that dawkins, what'll he come up with next??

pinksoir

i'm currently reading 'the blind watchmaker' and i came across a passage that struck me. well actually the whole book is pretty enlightening, but this was something i had been pondering over for a while, but it always helps to read something in order to clarify it in your mind...

it's the part in which he quotes a part of 'the origin of species' which makes reference to negroes being of less value than whites. he makes the point that this should be overlooked, or at least taken with a pinch of salt, as it was a conventionof the times, much as future generations will look back on us and our apparent 'speciesism'.

as i read more and more about evolution it makes me think more and more about the ethical rights of animals. when you think about how each animal now alive, humans included, are the end product of billions of years of evolution, it raises the questions 'why is my right to life any more valid than that of any other living thing?' and 'what gives me the right to put an end to any particular line of genes?'. i'm not about to join the united animal front or anything and i firmly believe in anmal testing when it is absolutely necessary (certain pharmeceuticals etc), but still, is human life of any more value than that of any other living thing when you get down to it?

obviously those questions are a little ridiculous as the very idea of ethics and morality are a human construct, or at least an evolutionary by-product, but still, it makes me wonder, in the future will people look back at our apparent speciesism?

cheers,
karl.

Citizen_Erased

I think that is really a dilema , and a tough one. This arose for me with hunting and similar sports but my one conclusion was that the thing that separates us is our awareness of our existence . I don't think that animals experience "conscienceness" (misspelt) in the same way that we do , more though that they are autonomous in their actions controlled by needs for certain things. I think that we are superior to animals because we are on a higher level of this awareness , as if we are at the helm of all this. As for the differences between races , I don't think it exists at all apart from the physical differences.

pinksoir

no, it's patently obvious that there are no differences between races apart from the superficial, and, perhaps, physical attributes that exist due to environmental conditions.

i'm not sure that awareness really has any bearing on somethings right to life really, when you think of the thousands, if not millions, of generations of antecedents that survived in order for that thing to be here. that itself is a pretty remarkable feat. the ability to reflect on your existence, and therefore apply a sort of subjective value on it, or meaning to it, doesn't give your life any greater value in the grand scheme of things. or does it?

incidently, could the religious again use the bible for their own prejudices by stating that God gave us animals for our own enjoyment? something to look out for in the species equal future perhaps?!!

Citizen_Erased

Well the Bible can be used to solve all your problems if you are a christian thus preventing the need for any deep soul searching that generally can better a human being.
I understand completely that you may disagree with my view and i think that everyone needs to find their own answer to this question . But for your point about evolution , sure they spent many millions of years to reach this point but so did we as human beings and our conscienceness (still wrong) is just our proof of a more complex form of evolution. If say you kill a bird with a gun , that gun is a result of our evolution , our adaption to using tools and ultimately our superior intelligence. That of course does not change the value that can be put on life (though then again it is easy to start an argument on the definition of life itself) but it does lead to the conclusion that we are superior which can easily be interpretted as us being more valuable.

Sangre

I'm not really sure what this has to do with atheism...

Citizen_Erased

Have a little look into Dawkins and his works and it the connection should be made clear.

Sangre

or you could just explain it to me.

pinksoir

(my) atheism has grown out of a knowledge of evolution. in many ways i feel that the development of the theory of evolution was the first point at which atheism could be properly justified (unless you're a buddhist!). i also think that my morality as an atheist is rooted in many things, one of which being an understanding of the sheer unlikeliness of any particular living being existing at this moment, as the end product of a chain of genes.

strictly speaking this is more to do with philosophy(ethics) and science (evolution) but i see no reason why philosophy, science and atheism have to be mutually exclusive.

