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Evolution, at its core, strives for only one thing: propagation of the species. No, actually. The one thing it strives for is propagation of the genes, not the
by asdflkj 19y ago
Evolution, at its core, strives for only one thing: propagation of the species.
No, actually. The one thing it strives for is propagation of the genes, not the species. Read The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. It will make things clearer.
- hobbs 19y agoSorry. I over-simplified. (or under-simplified?) I have read it and its basic idea was, in fact, the basis of my statement.
- logjam 19y ago> Somehow, "civilization", "culture", and "society" have guided human development away from that model. Nonsense. If that's your "statement", it's wrong. The entire field of sociobiology (read Wilson) speaks to phenomenon like "civilization", "culture", and "society" being driven solely by nucleotide replication.
- hobbs 19y ago> ... - and I don't presume to know how it happened. Like I said, I only know enough to know that I can't comfortably refer to evolution to explain human nature. My point is that I doubt that most people who do reference evolution are familiar with the likes of sociobiology either.
- neilc 19y agoIn fact, the basic idea of The Selfish Gene is precisely a rejection of your previous statement: according to Dawkins, evolution is not concerned with the "propagation of the species", but with the propagation of individual genes. It is merely incidental that this sometimes results in competition among "survival machines", which happen to be grouped into species.