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To: Thatcherite
"In the past some people have justified appalling acts by using the Bible."

Drop in the bucket, compared to the enormous benefit the Bible has been to mankind in terms of its ethical content. Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive, and I'm saying that continuing to teach this theory must have its consequences.

637 posted on 12/04/2005 1:50:14 PM PST by Liberty Wins (Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten it.)
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To: Liberty Wins
Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive

Again that is a comic book version of evolution. It has nothing to do with the actual theory of biological evolution.

638 posted on 12/04/2005 1:52:57 PM PST by JeffAtlanta
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To: Liberty Wins

"Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive."

Evolution has no ethical content. It describes the diversification of biological organisms over time.


641 posted on 12/04/2005 1:54:52 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Liberty Wins
Drop in the bucket, compared to the enormous benefit the Bible has been to mankind in terms of its ethical content.

Yeah, the example of what happened to the Midianites has been a constant inspiration.

645 posted on 12/04/2005 1:58:25 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Liberty Wins
Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive, and I'm saying that continuing to teach this theory must have its consequences.

1. Evolution has no ethical content at all. It is a statement of what happens, not a morality statement. Germ, atomic, and gravity theory also have no ethical content.

2. You are wrong when you say the strong MUST survive. Strength is one of many atttributes. Actually survivors survive. There is no absolute standard of what attributes are good or bad, the only measure is reproductive success. In human society strength is not particularly highly valued compared with many other attributes.

663 posted on 12/04/2005 2:34:12 PM PST by Thatcherite (F--ked in the afterlife, bullying feminized androgenous automaton euro-weenie blackguard)
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To: Liberty Wins
Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive, and I'm saying that continuing to teach this theory must have its consequences.

Being strong & self-interested in an immediate sense may be a good strategy for a relatively brainless species, but as you look at species with bigger & bigger brains, who instinctively keep track of what their comrades are doing and who owes whom, etc., they tend to develop more & more complex ways of cooperating with each other.

IIRC all primates have some capacity for staying familiar with dozens of members of their clan (in humans it's around 150), for understanding what others are thinking, feeling what others are feeling, thinking in abstractions, and looking into the future. All these abilities find their apex in Man. This has given us an amazing capacity for finding new ways to encourage cooperation & enforce contracts, and this has made human civilization possible.

IOW, if you want to use evolution to ground a moral system (an iffy proposition, theoretically, but hypothetically if you wanted to) you'd conclude that evolution says that humans MUST develop extensive moral systems that encourage everyone to cooperate & deal with each other honestly & fairly.

669 posted on 12/04/2005 2:47:59 PM PST by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: Art of Unix Programming by Raymond)
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