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Sociogenic Mitosis

A theory about why we fight, separate into groups and split into tribes.
 
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Came up with the theory watching a sped up video of cells dividing. The chromosomes starts wiggling around, almost looking like they're wrestling, then they move to opposite sides of the cell and split into two cells where before there was just one.

My theory is based on the idea that 1- Conflict is in our nature and 2- Nature knows what it's doing. It got hit by an asteroid and just made some design adjustments and threw out a species that will eventually be able to handle future asteroid challenges.

So the question is why does nature want us to fight, to separate into groups and instead of covering X area of the earth cover X times 2 area of Earth? My thought is that this fulfills the programming innate to all life forms: survive, and expand. If we were all to sit around and be nice to each other, you wouldn't have the following scenario where one tribe becomes two.

Alpha male A runs the tribe. He's stronger, brings back more food, gets the females. Ok, that's fine but that tribe is going to expand outwards at a rate limited to the food and resources in that geographic area. Fine for that tribe, not great for the species. Enter soiogenic mitosis. Alpha male leader of the tribe is challenged by another alpha male wannabe. The loser of this contest may leave the tribe and take other members with him. Now you have two tribes, the species has expanded and taken with it the inherent drive to compete with any life form that gets in its way. The life form has expanded.

To summarize, although nature sometimes imbues a life form with traits that lead to its demise, the one proven survival strategy is expanding its domain and this trait of splitting accomplishes that.

doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2020

Racist Darwin http://www.gutenber...0/2300-h/2300-h.htm
He no likey the Irish [4and20, Feb 21 2020]

Evolution and war https://evolution-i...ter-group-violence/
[doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2020]

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       I think you were looking at chromosomes rather than mitochondria there, [doc].   

       Regarding the theory, there's this bloke called Charles from Shropshire who you might want to discuss it with.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2020
  

       LOL, shit, meant to say that. (really) Thanks Max.   

       Is this an old theory? Who's Charles from Shropshire?   

       Oh wait, the Darwinator?   

       I don't read, what did he say about it?
doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2020
  

       Charles from Shropshire later wrote a really racist book called "The Descent of Man" in which he argued that it's far preferable if people like the Irish die off quickly instead of mating. Of the many problems Charles and theories he sired share, it is the fact that he was on an island, reflecting on his time studying an even smaller island, and couldn't seem to imagine, as doc has, that the Irish might just pick up and move somewhere better. Also, there is an entire school of Russian thought which argued more compellingly that mutual cooperation is more the nature of evolution...
4and20, Feb 21 2020
  

       eh, what?
theircompetitor, Feb 21 2020
  

       So Max, did he specifically address the bifurcation of groups due to competition and its resultant expanding of the species?
doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2020
  

       The evidence suggests that Darwin was not a racist, in the context of his own times. He was an abolitionist, for example. His work on evolution simply convinced him that all humans share a common ancestry. In "Descent", he explicitly argued that all humans were of one species - an idea which was quite radical at the time.   

       He did use terms like "savage races", but we use terms today like "developing nations" which might in a century be regarded as intolerable. Not so long ago, in fact, we were quite happily talking about "underdeveloped nations" and, before that "third world countries".
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2020
  

       I can recite chapter and verse of racist Darwin if need be, although it makes me feel dirty, and not in a Darwinian reproductive sense.
4and20, Feb 21 2020
  

       Go for it.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2020
  

       Speciation is an inevitable product of evolution, evolution an inevitable product of a statistical distribution of genetic traits subject to mutation.   

       One can imagine an artificial conciseness that has no need to either reproduce or compete for resources -- such a consciousness would seem alive if it could hold a Turing conversation, but it would not have to either evolve or split into tribes.
theircompetitor, Feb 21 2020
  

       The link to "Descent of Man" is above. The first hit on a search for the word "saxons" will put you in the midst of the particular racist paragraph to which I've referred.
4and20, Feb 21 2020
  

       Yes, but he's comparing Saxons and Celts. I mean, be reasonable.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2020
  

       Even there he seems to be confused. Because he still seems to have a secondhand love affair with the Scottish, which is still better than marrying his first cousin.
4and20, Feb 21 2020
  

       With Celts ? Why ? Anyway, it's not possible.
8th of 7, Feb 21 2020
  

       Apparently it is. They keep it under their kilt.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2020
  

       So did Darwin already come up with this?
doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2020
  

       By the way, this assertion doesn't celebrate man's warlike nature, it just looks at why we might be that way which might be a step towards controlling these instincts, understanding where they come from. I'm not saying it's necessarily good just because it's natural, so is death, plague and cancer.   