Scofflaw

pinksoir wrote:

i'm currently reading 'the blind watchmaker' and i came across a passage that struck me. well actually the whole book is pretty enlightening, but this was something i had been pondering over for a while, but it always helps to read something in order to clarify it in your mind...

it's the part in which he quotes a part of 'the origin of species' which makes reference to negroes being of less value than whites. he makes the point that this should be overlooked, or at least taken with a pinch of salt, as it was a conventionof the times, much as future generations will look back on us and our apparent 'speciesism'.

as i read more and more about evolution it makes me think more and more about the ethical rights of animals. when you think about how each animal now alive, humans included, are the end product of billions of years of evolution, it raises the questions 'why is my right to life any more valid than that of any other living thing?' and 'what gives me the right to put an end to any particular line of genes?'. i'm not about to join the united animal front or anything and i firmly believe in anmal testing when it is absolutely necessary (certain pharmeceuticals etc), but still, is human life of any more value than that of any other living thing when you get down to it?

No, but we're allowed to be biased.

pinksoir wrote:

obviously those questions are a little ridiculous as the very idea of ethics and morality are a human construct, or at least an evolutionary by-product, but still, it makes me wonder, in the future will people look back at our apparent speciesism?

I certainly hope so.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Citizen_Erased

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

That should explain most of it , basically hes a slightly extreme evolutionary scientist and outspoken atheist.

pinksoir

Scofflaw wrote:

No, but we're allowed to be biased.

naturally! it's certainly difficult to look at things from as objective an aspect as possible, but it's nice to try, if only in theory. i certainly value human life over any other form, but when i'm out drowning kittens sometimes i like to think they have just as much right to live as i do...:p

pinksoir

yes the book is by dawkins.

i'm not making a leap. he quotes a passage from 'the origin of species' referring to something to do with evolution (obviously), but the passage also implies, directly, that negroes are inferior to whites. dawkins points out that this was a convention at the time, much like the way we see other animals as inferior to humans.

it's not really to do with animal rights, but rather to do with an athiest morality that is informed, among other things, by a knowledge and understanding of evolution. a morality that is shared by, if not promoted by dawkins.

Zillah

pinksoir wrote:

in the future will people look back at our apparent speciesism?

Are you asking if there will be vegitarians and animal rights groups in the future...?

Cos, y'know, you might not have to go to 2150 to find such people.

Zillah

Citizen_Erased wrote:

I think that we are superior to animals because we are on a higher level of this awareness , as if we are at the helm of all this.

I see.

And when the Omega Tau arrive from the eighth dimension you'll agree that it is morally appropriate for them to treat humanity like food and test subjects because their conciousness is similarily beyond ours? Granted, their manner of existence will be beyond our understanding, and the way we get eaten similarily so, and the tests will make no sense to us, but we'll still feel agony, desperation and suffering.

Dave!

pinksoir wrote:

i'm currently reading 'the blind watchmaker' and i came across a passage that struck me. well actually the whole book is pretty enlightening, but this was something i had been pondering over for a while, but it always helps to read something in order to clarify it in your mind...

it's the part in which he quotes a part of 'the origin of species' which makes reference to negroes being of less value than whites. he makes the point that this should be overlooked, or at least taken with a pinch of salt, as it was a conventionof the times, much as future generations will look back on us and our apparent 'speciesism'.

as i read more and more about evolution it makes me think more and more about the ethical rights of animals. when you think about how each animal now alive, humans included, are the end product of billions of years of evolution, it raises the questions 'why is my right to life any more valid than that of any other living thing?' and 'what gives me the right to put an end to any particular line of genes?'. i'm not about to join the united animal front or anything and i firmly believe in anmal testing when it is absolutely necessary (certain pharmeceuticals etc), but still, is human life of any more value than that of any other living thing when you get down to it?

obviously those questions are a little ridiculous as the very idea of ethics and morality are a human construct, or at least an evolutionary by-product, but still, it makes me wonder, in the future will people look back at our apparent speciesism?

cheers,
karl.

At the end of the day you have to remember that natural selection is a competetive natural process. The "goal" of every species is to continue to exist for as long as possible. For that reason, we as humans put our own lives before that of any other creature (except for the wierdos), and similarly, all creatures put their own lives before ours. It just so happens that we are the dominant species on the planet, so we can kill any animal we want to fulfil our need for food, warmth, pleasure (lol), etc. Naturally, nothing makes our lives more valid than that of an ant. We're both just creatures on this planet, and we'll no doubt die out in a few million years, making way for a new dominant species.

