Choosing a faith

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simply disagree on what we believe the truth to be.

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Unless you are a radical relativist who has his own truth that is not the case. What evolutionary theory claims - and the reasoning behind it is fact. The evolutionary definition of fitness is fact, as is the meaning of “selfish genes”. If you disagree about those then you are simply wrong.

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Yes that is your belief. I would add that co-operation and altruism are not synonymous.

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It is a fact that your idea of evolution is simplistic and wrong. At worst I am far closer to the truth than you - because you choose to be ignorant and have done so for over a decade.

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Our beliefs are simply about what the truth actually is. We disagree. We can both find sources for our beliefs.

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So you think that your uninformed opinions - wilfully uninformed at that - are on the same level as the facts. That is egotism, not a concern for the truth.

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Darwin wrote that "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone.”, and of course it shouldn't as his theory only concerned of how physical life as we know it came to be.
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“How physical life came to be” would be abiogenesis, not evolution.
Note also that this has nothing to do with your misrepresentations.

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From this site Nature-The Selfish Gene I got the following quote.

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Dawkins wrote that “from the point of view of the selfish genes themselves there is no paradox. The true 'purpose' of DNA is to survive, no more and no less. The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite.”

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Note that this only addresses a part of the concept - and a part utterly unrelated to your idea that “the selfish gene” was the same as “original sin”.

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Beyond DNA Dawkins coined the term "meme' to designate a cultural replicator or the passage of ideas or thoughts. We can only surmise where or how these ideas or thoughts originated.

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Which is also completely unrelated to your misrepresentation of evolution.

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In other words evolution is a strictly physical process, and if anyone wants to make the point that empathy and altruism evolved it requires a completely different process.

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Since behaviour does evolve and since our brains are the product of evolution this is is simply wrong.

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In either case it is my contention that an intelligent root cause for either process is much more likely to be intelligent than not

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As written that is an empty tautology. An “intelligent cause” is necessarily intelligent. Even correcting that it is clear that you have been misrepresenting evolution - and intentionally remaining ignorant of evolution to maintain your misrepresentation- in order to buttress your contention. That is not the behaviour of someone who seeks the truth.

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OK, so educate me. Where am I being ignorant.

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If you had been paying attention you would know that already. I’ve said it often enough.

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I have taken care to outline my beliefs as beliefs and not as fact.

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You certainly have not. Where did you admit that your ideas about evolution were uninformed opinions? What makes you think that it makes any sense to base an argument on uninformed opinions?

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Frankly it is you that egotistically presents your views as facts.

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Oh we’re back to that nonsense. Again unless you are appealing to radical relativism the facts are facts. Evolutionary theory does not predict a war of all against all. The evolution of cooperation and apparent altruism is well-studied. The selfish gene is about the evolution of altruistic behaviour, not selfish behaviour as you would have it. Those are not simply my opinions, they are facts - and they are facts you choose to ignore because they get in the way of your arguments.

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So you are saying that evolution required abiogenesis as a starting point. Are you then saying that the first individual cells were instantly created without any need for an evolutionary process?

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Certainly not. I can’t see why you’d imagine such a thing. For a start, the first life probably wasn’t cellular. Evolution is impossible without replicators, therefore however the first replicators came to be, it wasn’t evolution.

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Firstly, I don't tend to use the term original sin as Dawkins says selfishness is something that is simply in our DNA and built into our human nature.

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“I wouldn’t do what I did” is never convincing. You explicitly tried to draw a parallel between original sin and the selfish gene. Except you seriously misrepresented the concept of the selfish gene - and here you are repeating the misrepresentation as if all the corrections never happened. Here’s the thread - notice the title ? Original Sin - Scripture and Reason

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However, we are able to overcome the selfishness and have empathy and even behave altruistically,

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Dawkins is saying that altruism is built into our natures. If you had done even basic research on the idea you would know that. If you had paid attention to the responses you got you would know that. You used to boast about the research you did - but it seems that was nothing more than skimming books you expected to agree with you.

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Tangle claims that we can do that doing what works and by it being passed along culturally. I disagree with the idea that it works, (again, benefits gained through working collectively is not the same as altruistic behaviour).

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Even if the benefits don’t go to you? Why would that not be altruism?

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How am I misrepresenting evolution.

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I already answered that one. Message 2308

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I don't deny that it evolves but that does not make it part of the ToE.

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It does mean that the ToE should explain it, and there has been considerable work producing that explanation. Work that you completely ignore.

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You really think that with all the time and study that I have put into this subject that I'm not seeking the truth

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Since you have obviously put no study at all into this matter - even reading the Wikipedia page on the selfish gene would have set you right - this objection is a joke. Over a decade repeating misconceptions, ignoring corrections and doing no research at all.You didn’t bother to research Jerome’s Gospel either - I was the one who discovered it was the Gospel of the Hebrews and not the Gospel we call Matthew, and it didn’t take long.

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I readily acknowledge that what I contend is the truth can't be proven but I do contend that it is rational.

