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If a person sees a child running out into the street in front of a car, I would think chances are they would grab the child out of danger as the child ran past them.  What is the advantage for the individual?

 

Their motivation is a combination of guilt and empathy - guilt coming from society's teaching that life should be protected, and empathy coming from the fact that most people don't want to die.

 

Essentially they save the child to stop themselves from feeling bad for not doing so.

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Some animals would probably display the same behaviour, if they saw a young member of their species being attacked they'd intervene.

Of course humans are weird, in that we have millions of animals slaughtered each year for us to eat, yet a lot of us would try to save any animal from being run over if we could, not just a child.

We basically don't like to see anything dying without purpose.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Aggression, competition and dominance are the inevitable and necessary by-products of the evolutionary process. If it weren't for these characteristics none of us would be here.

 

Unless we start genetically modifying humans, there is nothing anybody can do about it.

 

 

I'm not sure if you were just adding to my point, or responding to a point you think I was trying to imply. Either way, it's a valid point.

 

I'm not a "creationist", but the last I heard, the "evolutionary process" was still just a theory and has yet to be substantiated as absolute fact. Sure, there's a bunch of circumstantial data that "suggests" it "might" be a "probable" fact. But not even Evolutionary Science will come right out of it's mouth and say, "Alright, everyone, here's where we came from".

 

Just recently, archeologists on different sides of the planet discovered three new "branches" of our "evolutionary tree". One they call "Giant" (from whom, they are now convinced, we all sprang), one whose name I can't remember, and one called "Hobbit" who lived about 20,000 years ago...that's right people...according to Evolutionary Science, we are modern decendants of Middle Earth. Tolkien was right all along.*

 

Do I think Evolutionary Science has merit? Absolutely. But I think it unfortunate that the sciences have put so much effort into trying desperately to prove this particular theory, that they have turned a blind eye to any others. Believing that monkeys made fire and became human is just as ridiculous as an invisible man in the sky creating us from dirt, Extra-terrestrials extracting us from thier DNA and dropping us on planet earth, or that our "junk" DNA is runoff from when we were Lizards...All of which, given enough time and circumstantial evidence, I could prove were fact.

 

Even carbon dating, past a certain threshold in time, cannot "accurately" deliniate anything about "when" something lived and died.

 

Fifty years ago, science said is was impossible to travel at the speed of sound, and now we go several times faster than that. At one point, it was pretty much an established fact that the world was flat.

 

Once Science makes a "theory" without evidence into absolute fact, it becomes little more than mythology. And we don't need yet another religion.

 

 

And just as an aside, I don't believe there is any such thing as "true Altruism".

 

In it's strictest sense, altruism is an action taken without a benefit given...however, if the altruistic person gains a sense of pride or satisfaction at the action taken, the benefit given is pride or satifaction, therefore, the act is not altruistic. To me, any act of altruistism is, in fact, a wholly selfish one.

 

Jus my op, nillas.

 

*EDIT: I finally took the time to read the SIN 2 thread, and saw that obscurus already posted about the three humanoid variants found recently. Just wanted to give Ob the credit, since he wrote it first...I didn't want to sound like I was ripping him off.

Edited by Hylix Ulyx
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But I think it unfortunate that the sciences have put so much effort into trying desperately to prove this particular theory, that they have turned a blind eye to any others.

 

I think it is unfortunate when people try to ascribe motives that do not exist. Scientists do not try to "desperately prove" anything, they draw hypotheses from observations and then test those hypotheses through experiment or other analysis. The reason science appears to "turn a blind eye" to ID and other beliefs is that they are not supported by credible scientific evidence (which is different from the "circumstantial" evidence you mention). and are therefore not currently worth considering.

 

Ultimately however, all such discussion is worthless, since science and religion do not address the same questions and therefore cannot be directly compared.

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And just as an aside, I don't believe there is any such thing as "true Altruism".

