So, now I have quite the conundrum. Though my compassion gene is dragging down my fitness, my intellectual gene has evolved to the point that I recognize that my compassion gene is illusory–or at least that it is not functioning in the way that it should. Given that my primary purpose is to reproduce my genes, shouldn’t I ignore this sentimentality and leave my wife and child? Or maybe I shouldn’t ignore it, because my compassion gene has become detrimental and should be culled from the gene pool as a result? On the other hand, that would also cull out the intellectual gene that allows me to see my sentimentality for what it is. Darwinian morality is just so confusing for me. Can someone give me a hand here?

Precisely. Very articulate in phrasing and exposing the problem for Darwinian morality, and any Darwinian standard for that matter, be they moral or logical problems.

Standards that arise through an evolutionary process are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or anything at all. They are just behaviour that aids in survival. I presume we have attached ‘goodness’ or ‘trueness’ to them later. In other words, the behaviour came first, and the labels were added later.

I get the feeling that this offends your theology.

Clive is not alone in being offended by the notion that all standards (unless you can name one that didn’t arrive via an evolutionary process) are neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or anything at all (emphasis mine, and a rather succinct summation of the OP, in my opinion). I’m betting that you would also end up being offended once that notion started getting applied in a more personal manner. I’m betting that you have a very strong sense of what should happen when you feel mistreated. Do you step back and remind yourself that all is fair in love, war, and random events creating processes that are not anything at all?

Given what I’ve shared above from my personal life, and based on your world view, is there any non-illusory reason that I should stay with my wife and not abandon my son? And do you really live that way?

When you get down to the cold, hard scientific facts of the situation, I exist to further my genes. Any other “purpose” to my life is illusory, is it not? To be sure, over many generations, evolution has also given me feelings for my family, but these exist to assist in furthering my genes. In my particular case, however, those feelings end up being counter-productive to the purpose for which they were originally intended.

You see, I found out a number of years ago that my wife has poor egg quality and that it is nearly impossible for here to conceive. If it were not for the sentimentality with which evolution has burdened me, this information might have prompted me to leave my wife and seek out a more fertile mate in order to propagate my genes.

It gets worse. Compassion played a role in our adopting a young boy. His blond hair and boisterous chemistry play havok with my own compassion chemistry so that, even though I know that I am investing energy in propagating someone else’s genes instead of my own, I can’t seem to stop myself.

So, now I have quite the conundrum. Though my compassion gene is dragging down my fitness, my intellectual gene has evolved to the point that I recognize that my compassion gene is illusory–or at least that it is not functioning in the way that it should. Given that my primary purpose is to reproduce my genes, shouldn’t I ignore this sentimentality and leave my wife and child? Or maybe I shouldn’t ignore it, because my compassion gene has become detrimental and should be culled from the gene pool as a result? On the other hand, that would also cull out the intellectual gene that allows me to see my sentimentality for what it is.

Darwinian morality is just so confusing for me. Can someone give me a hand here?

“Clive, you may think that such standards cannot arise, but what is the basis for that conclusion ?

The logic seems pretty simple: if you behave in a way that encourages survival, you survive, if you dont, you dont.”

Lunatics exist in the present and existed in the past, I suspect. Where is the survival gene that wiped out lunacy? The point is that Darwinism does not offer a basis for morality apart from your example, which is a question-begging “just-so” story at best.

You call it a logic, but there really is no solid logic to such explanations, and that’s perhaps what makes it ‘simple.’

If Darwinism offers a basis for morality, what about sacrifice as a moral ideal? Surely sacrifice for another is not a part of the survival instinct. It in fact jeopardizes survival and the propagation of offspring. Yet self-sacrifice is a common human trait.

Later you state:

“Standards that arise through an evolutionary process are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or anything at all. They are just behaviour that aids in survival. I presume we have attached ‘goodness’ or ‘trueness’ to them later. In other words, the behaviour came first, and the labels were added later.”

The idea that evolution does not offer a “good” or a “bad,” is the whole point of this discussion. Morality is not simply what we do in order to survive. If that were so, we could allow all kinds of immoral acts in order to reach the ideal of survival. We could allow murder and revenge killing, rape, incest, etc…, simply because we could justify them on a survival basis. In fact, mankind is capable of immense immorality, yet we survive as a species. Therefore, morality does not appear to be connected to species survival. True, cultures which relish in immoral behavior do not survive long, but the species as a whole, which engages in immoral and corrupt acts survives.

I suspect that morality is concerned with what is good and what is bad, not simply what is expedient. Therefore, by your statement, you support this point: Darwinian evolution does not offer a basis for morality.

I believe Darwinists take morality for granted as having developed from our need to survive, while forgetting that we continue to survive despite immorality. Darwinists also believe that the world of humans could continue to act morally in the absence of believers in a higher power. I doubt that. It is faith present in the world, which fosters moral behavior in humans. Humans act morally due mostly to social pressure, which stems from a religiously influenced majority. Remove that majority, and humans will act according to what their instincts and desires dictate, rather than according to religiously influenced social pressure.

Wow! Someone help me out here. Graham seems to be saying that a poor grasp of reality — oh say like grasping at the “reality” of a flying spaghetti monster, fairies, teapots orbiting the sun, a flat earth, or ahem, the reality of God, angels, souls, sin and forgiveness. . . — will die out and take their crummy mutations with them.

His evidence seems indisputable; just look at all those flat-earthers who have died. Certainly there must have been some people who believed that teapots orbit the sun (otherwise, how could we have such an absurd idea?) and yet I see few, if any, people who believe that today — another confirmation of Graham’s theory.

On the other hand, people who believe in the ideas of God, angels, souls, sin and forgiveness. . . seem to be thriving. From that, we apparently must conclude, per Graham, that those beliefs are part of a grasp of a reality that is real because those in our species who have such a “grasp on reality” are surviving just fine.

Oh wait, apparently atheists are surviving too!
So, according to Graham, evolution has just proven the existence of God and the inexistence of God.

It’s nice to have everything explained.

[heavy sarcasm]

It does not necessarily follow that the mutation would die out at all. It would depend upon the ratio of eaten to offspring, wouldn’t it?

A generous reading of Graham says that he meant a mutant eating all her offspring, unconditionally. He is obviously correct.

One might even be tempted to ask, why don’t we see something like this in nature?

Anyone who has ever bred mice knows that females will eat their offspring when under stress. Presumably it’s adaptive (or a clever design) to recycle one’s offspring if they are in mortal danger anyway. I’m not aware of any experimental tests of this just-so story though.

If a random change produced a species that ate their own offspring … then they would die and take this mutation with them.

It does not necessarily follow that the mutation would die out at all. It would depend upon the ratio of eaten to offspring, wouldn’t it?

So this is something that, while perhaps odd, could be accommodated within evolutionary theory.

One might even be tempted to ask, why don’t we see something like this in nature?

They are just behaviour that aids in survival. I presume we have attached ‘goodness’ or ‘trueness’ to them later. In other words, the behaviour came first, and the labels were added later.

I get the feeling that this offends your theology.

It offends my logic.

I get the feeling that this offends your theology.