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Your constant irrationality and stream of obvious falsehoods rather indicates that it is not at all rational. Rationalisation is not rationality.

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Yes, I have no training in the field of biology but I have read what is written by those that do from Dawkins who is an atheist to Francis Collins who is a Christian.

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Given your habit of misrepresentation I rather doubt that you have properly read any of them. You certainly haven’t read The Selfish Gene with any level of understanding.

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The questions like why is there something instead of nothing and why does life exist at all is something that science can't answer.

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I disagree on the second, but I really want to talk about the first.It seems obvious that “why is there something rather than nothing” is no help to you at all. You have no better answer than any of us.Indeed, I put considerable thought into it on a thread here. Yet I haven’t seen you discuss it in a similar way. So I can’t even say that you have as good an answer as I do.So why bring it up? Can you really offer an explanation of how it helps you - that doesn’t rely on a double standard?

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What was it then?

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That gets into how “life” is defined, but possibly an RNA strand capable of replicating in its environment. Possibly a complex of RNA strands rather than one. Or maybe not even RNA but something simpler.

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OK. You provided a link to a post from over 10 years ago and what I wrote in that post I think deals with all the items in your post and I don't want to have to do the research all over again so I'll simply repeat that post you referred to.
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In other words you are doing exactly what I said. Ignoring the criticisms in the thread - and all the criticisms made since - and repeating the misrepresentation.The whole point of saying that: is to show that the “selfishness” serves the “interests” of the genes - not the people they reside in. Obviously that is different from the people being selfish - but you don’t see that and refuse to see it. Because you don’t care about the truth - as you’ve just demonstrated again.

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That is as speculative as any answer.

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It is actually less speculative than the idea that the first life was cellular. Obviously you haven’t studied this field.

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Without knowing how it came about I contend it is more reasonable to conclude that there was a cosmic intelligence responsible than that it came about from blind mindless chance, and of course it doesn't even begin to answer the question of why there was any RNA at all.

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Oh, so you think that an uninformed opinion is better than all the work that science has done on this problem. You have no evidence for your contention worth speaking of.

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OK, then how does it explain how it is that helping people on the other side of the planet from a completely different gene pool serves the interest of the genes when my gene pool is better served by destroying or enslaving them and having access to their resources for my own gene pool.

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Let’s note that this concedes a good deal of grounds. But my answer is that it doesn’t - but it is the product of impulses that do, and did in humanity’s earlier evolution. After all that ability to do that much is a very recent thing on that timescale.To put it simply, there is in human psychology a basic division between “us” and “them” - and impulses to help those considered “us”. That categorisation is not dictated by evolution (there was no need) so people who accept that “us” is a very wide group can be moved to go and help others who live very distantly,

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Then you are at odds with science. You haven't seen anything because you ignore or reject what is shown to you.

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GDR says that all the study he does is evidence that he cares about the truth. Yet here he is making arguments in an area where his “study” is skimming a Wikipedia page, misunderstanding even the material he quotes and ignoring all corrections (for instance Message 16). And he has been doing this for more than ten years.Hey, GDR do I need to make it more obvious that you are only interested in propping up your own beliefs regardless of the truth? Or are you going to - at last - have the honesty to admit it.

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I have no idea as to whether the first life was cellular or not.

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Then maybe you shouldn’t use the idea that it was cellular in your arguments.

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The point is that whatever was first cellular or otherwise required something to initiate it. Was it from blind chance or was from intelligence?

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There is no plausible explanation based on intelligence as the cause. No known intelligence that could have caused it. No evidence that an intelligence is needed. No plausible motive for the presumed intelligence to create life in that way.

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How about you outline to me what science has discovered about why, not how, life came into existence.

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They’ve found no reason to think that there is what you would call a “why”. So long as your ideas are unfalsifiable there is no need to falsify them or any significance in the fact that it has not been falsified. It is for you to provide evidence.

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That is speculation without scientific evidence, which doesn't mean that you're wrong

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Oh, it is not without evidence. The existence of tribalism is a fact. That humans can consider distant people who they have never met to be part of “us” is a fact. The benefits from members of a group helping each other is a fact.

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However Darwinism is again about survival of the fittest and looking out for the us when it benefits the self.

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After more than ten years and you still don’t understood the concept of the “selfish gene”. You’re wrong. And wilfully wrong. If you cared about the truth you would have set yourself right by now - not that you had any excuse for getting it so wrong in the first place.

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So, if you're correct you have to be looking at something beyound Darwinian evolution.

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No, I just have to know more about it than you. Which is not difficult when even reading one Wikipedia page is too much for you.

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Why not?

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Honesty, for a start. If you don’t know it to be a fact, why treat it as one?

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So what if there were microbes that pre-date cellular life? Our lives are based on cellular life.

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And to you, that means that cellular life was the first life and couldn’t have evolved from something simpler? Does it?

