Evolutionary biology - Experimental medicine

Atheist Ethicist: Evolutionary Biology and the Virtue of Altruism

by Alonzo Fyfe

Mutually-beneficial altruism in the evolutionary biology domain maps to socially-beneficial altruism in the morality domain. These are two very different worlds, but because there is some overlap in the vocabulary of the two domains, (e. g. altruism, and Dawkin's egregious use of 'selfish' to describe gene dynamics) folks tend to think of the evolutionary biology domain... Many atheists seem to think that evolutionary biology can answer moral questions and, in this way, defeat the theists' claims that moral goodness requires God. Biological systems that develop mutually-beneficial altruism have higher quality than ones that develop one-sided altruism, e. g. a gene that caused a lamb to 'altruistically' present itself as dinner to a lion would not serve the universe's... When the Israelites slew all the Canaanite mothers and sons, and raped the unmarried daughters, they were being morally good because their God had told them to do it. In an evolutionary biology domain, quality is simply judged by the number of... In a God-based morality domain, quality is defined in terms of sins and virtues, in obedience and conformity to a textual moral code, in acts of textually justified kindness, cruelty and power, and a person has quality if they follow their text's... However, I do not see how evolutionary biology can even begin to answer the question. This is the question that I want the evolutionary biologist to answer: What makes altruism a virtue. The energy is then triggers a reaction that converts it into lower grade chemical bonding energy by combining water and CO2 to make sugar and low grade thermal waste heat. One specific form of altruism with an apparent evolutionary explanation us kin-selection, such as the sacrifice of a patent for a child. Biological systems that replicate have higher quality than ones that don't, because their offspring can then contribute to the dissipation of energy. For example, one claim is that evolutionary forces can select for altruistic behavior - it can code for self-sacrifice. Now, if we can agree that assisting the universe in dissipating energy is the purpose of life, then we can say that a biological system that does this better than others can has higher quality. A person is free to adopt the attitude that the fact that we evolved to exhibit certain forms of altruism – assuming it is a fact - means that we have evolved certain mental defects and vices to be overcome. Biological systems that cooperate to dissipate more energy than they could as individuals have higher quality than loners. They maximize sustainable energy dissipation by encouraging cooperation and the persistence of life at the personal and social levels. Any moral code of a God-based religion serves only to promote the religion itself, hence the Old Testament's admonition to commit genocide and mass rape when the Israelites were winning, and Christ's instructions to turn the other cheek when the... They are both good and virtuous because......

2. Behavioral Evolution

(March 31, 2010) Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky lectures on the biology of behavioral evolution and thoroughly discusses examples such as The ...

Understanding evolution on Darwin Day

21.05.12

Today is Darwin’s birthday. It’s doubtful that any scientist would deny Darwin’s importance, that his work provides the field of biology with its core structure, by providing a beautiful, powerful mechanism to explain the diversity of form and function that we see all around us in the living world. But being of importance to one’s field is only one way we judge a scientist’s contributions. There is also the matter of how their work has changed lives all over the world, even of those who don’t know or necessarily care about their accomplishments. What has Darwin done for his fellow human beings? Why should they care about what he showed us, or want to learn what he had to teach?

Understanding evolution is challenging, for many reasons. We often point to the religious questions raised by his work as the cause of these difficulties, but there are many more. No creature decides to change their DNA, nor can a species foresee what they should become to survive, but it sure seems like they do. Evolution provides such elegant solutions to incredibly complex problems, it’s hard to see them as the product of random variation and selection. Even for people who lack religious convictions that make evolution discomforting, it’s hard to grasp the mechanisms of evolution. This difficulty arises out of developmental constraints that lead us to look for centralized, intentional agents when we make causal attributions. It comes out of the challenges inherent in altering our conceptions of the world and replacing one belief system with another, and out of the emotional reaction we have to facing the reality that we are not special or superior to our biological cousins, nor are we in control of the fate of our species in generations to come.

Source: OUPblog (blog)

Evolutionary Biology?

May 13, 2008 by God | Posted in Biology

What sort of careers can you go into with a degree in Evolutionary Biology? Any personal examples would be good as well.

Teaching

a lot of my degree was in Evolution now im a about to start secondary science teacher training.

Other things you can do is your research, Masters, Phd and see where that leads you,.

good luck

marine_biologist2005 | May 13, 2008

College professor.

emucompboy | May 13, 2008

In evolutionary biology the term homologous is used to describe?

Mar 09, 2009 by john .. bro | Posted in Biology

In evolutionary biology the term homologous is used to describe (choose all that apply)

a. similar features in different parts of the body (e.g. hands and feet).
b. features that are similar in different organisms because they were

(b) for sure.

Slight possibility of (c) also ; but don't think so.

ursaitaliano70 | Mar 09, 2009