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Evolution doesn't have a goal or purpose, and it just doesn't make sense to say that 'Humans evolved to...' for anything. You could on the other hand say someth

Evolution doesn't have a goal or purpose, and it just doesn't make sense to say that 'Humans evolved to...' for anything. You could on the other hand say something like 'human story telling is a consequence of evolution' (though I don't agree).

GaelFG 4y ago
I would bet a great part of non-working-in-natural-science-population are geniously persuaded the theory of evolution imply 'intent' from an abstract entity called 'nature'. It was one of my mind blowing moment during studies and I spoke about it to a lot of 'educated-adults' and they were all adament I misunderstood my book and teacher, and Darwin stuff is about animals developing feature to better survive, and no the other way around : features being aquired 'coincidentally' by random genetic mutation and spread because they allowed better reproduction chances.
chongli 4y ago
and it just doesn't make sense to say that 'Humans evolved to...' for anything I think you’re misunderstanding the GP’s point due to a limitation of language. Verbs (in English anyway) carry a strong connotation of intent for many people. I don’t look at it this way. I read that sentence as “the result of evolution is that humans…” For example: “humans evolved to walk on two legs” reads as “the result of evolution is that humans walk on two legs”. No intent needed. Getting to the specific claim about humans telling stories, I think it’s plausible. A lot of morality tales from mythology and religion are actually quite helpful for ensuring survival and cooperation of the group. Of course sometimes it goes wrong and you have things like child sacrifice. But then you don’t see too much of that around today, which suggests that killing your offspring is not adaptive in this environment (it might’ve made more sense when resources were limited and harsh environmental events took place).

GaelFG 4y ago

I would bet a great part of non-working-in-natural-science-population are geniously persuaded the theory of evolution imply 'intent' from an abstract entity called 'nature'. It was one of my mind blowing moment during studies and I spoke about it to a lot of 'educated-adults' and they were all adament I misunderstood my book and teacher, and Darwin stuff is about animals developing feature to better survive, and no the other way around : features being aquired 'coincidentally' by random genetic mutation and spread because they allowed better reproduction chances.

chongli 4y ago

and it just doesn't make sense to say that 'Humans evolved to...' for anything I think you’re misunderstanding the GP’s point due to a limitation of language. Verbs (in English anyway) carry a strong connotation of intent for many people. I don’t look at it this way. I read that sentence as “the result of evolution is that humans…” For example: “humans evolved to walk on two legs” reads as “the result of evolution is that humans walk on two legs”. No intent needed. Getting to the specific claim about humans telling stories, I think it’s plausible. A lot of morality tales from mythology and religion are actually quite helpful for ensuring survival and cooperation of the group. Of course sometimes it goes wrong and you have things like child sacrifice. But then you don’t see too much of that around today, which suggests that killing your offspring is not adaptive in this environment (it might’ve made more sense when resources were limited and harsh environmental events took place).