(split) Atheism and acceptance of science

The gene has no desires. It could be that the instincts that served us well in the past no longer do, and will fade away. Or it could be that our will complements our instincts.

 

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The evolution of higher thought.

 

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I know that the gene has no desires, its a metaphor, remember? Metaphorically speaking, by outsourcing its executive decisions to free will [ie intelligence rather than instinct], the gene has committed metaphorical suicide.

Is it more like The Stupid Gene or The Neo-con Gene?

Which is what exactly? The Advanced non-gene Gene?

 

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Didactic, adjective
1 a : designed or intended to teach b : intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment <didactic poetry>

It is a heuristic device primarily intended to help theorists wrap their heads around the idea. Like any metaphor or analogy, it breaks down at a certain point when we begin to look very closely at it. Attacking the metaphor is not tantamount to attacking the underlying theory. The sooner you realize this, the sooner we can begin to address problems with the theory that do not exist solely in your own mind.

The great majority of species ultimately become extinct. Obviously, any theory of evolution must be capable of accounting for this fact to be worth its salt. If you truly believe that the extinction of species presents a problem for the selfish gene view, I can only conclude that you either misunderstand it or are intentionally misrepresenting it. (Although I suspect it is a bit of both.) As for the metaphor, see my previous paragraph.

 

So what does it teach exactly besides the fact that it cannot be used for any actual predictions? What instruction or information did you acquire from it?

So the idea is that a metaphorical gene is giving up its metaphorical executive decisions to real intelligence to commit metaphorical suicide and thus avoid real extinction by being [metaphorically?] replaced?

 

In some sense you are right. When humans become addicted to pleasurable drugs, that is the brain working with a genetic trait against the long term interest of the body. This point is addressed in The Selfish Gene, did you read it?

 

So the idea is to use behaviour guided by an opposing ??? gene??? against that gene and hence make it redundant? So is that cooperation or competition?

Yeah when it first came out.

 

The genes that create the ability to think must provide such an advantage that it supercedes the few occasions when thought works against instinct. Genes can certainly compete with each other. That is the essence of Dawkins' book.

 

So instinct is flawed and instead of repairing it the genes build other mechanisms to compete with them? Why not just repair the instinct? Isn't learning more costly than instinct?

 

Like I just said, it is a heuristic device. Do you know the meaning of this term?

Let me know when you feel like making sense.

 

I'm not saying it's flawed, just that we have the ability to act otherwise through force of will. Most instincts are probably pretty good ones, like fear of heights. Still, people can become skydivers by overcoming their fear.

 

Like acting out Bible stories at Sunday school?

I thought we were all into heuresy?

Still waiting to hear what instruction you received from the experience/

 

I'll take that as a very clear "no."

You can start by looking up the term "heuristic." Alternatively, you could go back and read one of the half dozen posts I've made in this thread explaining the idea.

 

You keep claiming that its heuristic, its supposed to be informative, instructive and yet you admit that its a didactic metaphor that does not translate to theoretical predictions. So basically its just a philosophically flawed episode of mental masturbation.

So what exactly is the selfish gene here? Metaphorically speaking?

 

The gene(s) for rational thought are competing with the gene(s) that lead to certain innate qualities, such as fear of heights. I would say that each still has their function in different contexts.

 

Repeating myself is becoming very tiresome.

"Like any metaphor or analogy, it breaks down at a certain point when we begin to look very closely at it. Attacking the metaphor is not tantamount to attacking the underlying theory. The sooner you realize this, the sooner we can begin to address problems with the theory that do not exist solely in your own mind" (post #364).

 

What do you mean "instead of?" That is exactly repair of the genes.

There isn't necessarily a "problem" to "repair" here as far as the genes are concerned. In this example, the instinct might be very advantageous at a young age, and the later learning to resist the instinct in certain defined situations might also be very advantageous.

Yes, and also more flexible and robust.

Anyway, why choose? Wouldn't the best solution be to program in a safe baseline of instincts, and also the ability to learn when to trust them and when not to?

 

So I went through your posts and I can't figure where you learned anything that makes sense of the selfish gene theory in anything but "there is no other explanation except the one I came up with after observing this" ie a retroactive one that is made up of hidden objects working at cross purposes with each other in ways that defy testing and make no sense when considering it as a metaphor that can be translated to a hypothesis.

 

So a competing system that suppresses instinct by learning [which requires teaching by other learned genes functioning together as an organism, when they are not pushing you out of the nest] is a repair of that instinct?

Ah so the genes are hedging their bets? How do they figure this out?

So its actually The Sensible and Cooperative Gene?

Ok, so what is the underlying theory here? Since you insist

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You didn't bother to actually read the volume you just felt compelled to repost, did you?

So it's an answer to the question: survival of the fittest what? The fittest organism? The fittest group? The fittest species? The answer: the fittest genes.

Dawkins actually addresses this in the introduction to the 30th anniversary edition of the book, where he admits that the book's title is perhaps the only aspect he would not mind having changed.

"Many critics, especially vociferous ones learned in philosophy as I have discovered, prefer to read a book by title only. No doubt this works well enough for The Tale of Benjamin Bunny or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but I can readily see that The Selfish Gene, without the large footnote of the book itself, might give an inadequate impression of its contents. Nowadays, an American publisher would in any case have insisted on a subtitle.
...
I can readily see how the title could be misunderstood, and this is one reason why I should perhaps have gone for The Immortal Gene. The Altruistic Vehicle would have been another possibility.
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Another good alternative to The Selfish Gene would have been The Cooperative Gene. It sounds paradoxically opposite, but a central part of the book argues for a form of cooperation among self-interested genes. (pp. vii-ix)"