just a book about biology and evolution. it was a ground breaking book that chipped away once again, as copernicus did with heliocentrism, at the implicitly asssumed specialness of human beings in this universe.

and *yet*, understanding the implications of this seemingly disturbing logic, makes us some of the greatest beings to ever crawl on this earth. gods indeed. :)

TS

Richard Dawkins is right

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