Questions tagged [evolution]
The evolution tag has no usage guidance.
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Opposing Wolfgang and the species
I've read some summaries of Smith's thinking, which I haven't yet adhered to, here
The aim of philosophy is the good life or the best regime, the aim of theology is knowledge of God, and that of ...
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75 views
Is there a theory of evolution that spans naturalism and humanmade systems?
Darwin's big insight was that there are two phases that drive the evolution of species: variation and natural selection.
The term 'evolution' applies to humanmade systems, as well. E.g., the evolution ...
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1answer
55 views
Is there a name for a philosophy that seeks to increase human suffering?
The vast, vast majority of ethic systems seek the minimization of human suffering as a good, considering it ethical or righteous in some way. Even anti-natalists believe this after a fashion, ...
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172 views
What phenomena can give the appearance of design?
Here's a quote from Richard Dawkins:
"Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose."
My question is this. What types of ...
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2answers
140 views
How does a determinist explain darwin and chess? [closed]
I think the consensus among most materialists is that "living beings" have a common ancestor. I say "living beings" in quotes because I don't even know what it means that something ...
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3answers
115 views
What should we consider the evolution of the human species?
Nowadays we are living in a world that is emphasizing, in various ways, the concept that technological progress brings to our species welfare.
There are a lot of technological tools that help us to ...
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1answer
95 views
Can a god ever be disproved [closed]
Given the ability to travel to another universe, meet aliens which would otherwise show the creation of our universe and yet many others and in fact have proof of our creation accidental or otherwise ...
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1answer
64 views
Causality, Universal and Particulars, Evolution, and Theology
In a Socratic dialogue I wrote published in issue 122 of "Philosophy Now", I have Socrates conversing with a scientist (Moe), on a park bench. Socrates has come down from the clouds to take ...
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3answers
85 views
How exactly does ethics relate to what appears to be ethical animal behavior?
After listening to Dr. Jordan Peterson's lectures on Psychology of Personality, I found the notion that animal behaviors follow an ethic fascinating. He stipulates that rats will play fight and if the ...
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245 views
Is the uniqueness of the human species evidence against evolution? [closed]
Evolution theory states, simply put, that all species on Earth have evolved over time, starting from one or more initial ancestors, to what they are today, through processes of reproduction guided by ...
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1answer
70 views
Why do people think binocular vision is advantageous in sports? [closed]
Why do people think binocular vision (visual depth perception) is advantageous in sports? Yes, it can be helpful, but what if binocular vision is an evolutionary dead end? Aren't there plenty of ...
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137 views
Can biological evolution comsummate?
Can biological evolution comsummate?
In biological evolution, living organisms continues to change. However, is there a point wherein evolution stops due to an organism not needing change anymore? ...
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3answers
152 views
How can we question someone, for their ethical behavior, if it's the result of an evolutionary process
Supposedly, nature is evolving human minds and its behavior to find an optimal point.
But if "bad" behaviour is nothing but an expression of nature's evolution towards an optimum, how does it make ...
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1answer
94 views
Should we regard evolution by natural selection as having an overall direction that necessarily led to the evolution of human beings? [closed]
Can someone please explain to me how should I answer this question.
As I understand correctly, we cannot predict the survival of the fittest and bc we have randomly assigned traits, we act according ...
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5answers
802 views
What is the counter-argument against the argument of design? [closed]
The argument of design has several features, keying on relative complexity and tuning for use, from which one infers a designer. If we find a sand castle on a "simple" beach, which had an unusual ...
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2answers
297 views
How does biological evolution work in the block universe/b-theory of time?
The b-theory of time is often described as a film reel where the whole reel exists, but we can only view one frame at a time.
The problem I have with this analogy is that it starts to feel too ...
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4answers
621 views
Is consciousness (as we perceive it) what really separates us from animals?
The last couple of weeks or even months, I'm thinking a lot about consciousness.