 

I believe someone who dies to protect/save someone is truly altruistic, as they would not be able to reap the benefits of pride or satisfaction.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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Ultimately however, all such discussion is worthless, since science and religion do not address the same questions and therefore cannot be directly compared.

 

What? Science and Religion address exactly the same questions:

 

Who are we? Where are we? How did we get here? Why are we here? When did we get here?

 

Any question science asks, religion asked some thousands of years before.

 

Why is the sky blue? Why does it rain? Why do we die?

 

C'mon.

 

 

Also, anything "credible" will hold up over time. At this point, it's more likely we used to be lizards than monkeys.

 

Vad:  I believe someone who dies to protect/save someone is truly altruistic, as they would not be able to reap the benefits of pride or satisfaction.

 

True indeed. However, the knowledge that the "sacrifice" will be honored or, at the very least, remembered, becomes it's own benefit reaped postumously.

Edited by Hylix Ulyx
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"I believe someone who dies to protect/save someone is truly altruistic, as they would not be able to reap the benefits of pride or satisfaction."

 

While they live, they have the pride and satisfaction that they're attempting this deed. The thing is, we don't choose to do anything unless our brain thinks it's best... Genetically, giving your life is only valid if it is your offspring, or people who are a quite closely related. In wars, this extends to your people - perhaps this is some genetic cohesiveness, i.e. if race x lays their life down, for each other, race x survives. Alternatively, it could be either an extension of the favours back principal gone wrong, or a favours to your offspring idea.

--

Somethin' fishy's goin' on here... Come on out, you taffer!

 

~The Fishy Taffer

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What?  Science and Religion address exactly the same questions:

 

 

The difference between science and religion is that science seeks to obtain ever more refined and accurate expanations of reality, while religion simply seeks to explain reality away. Every "answer" science produces raises thousands more questions, while every answer religion provides is designed to stifle questioning. Religion is produced out of thin air as the irrefutable word of God, end of story. Question it and you get burned at the stake for heresy.

 

Science is the product of questioning. Every assumption is explicity declared. Every theory is falsifiable, and can be used to make predictions.

 

 

Saying evolution is "just a theory" is like saying gravity is "just a theory", neither can be proven absolutely, both are observable realtime processes or can be inferred indirectly from past evidence, and both have very solid theoretical explanations as to how they operate.

 

You seem not to understand the difference between theory, hypothesis, and conjecture. Religion is nothing more than conjecture and wishful thinking, because there is no evidence at all to support any of it, while scientific theories will be tossed out the instant their hypothetical basis is proven to be incorrect.

 

Religinon is quite happy to make claims of absolute knowledge without any evidence, science never makes absolute statements, it makes statments couched in terms of probability based on evidence currently available.

 

Scientific theories anable you to make predictions and experiment, while religious dogma stifles thought and experiment. There are no facts in science, only observations and data.

 

Actually the Ancient Egyptians knew perfectly well the world is round, as did the australian aboriginies, and indeed quite a few ancient cultures. It was the Catholic church that declared the world was flat (even when they knew it was round), in order to stifle scientific investigations that threatened to undermine the churche's domination.

 

Oh and we were lizards before we were monkeys...

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Any question science asks, religion asked some thousands of years before. 

 

Why is the sky blue?  Why does it rain?  Why do we die?

 

Yes, but science actually gets the answers right.

 

Thunderbolts are sent from god? Wrong. The Earth is flat? Wrong. The Sun is dragged across the sky by a guy in a chariot? Wrong. The Sun will not rise unless thousands of human sacrifices are made everyday? Wrong. You can reach god by building a very tall tower? Wrong. Grand mal seizures are caused by demonic possession? You get the drift.

 

A large and increasing proportion of religious "answers" have subsequently been proven wrong through scientific analysis, but there has never been a case where a scientific theory has been demonstrated incorrect by religion. Personally I prefer to base my understanding of the world on a sphere of knowledge that is constantly being expanded, rather than once which never does anything but shrink.

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