If you were to get too close to a lion, they would kill you if they perceive you as a threat to themselves, or to their cubs. It's survival of the fittest, and our only objective in life is to exist long enough to pass on our genes.

That is of course from a biological point of view!

Also you wouldn't be empathising with the animals were it not for your evolved brain; lions feel no remorse when they bite the throat out of a gazelle, rest assured!

Dades

This is slipping into a vegetarian thing...

Can we kill and eat animals just because we are the "fittest"? Based on the bowl of chicken wings I had last night I have to say yes.

Hunting for pleasure I don't agree with, or hunting to the point of extinction. I do think as the smartest animals on this rock we have a responsibility to try not to wipe out species forever.

Oh, and for the record I endorse this thread as a interesting diversion!

magicbastarder

the problem with this line of thinking (which i don't find unwelcome) is where to draw the line; do we decide that cattle are more important than, say, slugs?
and if we (inevitably) do, where do we draw the line separating them?

Scofflaw

magicbastarder wrote:

the problem with this line of thinking (which i don't find unwelcome) is where to draw the line; do we decide that cattle are more important than, say, slugs?
and if we (inevitably) do, where do we draw the line separating them?

It's not possible to do so in any justifiable way. Either all life is valuable, or none is. However, you're right - we will inevitably draw lines. They just won't be justifiable.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

However, you're right - we will inevitably draw lines. They just won't be justifiable.

Nihilistic infinite regress for the win.

Zombrex

I will simply say this - Evolution has NOTHING to do with ethics or morality

Nature is neither ethical nor is it moral.

Anytime attempts have been made to form ethical models around evolution they have ended up in nonsense.

So kids, just say no.

robindch

> the problem with this line of thinking is where to draw the line; do we
> decide that cattle are more important than, say, slugs?

Some book I was reading a year or two back (can't remember what, but could have been Dawkins) made this point -- most people don't have a problem killing flies or beetles and things that are only distantly related to us, but many go all squeamish when it comes to killing say a cow or some other mammal. The writer suggested that it was because we were more closely related to mammals and we shared more genetic material, that we began to suffer from some kind of species-based variation of kin selection.

I'm not sure if I buy the idea though.

magicbastarder

Wicknight wrote:

Anytime attempts have been made to form ethical models around evolution they have ended up in nonsense.

exactly; nature is amoral. for every example about "what would nature do?", there's an example in nature where the opposite applies.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> the problem with this line of thinking is where to draw the line; do we
> decide that cattle are more important than, say, slugs?

Some book I was reading a year or two back (can't remember what, but could have been Dawkins) made this point -- most people don't have a problem killing flies or beetles and things that are only distantly related to us, but many go all squeamish when it comes to killing say a cow or some other mammal. The writer suggested that it was because we were more closely related to mammals and we shared more genetic material, that we began to suffer from some kind of species-based variation of kin selection.

I'm not sure if I buy the idea though.

I must be wired wrong, so. I strongly object to people eating, say, scallops, but not cow. After all, one cow = many steaks, but one meal = many scallops.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Asiaprod

Scofflaw wrote:

I must be wired wrong, so. I strongly object to people eating, say, scallops, but not cow. After all, one cow = many steaks, but one meal = many scallops.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Very nice thought, I never looked at it that way. Thanks.

robindch

> I strongly object to people eating, say, scallops, but not cow.

The author wasn't talking about how people feel about eating, but how they feel about killing

I must be wired differently too -- if the food source was grown for humans by humans, then I don't really have much of a problem with killing and eating it. But I feel it's different if the food source was harvested without any intention to replace on the part of the harvester. So I generally avoid seafood. Except for the odd dose of sushi, of course.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> I strongly object to people eating, say, scallops, but not cow.

The author wasn't talking about how people feel about eating, but how they feel about killing

I must be wired differently too -- if the food source was grown for humans by humans, then I don't really have much of a problem with killing and eating it. But I feel it's different if the food source was harvested without any intention to replace on the part of the harvester. So I generally avoid seafood. Except for the odd dose of sushi, of course.