       Certainly being warlike to each other in the modern age isn't helpful to the species. Nuclear weapons aren't helping mankind if they ever get used. WW1 and WW2 killed tens of millions of people, again, not helpful for the species.   

       But nature can't see into the future, it "thought" being a big dinosaur was a great idea because it didn't foresee the asteroid collision. It "thought" having big brains and opposing thumbs was a great idea but it didn't anticipate these body parts leading to thousand of hydrogen bombs on missiles that can all be launched at once to wipe out a significant portion of the human population.   

       But again, any of you Darwin experts out there, is this old ground he's already covered? If so I haven't heard of it.
doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2020
  

       Evolution functions similarly to a "dollar auction" in which the winner gets a dollar after having paid a lot more than a dollar to win it, the losers pay a lot and get nothing, and the abstainers never had a chance. To extend the analogy: each person can increase their own chances of winning by joining a political faction, with the result that anyone who is not part of a political faction has no chance of winning.   

       Male lions typically win and maintain their status by defeating other male lions in single combat. Hunting ability might tangentially help a male lion grow but isn't the ultimate test.   

       I don't have a practical solution to the general problem of scarcity. The easiest solution of all is to convince people that "happiness" means "luxury vacation" not "land and 3 smart children to inherit it"...let's call this option "Los Angeles". Less easy would be a system that promises everyone "enough" in exchange for being productive citizens, where "enough" includes both children and vacations. Such a system would tend to harm the most successful people, who are held back from defeating weaker people, and would also tend to be disliked by the weaker people who are held back from making bad decisions, and would be at risk of corruption...but if it worked such a system could possibly deliver enough technology growth to stay ahead of a (regulated) population growth rate. Let's call this option "Star Trek: The Next Generation". A third option would be to give up the expectation that a democratic compromise is possible, and become enthusiastic about tribal conflict. Let's call this option "Imperial Rome with Nukes". Although it would be easy to focus on the negatives, all 3 of these options are full of exciting possibilities.
sninctown, Feb 22 2020
  

       // life forms split, to expand their kin's domain, to survive //   

       The icy beauty of evolution is that complex life originated not from a grand plan, but from simple mechanical laws acting on matter. From the first self-copying simple molecules in shallow lightning-struck pools of oily water on early Earth, to self-copying cells protected by a cell wall, to plants, to animals...there's no guidance at all, merely mechanical processes. Life simply is. Unless it fails to copy itself, then it ceases to be. Physical laws (of energy conservation, motion, chemical reactions, etc.) are obeyed at all times, across a truly large number of organisms and number of years.   

       From a materialist perspective there's no guiding purpose behind it all.
sninctown, Feb 22 2020
  

       //Speciation is an inevitable product of evolution//   

       Not the other way around, then?   

       I mean, a large part of Origin of Species consists of Charles persuading his sceptical readers that speciation happens. This suggests that speciation is necessary for evolution to be credible, not that evolution is sufficient for speciation to occur. One can imagine a counterfactual scenario (with slightly different organic chemistry, perhaps) in which a species could adapt to its environment to some extent, but could never actually split into two species.
pertinax, Feb 22 2020
  

       //the particular racist paragraph//   

       To be fair, the words of that paragraph are not Darwin's. He's quoting someone else, and Darwin's point in quoting them has nothing to do with supposed ethnic characteristics. Rather, Darwin's point is about moral characteristics (for which Galton, not Darwin, has used race as a proxy). The point is that natural selection is under no obligation to promote characteristics which we might evaluate as good.   

       This point is worth re-emphasising, because so many people in the C20th wrongly used "more evolved" to express a positive value judgement, and/or "less evolved" to express a negative one.
pertinax, Feb 22 2020
  

       Darwin's own response to the laudatory paragraph he propagates is even worse. He essentially says that the Irish (and the Scottish?) die off quickly, which is quite a good solution. Apparently the British Empire, being the extant of the world and taxing everyone to the eyeballs, was still too poor for the monarchy and scientists to help subjects on their own island...
4and20, Feb 22 2020
  

       Wait a minute; are we reading the same document? Because that's not how it reads to me at all.
pertinax, Feb 22 2020
  

       Come, come. Darwin's next paragraph:   