I have some ideas I would really like to discuss with some open minded, philosophical people. And in the search for ...
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3answers
396 views
The conflict of creationism and evolution. How can we know the truth?
the demands of evolution and creation cannot
be reconciled with each other because they represent two
fundamentally different, mutually hostile, and mutually
exclusive systems. They do not ...
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5answers
247 views
Kant, Idealism and Evolution
I'm certain this question must have been asked many times before, but I could not find an answer searching the archived posts here. So please excuse me as I am new to this forum and might have posted ...
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What is the utility of consciousness if free will is an illusion?
Introspectively speaking, it seems to me obvious that free will is illusion. Thoughts just emerge from background causes, and actions are just thoughts about actions that we have more thoughts about ...
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1answer
174 views
A quote from Godel to Wang About Evolution
Kurt Godel sent in a 1972 letter to Hao Wang, here what Godel wrote: here
I believe that mechanism in biology is a prejudice of our time which will be disproved. In this case, one disproof, in my ...
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3answers
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Does Darwin owe a debt to Hegel?
I just realized that Darwin's theory of evolution is very much historicist, and resembles Hegel's notion of an arc of history: evolution is progressive and moves with purpose in an almost dialectical ...
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2answers
100 views
Looking for valid reasons as to why reproducing and passing on our genes 'actually' matters [closed]
I'm familiar with why we reproduce. But with genes themselves, why does it matter that all life strives to have their own genetic makeup copy and evolve itself to 'exist' in some way, shape or form? I ...
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Nietzsche’s views on human curiosity
I chanced upon Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘On truth and lies in a non moral sense’. Although I’m not technically a ‘philosopher’ (but aren’t we all philosophers), I’m not sure I agree with his views on ...
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Is this an argument about the world or about human cognition?
This is a question about a thesis I have encountered regarding the relation of abstract mathematics ( Category Theory in particular ) with reality and the nature of human cognition.
The argument goes ...
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2answers
154 views
Does life have a natural or supernatural origin? [closed]
Let us define natural as "can be observed in nature", supernatural as "cannot be observed in nature".
Virtually everyone today believes that all life had to have arisen from nonliving matter. A point ...
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3answers
152 views
The ethics of evolutionary custodianship
Firstly of note is that the closest genetic/evolutionary family of humans, namely the chimpanzee, also engages in an activity once thought to be uniquely human: namely warfare. And just to forestall ...
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238 views
What is the name of the fallacy where one implies something is false simply because someone evil supported it?
Creationists sometimes argue that Darwinism is wrong because the Nazis used it as a rationale for their eugenics program.
We call it a "genetic fallacy" if we try to claim that a theory is wrong ...
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4answers
512 views
Does evolution always entail progress?
It was Darwin who first introduced the concept of Evolution in his Evolution Theory. However, whenever he and in general people speak about Evolution, I always have the feeling that they connote it ...
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2answers
199 views
Defending the value of Moral Philosophy against Scientism
What are the best arguments against someone who believes 'Moral philosophy is useless, what we call morality is simply evolutionary instincts to do what we were designed to do as a species'. This ...
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3answers
234 views
Aren't we most likely subject to artificial selection?
Since intelligent design is just artificial selection, and since we're most likely to be artificially selected for, then you can say we've been subjected to intelligent design. Since most animals on ...
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1answer
125 views
Do humans have the comprehension of an ant regarding certain things?
The leading theory behind the anomaly that is human intelligence is that humans had the greatest diversity in selective pressures over the course of our evolutionary history which allowed only the ...
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1answer
151 views
Do necessary ought nots follow from impossible oughts?
I'm reading about Hume's is-ought gap and how oughts can't follow from is's. My question is if there are impossible oughts and if these impossible oughts create necessary ought nots.
Example: "you ...
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138 views
Is symbolic regression Popperian or inductivist?
