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Comparing amounts of evolution isn't really valid. This implies that evolution has a directional trend, but it does not. Humanity wasn't the goal of evolution.

Comparing amounts of evolution isn't really valid. This implies that evolution has a directional trend, but it does not. Humanity wasn't the goal of evolution. Given a different climate 10 or 15 thousand year ago, things could have been a lot different. Neanderthals could have won out, or both our species could have gone extinct. I think a better, and similar, comparison would be of intelligence. We treat less intelligent animals quite poorly for the most part. Hopefully the correlation between empathy and intelligence is universal and not just a trend among humans.

lutusp 14y ago
> Hopefully the correlation between empathy and intelligence is universal and not just a trend among humans. I hate to rain on your parade, but empathy and intelligence are selected only insofar as it supports survival and procreation -- only to the degree that it supports natural selection. Empathy and intelligence are just neutral terms in a complex equation by which natural selection chooses the fittest genotype. They have no special standing, and a fair reading of human and natural history shows that, overall, they're not correlated with the survival of the species that possesses it. Evidence? Count the number, or the biomass if you prefer, of the species that survive in a brainless, ruthless manner. Compare to those whose fitness is enhanced by empathy and intelligence. And remember that overall we can't be included in the intelligent, empathic column, at least not when we're doing our best to survive.
btilly 14y ago
The best-informed speculation of today says that within the last 150,000 years (different methods give different dates, the Toba supervolcano is often fingered as a culprit) we went through a population bottleneck with as few as a thousand people alive. This evolutionary episode would have been a period of rapid adaptation, and amusingly is suspected to have been when our ancestors acquired a tendency towards religious belief. (We are the only known hominid with things like burial rites.)

lutusp 14y ago

> Hopefully the correlation between empathy and intelligence is universal and not just a trend among humans. I hate to rain on your parade, but empathy and intelligence are selected only insofar as it supports survival and procreation -- only to the degree that it supports natural selection. Empathy and intelligence are just neutral terms in a complex equation by which natural selection chooses the fittest genotype. They have no special standing, and a fair reading of human and natural history shows that, overall, they're not correlated with the survival of the species that possesses it. Evidence? Count the number, or the biomass if you prefer, of the species that survive in a brainless, ruthless manner. Compare to those whose fitness is enhanced by empathy and intelligence. And remember that overall we can't be included in the intelligent, empathic column, at least not when we're doing our best to survive.

btilly 14y ago

The best-informed speculation of today says that within the last 150,000 years (different methods give different dates, the Toba supervolcano is often fingered as a culprit) we went through a population bottleneck with as few as a thousand people alive. This evolutionary episode would have been a period of rapid adaptation, and amusingly is suspected to have been when our ancestors acquired a tendency towards religious belief. (We are the only known hominid with things like burial rites.)