       "There are, however, some checks to this downward tendency...it has been proved by Dr. Stark from the statistics of ten years in Scotland...that at all ages the death-rate is higher in towns than in rural districts, "and during the first five years of life the town death-rate is almost exactly double that of the rural districts."
4and20, Feb 22 2020
  

       ... telling us that country life is healthier than city life. Scotland was where the research was done. Had it been done in England, Wales or Ireland, it would likely have shown a similar pattern. Darwin is describing the balance of forces which appear to create an equilibrium. There's no smoking gun here.
pertinax, Feb 22 2020
  

       Darwin is favoring a grossly racist interpretation, then following it immediately by saying we may not have to worry about Irishmen overpropagating, because they die so much earlier crowded into (Scottish) cities. It's tiresome to point out the bleeding obvious. Darwinism remains a kind of cargo cult to some people.
4and20, Feb 22 2020
  

       //is this old ground he's already covered? // I can't point you to a specific sentence in Darwin's works (though there may well be one). But the general idea that large populations tend to split, and ultimately compete for resources, is a pretty basic and long-established idea.   

       And not just in humans, of course. There are umpteen animal species where a single dominant male breeds with multiple females. A challenger may either displace that male or simply make off with most of the harem.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       //It's tiresome//   

       We can agree on that point. :-)
pertinax, Feb 22 2020
  

       It's well worth pointing out that Darwin was making these points in the 1871 2nd edition of his book, some 20 years after the Great Famine killed a million or more people in Ireland. Darwin shoudn't have been fucking his first cousin. He really should have been fucking his mother.
4and20, Feb 22 2020
  

       I think it's also worth pointing out that identifying a problem isn't the same as saying that it's a good thing.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       //Speciation is an inevitable product of evolution//   

       //Not the other way around, then?//   

       this is not a chicken or egg question (and clearly egg) So no.
theircompetitor, Feb 22 2020
  

       Don't know what that means either. Part of the confusion is largely caused by Darwin's stupidity. He favorably uses a quote describing the Scottish as "Saxon," some percentage of whom may be, given Viking though not particularly Saxon heritage. Then in his next paragraph he suggests the problem will resolve itself as people die earlier, for example in Scotland. True, Scotland had a substantial Irish population, but isn't this poverty porn going to hit some of the Scottish "Saxons" too?   

       None of this really matters. He's showing no great care in praising race-differentiated death. Darwin's writing is a clusterfuck, but he's not some kind of bible that one tries to cautiously interpret for some lost god's message.
4and20, Feb 22 2020
  

       (Max) A tribe where one alpha male is replaced by another isn't sociogenic mitosis, a split into two viable groups caused by aggression of the leadership is what I'm talking about. One where two alpha males start gathering followers within the group and at some point go to war and split.   

       If it's a commonly known fact that it's beneficial to a species to have innate aggression split groups into two so they'll cover more area it should be pretty easy to cite some reference to it. I've never heard this discussed before, pretty sure Darwin never said anything about it. His theories and conclusions are very well known. If he discussed group dynamics with regard to friction within those groups being beneficial by causing groups to split and cover more territory, I never heard about it.   

       A single reference makes this all go away. Consider it a challenge.   

       And here's why I'm doing this, there's a term that I created that quite accidentally ended up in the Webster's Dictionary. Well, not totally by accident, it was a joke term that caught on such that It's common slang now and the story behind it is a bit long but it was a term I introduced that's now in common parlance, so 'd like to see if I can create another term, one that might have a little more interesting concept behind it and one that might lead to beneficial discussions about how to avoid war by looking at another possible reason for why we go to war.   

       I believe that aggression that causes wars was once beneficial to the species and now that we've added technology to this innate drive, it's no longer beneficial. That's the whole point, so again, if this has been discussed, I'd love to see references.   

       If the dynamic of two dominant males resulting in two groups being a good thing for the species before the introduction of industrial age killing tools and it now being NOT beneficial for the species after the introduction of that technology has been discussed, I'd like to find that discussion. Might be out there but I haven't seen it. But this is why I threw this out there, to see if it's been discussed before. Maybe I'll write David Attenborough.   

       And Max, if you're saying it's such common knowledge that we don't even need a word for it, I'd beg to differ. Something that's so universally known should probably have a term to refer to it no? Words and term are a meeting point of ideas and a starting or jumping off point to figuring stuff out and looking at why we go to war as groups from nature's viewpoint is certainly not a common discussion. Maybe it should be.
doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2020
  

       What was the term that got into Websters? That's cool.   