I'd agree with you there, as well - although, if you think about it, that phrase "replace on the part of the harvester" is a bit of a giveaway. It implies the view that individual lives of other species are not really equivalent to ours.

We're saying "cow X may die, but he/she will be replaced by other cows, so that's OK". At best, you might say that we're saying "cow X is only alive because we protect and nurture cows, so he/she kind of owes us his/her life" - but we don't apply that argument to our children, although there have been plenty of societies that did.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Wicknight wrote:

I will simply say this - Evolution has NOTHING to do with ethics or morality

Thats a rather sloppy statement considering that there is strong evidence to suggest that human morality is as much a product of biological evolution as our immune system.

You can assert that moral systems based on evolution are bad, but thats about it. Ultimately all we have is a load of people asserting what they think should be called "right" and "wrong" with ultimately baseless assumptions at the root of their argument. While you and I might agree on the majority of our base assumptions, they are just that, assumptions. Nihilistic infinite regress for the win.

robindch wrote:

The writer suggested that it was because we were more closely related to mammals and we shared more genetic material, that we began to suffer from some kind of species-based variation of kin selection.

Bah! For two reasons:

1 - Kin selection at that level is almost irrelevant (if not entirely). You only share an average of 50% of your genes with your own brother, a cow seperated by millions of generations is not kin by any stretch of the imagination.

2 - Its also far more likely that our concern for mammals is based on the fact that they're useful. The vast majority of people won't hesitate to kill a cow if they need to eat it to survive, but most will hesitate (or get furious) when presented with killing it for no real reason. Thats good herd management.

Why do you think people find puppies cute? I'd hypothesis that its because puppies turn into hunting dogs when they grow up rather than the fact that they might have a scrap of DNA in common.

(This all raises an interesting thought. When they say that we share 95%[or whatever that really high number was] of our DNA with chimpanzees...to what exactly are they referring? Obviously it couldn't be specific genes...?)

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Thats a rather sloppy statement considering that there is strong evidence to suggest that human morality is as much a product of biological evolution as our immune system.

You can assert that moral systems based on evolution are bad, but thats about it. Ultimately all we have is a load of people asserting what they think should be called "right" and "wrong" with ultimately baseless assumptions at the root of their argument. While you and I might agree on the majority of our base assumptions, they are just that, assumptions. Nihilistic infinite regress for the win.

You run the risk here of conflating "systems of morality based on evolutionary theory" and "morality that has evolved in humanity".

The only way we can tie the two together would be to say that the morality that humans have evolved is therefore the best morality for humans - but that looks very like the arguments from design of the creationists.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

You run the risk here of conflating "systems of morality based on evolutionary theory" and "morality that has evolved in humanity".

No I don't think so. I was merely pointing out that Wicknight's statement of "Evolution has NOTHING to do with ethics or morality" was very misleading. Obviously he meant it in the sense "moral systems based on evolutionary theory", but I still feel the statement should have a qualifier.

ron_darrell

This argument seems moot. Animals are food. If they are smart enough, aggressive enough or fast enough they don't end up on your dinner plate. Otherwise they do. It's in our interest to maintain a diversity of species but I don't think we ever will. For all our 'intelligence' we are still animal enough to be unable to see beyond the next meal, the next child, the next sleep. We aren't grown up enough to see the big picture which will in the end lead to our downfall. Animals are just a resource, empathising with them a waste of time.

robindch

> Bah! For two reasons:

As I said, I don't buy it! Still though, most people I know will be happier swatting a fly or stomping on a spider than they will be killing a mouse and it seems to be a stronger feeling than can come from just thinking about the threat of any kind of perceived danger.

> Why do you think people find puppies cute? I'd hypothesis that its because
> puppies turn into hunting dogs when they grow up rather than the fact that
> they might have a scrap of DNA in common.

Bah to you! I reckon it's down to the large doey eyes that puppies (and kittens, baby hamsters etc) have, together with the care-seeking behavior they carry on with!