Journal penguinoid's Journal: 10 evolutionary commandments 19
So, what are the 10 commandments as evolution would have them?
1) I am the gene your God, who brought you out of the land of non-existance
2) Thou shalt have no other gods besides me.
3) Thou shalt not swear falsely in my name. (root word for testify is testicle)
4) Remember that your genes run in many things, to keep them alive.
5) Honour thy father and thy mother (for they share half your genes) that thy days may be long upon the land which the gene thy God giveth thee.
6) Thou shalt not use birth control
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery, unless you can get away with it.
8) Thou shalt not steal, unless you can get away with it.
9) Thou shalt not not bear false witness, unless you are bribed or it is advantageous to do so
10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours stuff. See rules 7 and 8.
Anyone care to improve on this?
Improvement (Score:2)
Re:Improvement (Score:2)
Also: Thou shalt procreate with partners of obvious genetic superiority regardless of their preference.
Also: Thou shalt enforce mandatory procreation in those of superior genetic stock.
Evolution is merely a method of extending the life of a certain species until it becomes fully obsolete or non-competetive.
Humans have the ability to do so much more than this rudimentary process does. How about ensuring t
Re:Improvement (Score:2)
Careful there. Whose genes is this propagating? Of course, if you feel someone else has superior genes to yours, feel free to give yourself a Darwin Award for your philantropic contribution to improving the gene pool.
Humans have the ability to do so much more than this rudimentary process does.
Well, for one thing, we could begin intelligently designing ourselves. I wonder if that could result in a technological/biological s
meaningless question (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is as meaningless as "What are the Ten Commandments as Newtonian Mechanics would have them?" or "What are the Ten Commandments as superstring theory would have them?"
Re:meaningless question (Score:2)
Now Newtonian or superstring theory have nothing to say about the Bible. But evolution does. Despite what some might say, you can't fit evolution, the statement 'God created man', and Occam's Razor togeth
Re:meaningless question (Score:1)
No, then we are not "designed" at all.
Well, Newtonian mechanics does put the lie to many of the miracle stories in the bible; you can't beleive in Newtonian physics and a world where the sun stands still in the sky to suit some generals battle plan.
Re:meaningless question (Score:2)
I'm sure many computer scientists would take issue with that. Genetic algorithm's take some work to get right, not least of which is determining the perpose of the code, and how to determine fitness.
Well, Newtonian mechanics does put the lie to many of the miracle stories in the bible; you can't beleive in Newtonian physics and a world where the sun stands still in the sky to suit some generals battle plan.
Miracles with a scientific explanation, are just that much more
Re:meaningless question (Score:2)
But "design" implies a designer. There is no designer here - the critters around us are completely tailored to the environment rather than the environment in any way being tailored to them. There is no goal inherent in the system. It just is.
Given this, it's completely meaningless to say what our purpose is
Re:meaningless question (Score:2)
That's exactly what I said. OK, we're made by a genetic algerithm. Insert designer. Find purpose. Remove designer. Nothing changed, so if we had a purpose when there was a designer, then we still have a purpose, and it would be the same one -- even if we weren't de
Re:meaningless question (Score:1)
Re:meaningless question (Score:2)
As to the convoluted specially shaped cloud, it was an answer to
Well, Newtonian mechanics does put the lie to many of the miracle stories in the bible; you can't beleive in Newtonian physics and a world where the sun stands still in the sky to suit some generals battle plan.
Note that the example, while convoluted, does not violate Newtonian mechanics.
My big p
Re:meaningless question (Score:1)
Whoever raises an objection like that has never heard of the bubble universe [flash.net] or cyclic universe [edge.org] theories. Our universe's (more properly, our Hubble volume's) "Big Bang" could be just one in a "string of firecrackers" that goes on forever, or Bangs could alternate with Crunches forever. Neither of these, of course, is currently a testable hypothesis, and it may be that we will never have enough data to know. (It may also be that the q
Re:meaningless question (Score:2)
good sentiment, bad interpretation (Score:2)
The real question to ask is: if ethics is reducible to simple evolutionary fitness, and it looks like it is, don't philosophical ethics and religious ethics become pointless and vacuous exercises? What need is there to invoke higher powers o
Re:good sentiment, bad interpretation (Score:2)
That's pretty much the point of my sig. Very few people are happy with all the consequences of evolution. Though I did focus on the "selfish gene" aspect, I am quite aware of the
Re:good sentiment, bad interpretation (Score:1)
Evolution tells us about chemicals and cells and organisms; ethics tells us about behaviors and individuals and societies. Evolution [and creationism for that matter--they are not necessarily incompatible] tells us about how we got here; ethics is about where we want to go. You seem to have unnecessarily coupled the two to argue against evolution.
The unspoken hingepin of your argument is the presence or absence of god, but it doe
hmmmm. What? (Score:1)
As far as the Ten commandments as evolution would have them they are something like:
1. Survive.
2. Propagate.
The rest were gotten rid of over time as they were found to be of less value than those that remain. I do find it strange to talk about the description of a process as having moral values though. That is all evolution is by the way, a description
Re:hmmmm. What? (Score:1)
The ten commandments? (Score:1)
Exodus 20:13-Thou shalt not kill
Note that it doesn't say "Thou shalt not kill unless thou feelest like it" or "Thou shalt not kill him who has not wronged thee" or even "Thou shalt not kill, except he who is about to kill thee". It is fairly unequivocal and clear. Read on.
Exodus 21:15-And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death
Exodus 21:16-And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found