       Regarding the phenomenon - as I mentioned, it's common for a rival male (for instance) to take a bunch of the females and set up a new group (leaving the old group to regrow). You're right, I can't point to sentence in Darwin (I'm not going to re-read all his books). All I'm saying is that the phenomenon of large groups splitting, sometimes violently, is just WKTE. It's nothing personal, just that in terms of animal behaviour it's one of those almost-inherent phenomena.   

       As for advantageousness, it's advantageous to the individual who forms the new group: he gets to pass his genes on more directly to more descendants, as long as he's successful.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       Well, how about this? We know groups split but if you can point to an article saying what caused them to split and why it was beneficial to the species I'll tell you what the dictionary word is.   

       I understand what you're saying, that this is such common knowledge that it's like making up a term like "car startyosis" referring to the starting of a car, that the term is just not needed. But I haven't heard anybody assign a clarifying term to this process. Yes, we've seen the results of groups splitting but but why they split, and specifically why that drive might no longer be good for us hasn't been discussed in anything that I've seen. This is a starting point for that discussion.   

       I'm not just saying "Groups split, let's call it "group splitty mc splitface." There is a new (I think) concept behind it. A beneficial natural trait that now, because of a new environment has become a detrimental physical trait. Group friction used to have a good reason to exist. Replace clubs with hydrogen bombs and thousands of ICBMs to deliver them with a touch of a button, group friction has to be re-evaluated. A single term to replace "the common knowledge that alpha males will fight and take some females to another location to start a new group that causes the species to spread" is a bit wordy. I fell asleep halfway through writing it. Having a nice, quick, clarifying reference term is beneficial towards the discussion.   

       And yes, passing of strong genes to the winners has been discussed at length, but it doesn't discount the fact that there are other group benefits to this competitive process. Specifically the expansion of the species as a direct result of the social friction within the species.
doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2020
  

       If it's beneficial to the species (which it might well be), that's incidental. It's a contested point, but broadly speaking natural selection doesn't care about species - it cares about the individual (or, if you want to get all Dawkinsy, about that individual's genes). So, you can probably find instances where a split has been bad for a species as a whole (eg, too little genetic diversity in each subgroup), even though it will have been beneficial in the short term for the individual.   

       If your argument is that this splitting tendency has become more harmful now that we humans have big weapons, well, yes, that's possibly true. But there are lots of traits that natural selection has left us with that are now harmful rather than helpful because our world has changed quickly.   

       And I can see I'm going to have to work hard to find out which word you got into Websters. Let's begin: was it 'aardvark' ?
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       By the way, just have to say I've never needed coffee more than now having this discussion but I'm going to try to sleep today to go on a nighttime ride along patrol with my police officer son and want to try to take a nap. This is very challenging. I want to be sharp and rested. I will after all be wearing a bullet proof vest and driving around dangerous neighborhoods.   

       But we're zeroing in here, god I wish I wasn't the walking dead here without my morning brew.   

       //If it's beneficial to the species (which it might well be), that's incidental. It's a contested point, but broadly speaking natural selection doesn't care about species - it cares about the individual (or, if you want to get all Dawkinsy, about that individual's genes).//   

       But nature does care about the species. For instance, it doesn't want viruses to kill the host, the ideal microbe lives happily for as long as possible and in as many hosts as possible. It's when they're "designed" to live in a bat and somebody makes soup out of that bat and passes it to another species that the virus doing its thing burns down its house so to speak.   

       Nature designs stuff and with purpose. I don't know how, our knowledge of evolution is like the knowledge a monkey has sitting in the pilot seat of an airline jet and finding the on button then declaring himself an expert on aviation science. We've just scratched the surface. But nature does get stuff done. Nature spreads life. When it tries one thing to spread life like being big and dinosaury, and that doesn't work, it tries smaller, smarter and manipulaty. But the one thing it wants life to do is spread. I don't think this trait is by accident. I think it's going to give plants fruit that birds eat to spread the seeds, or little parachutes to catch the wind. It's going to give viruses transmission vectors to expand the life form and it gives us aggression to do what we've done. Become so successful at covering the planet that we're the only species to exist on every continent and travel from Earth to another body in the solar system.   

       Can we talk about this tomorrow when I have my coffee? The clickity-click-click of the keyboard is lulling me to sleep.   