This has been on my mind for a few days. I'd love a criticism of my arguments outlined here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/fallible-ideas/9bcC5WN6bLs. I'll re-issue them here:
While ...
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1answer
495 views
Was there any of the need, which was not recognized as need, but accidentally allowed to ease any of the desired action/conformation?
I am searching data on whether we are able to recognize all the needs, or ease allowing actions, for the attainment of any of desired action/conformation or not.
Was there any of the need, which was ...
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1answer
76 views
What arguments are there for arguing that human reproduction (in modern times) is not pointless?
What arguments are there for arguing that human reproduction (in modern times) is not pointless?
Since there are few reasons which make it irrational:
Suffering of other animals and nature due to ...
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3answers
170 views
AI singularity, and the transmission of intelligence
I was quite taken with David Deutsch's dismissal of the fear of the AI general intelligence singularity, based on the idea that any true intelligences will in some sense start with hybrid human-...
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Did Charles Darwin say anything on why life was formed in the first place? [closed]
To be viewed from the perspective of epistemology and/or the philosophy of science.
Preamble:
Darwin, like scientists of his day, often spoke of “Laws” that inevitably cycle forth the results ...
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6answers
250 views
If we don't have free will, why was the quality of being conscious selected for?
I think scientists agree that we're conscious and aware that we have consciousness and awareness. But they don't agree on whether we have free will. I think they don't even have a universal definition ...
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164 views
Is your phone a natural product?
We are part of this natural system where we live and that we named. Our cities, our trains, our streets, some beautiful and some disgraceful, are all part of our natural world, of what we have built ...
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1answer
121 views
Evaluating One of the Premises of Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
I learned Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism in the following form:
The probability for the reliability of cognitive faculties conditional on naturalistic evolution, P(R|N&...
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2answers
202 views
What is the philosophical use of the noosphere?
I understand that lately the new concept coined by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has gained some popularity, and it's definition (according to Wikipedia) is:
The noosphere is the sphere of human ...
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1answer
403 views
Better Understanding Plantinga's Argument Against Naturalism
My advanced apologies if my question is not appropriate for this website. This is my first semester of Philosophy so I hope I'm not asking obvious, low-level questions.
I have been reading Plantinga'...
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1answer
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Is plastic surgery cheating evolution or genetics? [closed]
In the West and modern society, is plastic surgery objectively cheating genetic destiny?
Say a man is not too attractive -- average looking -- and does not manage many sexual partners, if any at all. ...
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1answer
269 views
Does the Evolution Theory contradict Kant's Metaphysics?
I recently asked a series of questions about ET, and this is one of them :)
Intuitively, it seems to me that ET is supposed to contradict Kant's (or more generally, the German Idealism's) Metaphysics ...
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3answers
723 views
Is evolutionary “morality” really the same thing as human morality?
In a different question I asked, Chris Johns' answer pinpointed exactly why all of the answers didn't satisfy me, so I'd like to ask a follow-up question which will further focus my question - would ...
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5answers
308 views
Evolution - how (epistemologically) an instinctive moral is possible?
I've asked a question about how evolution would explain morality, which lead me to a more basic question - if an instinct would tell the group members to act altruistically, where would that instinct ...
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Is it possible that evolution brought human kind morality?
I've heard this (rather odd imho) statement that evolution, by the need of survival, dictated humans to uphold moral codes in order to survive, thus gaining a moral system.
Now, to my understanding, ...
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2answers
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What was Nietzsche's Position on Darwin and his theory of Evolution by Natural Selection?
I will preface this question by saying I have not read Nietzsche extensively. The one exception is his 'Genealogy of Morals', a recent read of mine, twice actually.
I always assumed Nietzsche's ...
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1answer
236 views
What would Socrates' approach be towards Darwinism?
So Socrates was pretty fond of the idea of reincarnation, the soul, the inferior material objects and bodily matter around us. Would his idea of the soul fit into the theory of evolution, a theory ...