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I continue to maintain that sentient life with an awareness of right and wrong is far more plausible to have emanated from an intelligent source than a mindless source. Of course that isn't scientific but it goes beyond what science can examine or test, regardless of how many processes it is able to research.
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And I will point out that that is just an unsupported opinion that you are desperate to believe. Science cannot disprove it - because it is utterly unfalsifiable. You can always assume some undetectable impulse from an undetectable entity was involved in some undetectable way. But that is hardly a rational basis for belief.

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Tribalism is a fact and how often do we see a tribe fighting to gain an advantage over another tribe. Tribalism is the worst example that you could have come up with to explain altruism.

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On the contrary it is a very good way. It is also a fact that the “tribes” are quite malleable. In which case all that is needed is for a person to see others as “us” to want to help them. Making excuses without understanding is not the business of someone who cares about the truth. But it is what you do. And that is why you are so often wrong - just as you are here,

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Now explain to me what I'm getting wrong.

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It is no use linking to sites or even reading them if you can”t be bothered to understand them. And you obviously do not understand the idea at all.

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However Darwinism is again about survival of the fittest and looking out for the us when it benefits the self.

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That is exactly contrary to the idea of selfish genes. Benefit to the self is only relevant insofar as it benefits the copies of our genes we carry. And that can be and is overridden by benefits to other copies. Even the earlier idea of kin selection gets past mere benefits to the self.It might be more accurately phrased is “Darwinism is about successful replicators and looking out for the “us” when it tends to benefit copies of our genes, directly or indirectly - even to the severe detriment or death of the self. Feedback effects have complicated the picture considerably and any valid analysis of a situation must take those complications into account.”

I am not AZPaul3. Please get your attributions correct.

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I have no idea if there was another form of life that evolved into cellular life or not. Do you? It isn't the point anyway

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Actually it was the point. It started when you said: . Message 2325Why shouldn’t I point out that I am not saying any such thing, nor are the scientists who actually work on the origin of life? Really I don’t see any point in such an ignorant strawman.

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..and it is your belief, as I understand it, that we have evolved from all natural processes without any intelligent first cause or input. That is an unknowable unfalsifiable belief. Hardly a rational basis for belief,

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Of course it is rational to reject unevidenced unfalsifiable beliefs. And all you need to do is to produce evidence of guidance to falsify it.

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The usual cop out when you don't have an answer.

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Ignoring the answers I’ve already given doesn’t prove that they don’t exist (e.g the final part of Message 2333 shows that even the material you quoted from Wikipedia did not agree with you. All you did is point to a website - and one that’s worse than the Wikipedia page you’d already cited and refused to understand (and that was shown more than 10 years ago). I’ve explained that the whole idea that the “selfish gene” is all about benefit to the self is wrong, over and over again. To say that I “have no answer” is just to deny that fact,

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No problem with that.

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Finally, after all these years you admit that you were wrong? That “selfish genes” can - in some cases promote behaviour that is “ to the severe detriment or death of the self” ?

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If that is the case then there is at least as much intransigence on the other side of the table

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So who on “the other side of the table” has persisted in a misrepresentation for more than ten years after it was pointed out?(Pointed out here Message 16, for instance)

Only 10 years? Try 18. The Whys of Evolution (well, a few weeks short, but close enough)

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Just as it is to reject the unevidenced unfalsifiable belief that natural processes were initiated by mindlessly and without intelligent thought.

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It really isn’t. You can’t even justify the claim that it is unfalsifiable. And not making things up is always more rational than making things up and believing them.If you want to make a claim to rationality then being irrational undermines it completely. You need to learn that.

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Of course. Just look at spawning salmon.

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Well that is progress of a sort.

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However, as you said it is about our own gene pool and does nothing to explain altruism outside of our gene pool, or for our concern for animals.

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And you’re still wrong. Living in a society that offers mutual aid and support will benefit your gene pool - if you do your part. Really, skim reading without understanding, just looking for excuses to prop up your beliefs is not a valid form of study - and shows no concern for the truth.

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How does donating to a cause dedicated to the survival of elephants in Africa benefit my gene pool?

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For someone who claims to have read a lot about this, you still seem unable to understand basic points. First it is not necessary that the basic impulses guarantee benefit even in the environment where they evolved. Second, behaviour is built up around those impulses. - there are cultural factors too. Third, the environment of the modern world is sufficiently different to the distant past so mismatches are expected. Fourth there are complications.One important thing to note is that the gift of money usually has a negligible cost to the giver. Which is rather a relevant fact. Or to put it another way as “sacrificial love” goes it isn’t much of a sacrifice.So there are in fact a number of possible explanations. Just off the top of my head I can see four issues - which are not exclusive.First, the charity might be seen as “us” and therefore there is an impulse to assist them in their goals.Second, elephants might be considered as us” - not a huge reach when pets can reach that status.Third, there are impulses to approve of and reward “good” behaviour.so if helping elephants is seen as “good” then doing it may well ave benefits.Fourth, as a consequence of the third there are impulses to act in ways considered “good” even if there is no benefit.