       LOL, yes I made up the word aardvark but I added another A. So if anybody claims to have created the word aaardvark, you tell them you know the man behind it. And by the way, aardvark should be spelled with 3 letter A's as a sort of protest. "Why did you add 3 letter A's?" "Why did you add two?" And I don't know how to add an S to the letter A to make it plural but I don't want to look it up so I'm just going to take a nap now.
doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2020
  

       // But nature does care about the species.// It really doesn't. Natural selection acts (can only act) on individuals. In most cases, individual selection works for the benefit of the species, but that's not a given. It's just that we only see species where individual selection has worked well for the species.   

       //Nature designs stuff and with purpose.// Again, alas, no. For every mutant gazelle born with stripes that give it better camouflage, there's another one born without eyes or with a screwed up leg.   

       What makes evolution so miraculous is that _despite_ the fact that mutation is random, and _despite_ the fact that nature can't look ahead and plan for the benefit of the species, the endless application of blind natural selection gives us bee-orchids, tapirs and kangaroos.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       and even evolution deniers :)
theircompetitor, Feb 22 2020
  

       // // But nature does care about the species.// It really doesn't. Natural selection acts (can only act) on individuals. //   

       Natural selections acts on individuals acting as individuals and on groups acting as groups. The Portuguese man of war, the cells that make up an organism, these are all individuals as well as members of a bigger life form. Individuals forming a group does't prevent it from being a life form that has specific trends and tendencies. Groups are effected by evolution just like the the individual and social aspects of the group may effect their survival or extinction. It's theorized that cro-magnon won out over neanderthal because of specialization and division of task between female and male unlike neanderthal where everybody in the tribe just went out and hunted and gathered. The theory is that females tending the home base and males specializing in the hunting and gathering was a more effective system. I'm sure that theory will cause outrage among some but it would make some sense.   

       Certainly specialization is the core of an advanced society. One individual can learn everything they need to in a hunter gather society. It would probably take hundreds of years to learn all the jobs necessary to run an advanced society, rocket scientist, brain surgeon, software engineer etc. Maybe the first specialization WAS having one group hunt and gather and the other make the tools to help hunt and gather. And maybe the social construct allowed the group to survive, evolve and replace groups that didn't engage in this social delineation of group efforts to survive.   

       And there may have been groups that just sat around hugging each other, happy with where they were but we don't know about them because they didn't expand enough to survive.   

       Maybe.   

       But again, I'm going to try to take a nap, which is damn near impossible for me, wake up refreshed then go driving around with my boy while he keeps the streets safe then drink some coffee tomorrow and see if this clears up. One cup and I might erase the whole thing after a "What the hell was I thinking?" moment.
doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2020
  

       Well, [doc], your thinking is not bad thinking. If you get a chance, read some Dawkins - you'd probably really enjoy him.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       [doc] what do you want to be true? That every species has an innate urge to organize into tribes in conflict and then to spread those tribes far and wide? That the "tribe splitting" urge can be precisely identified in humans? That someone could make a pill that turns off the "tribe splitting" urge in humans, so humankind could finally cooperate and stop spending two weeks out of every year building weapons?   

       Kipling (also considered a bit socially backward these days) wrote a poem that goes something like this:   

       // When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
sninctown, Feb 22 2020
  

       A tree branch can't grow where another branch already is. Twins can't be 100% the same.Differentiation is forced and causes separation. Whether that differentiation causes success is probably down to resources made available and their use.   

       It would be a waste of Earthly complexity if the expanding group were just individuals that are exactly the same.
wjt, Feb 22 2020
  

       Like ants, bees and termites ?
8th of 7, Feb 22 2020
  

       I quite like bees and ants, yes; why?
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2020
  

       There is still differentiation and different food sources. I'm sure there are lazy bees.
wjt, Feb 23 2020
  

       The queen is pretty lazy. Royal jelly all day. Getting laid. lounging about. Disgraceful really.   

       Laying would be a hefty job. I was thinking more about the the lazy flyer that finds the flowers others missed but takes longer to get back to the hive. An advantageous diversification. All bees exactly the same, flying to same place would be an evolutionary disaster.
wjt, Feb 23 2020
  

       //there may have been groups that just sat around hugging each other, happy with where they were but we don't know about them //   

       The tantric communities of Afghanistan in the C5th, just before the Huns showed up. It didn't end well.
pertinax, Feb 23 2020
  

       // flying to same place would be an evolutionary disaster //   

       Atlanta Hartsfield ?   

       Is there an option for Sociopathic Mitosis ? We consider that preferable ...
8th of 7, Feb 23 2020
  

       //read some Dawkins - you'd probably really enjoy him.//   

       OK, THAT'S what I came here for. I'm familiar with his work and this is right up his alley. I'm going to contact him.   

       "Dear Doctorremulac3, Mr Dawkins was wondering how you got his address and hereby requests that you stop standing in front of his home with a "Ask Me About Sociogenic Mitosis" sign."   

       Seriously though, this is his bailiwick, if he can't shut me up about this nobody can.   

       //(are you hoping) that someone could make a pill that turns off the "tribe splitting" urge in humans, so humankind could finally cooperate and stop spending two weeks out of every year building weapons? //   

       Wouldn't want (or be able) to tame our innate aggressive drives that have an upside, but putting more energy into building and less into tearing down as you described would be a nice goal.   

       But in a more immediate sense I was hoping that putting a tag on the drive to hate each other might cast some light on this and lead us to make more considered less emotion driven opinions about our fellow man and fewer automatic judgements that lead to conflict if that makes any sense.   

       The analogy I came up with might be understanding that we are attracted to beautiful women. This understanding allows us to control our natural urges, for instance you wouldn't run up on stage while Miss Universe was getting crowned and ask her to marry you. You'd just say "She's very beautiful, I appreciate that so I'll wait till after the ceremony to pop the question." Kidding aside, if we didn't understand this urge, to be attracted to (trigger warning) the opposite sex, it might be confusing.   

       Likewise, there might be a practical application of this concept, if you're at a family gathering and two people in the family support political candidates on the opposite side of the political spectrum, knowing this is a natural tendency might soften the impact. Political strife is the embodiment of sociogenic mitosis. The two parties understanding that they're wired to split like this might make them take that into consideration. Maybe they don't want to let their natural urges control them, maybe they'll consider that the reason they're so angry is that a natural process is at work.   

       Anyway, thanks to everybody taking the time to comment on this admittedly oddball post. I'm going to keep looking into this and post what other views I get from folks and Dawkins is the guy to research next. If he's got a chapter called "Mitosiotic Sociogeniocity" or something I'll drop this idea.
doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2020
  

       He's definitely got a chapter called something. Are you going to follow up on your promise?
pocmloc, Feb 23 2020
  

       I will.   

       Possible book title:   

       "The Evolution Of War: Why we separate into groups and fight, and how we can control the natural urges to do so."   

       OK, found something. (link)   

       Just glossed over it but it doesn't appear to be anything new, just the survival of the fittest concept, tribe better suited to war wins the gene pool lottery. Old stuff.
doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2020
  

       No I meant the promise to drop the idea, if Dawkins had a book chapter called something.
pocmloc, Feb 23 2020
  

       I already answered that. The answer was: "I will."
doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2020
  

       // What makes evolution so miraculous is that _despite_ the fact that mutation is random, and _despite_ the fact that nature can't look ahead and plan for the benefit of the species, the endless application of blind natural selection gives us bee-orchids, tapirs and kangaroos. //   

       The problem with this type of praise is that it doesn't take into account how much better a planned process might be. Why should trees and whale sharks live 300 years but people get 120 at best?
4and20, Feb 23 2020
  

       Anything doc produced could be an improvement on Darwin. Whether he chooses to write that book should be independent of whether he chooses to delete the cumulative ideas other people have posted under this heading of course...
4and20, Feb 23 2020
  

       Oh I'd never delete a liveley discussion. I might drop the idea and move on but people put some time into these comments and I appreciate that.
doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2020
  

       //it doesn't take into account how much better a planned process might be// Of course, but then it's no longer a description of evolution. Computers and vibrators have all evolved hundreds of thousands of times faster than evolution would allow.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2020
  

       God knows you know vibrators better than I do. Some Darwinists are still very focused on "intelligence" in reproductive processes. I don't believe intelligent people get more mates, hence their brilliance with computers and vibrators.
4and20, Feb 23 2020
  

       Sorry, I didn't understand! My error!
pocmloc, Feb 23 2020
  

       ... for which you will be punished.
8th of 7, Feb 23 2020
  

       Ooh yes! Can't wait!
pocmloc, Feb 23 2020
  

       OK, I have Richard Dawkin's's's contact info. I'll post my email to him before sending it.
doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2020
  


 

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