Can Evolution Explain Altruism in Our Children?

ICR News ^ | December 8, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

[GodGunsGuts]

esearch has shown that humans like to help, even before they are old enough to have been taught how to do so. This innate characteristic distinguishes humans from their supposed closest evolutionary family member, the chimpanzee, which doesn’t demonstrate the same altruistic behavior.

In studies on the subject, at only 18 months old, toddlers were observed to consistently aid unrelated adults in simple tasks such as opening a door or picking up a clothes pin. Researchers assumed then that altruism, or unselfish concern for the welfare of others, evolved early in humans. But does this conclusion necessarily follow from the observations? ...

[GodGunsGuts]

For the record, this post is being posted in News/Activism by the express permission of Jim Robinson, founder and owner of Free Republic:

“Debate on church doctrine and or threads on specific religious matters may be best posted in the religion forum, but the defense of religious freedom, especially against those who wish to deprive us of same belongs front and center on FR....They banned God and prayer and creationism from public schools and public places, but I’ll be damned if they’re gonna ban Him or it from FR!”

—Jim Robinson

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2203455/posts?page=78#78

[doc1019]

Give them a minute; they will come up with something.

[GodGunsGuts]

I don’t think God will take kindly to evos who try to convince humanity that the altruistic behavior of HIS little children is the product of random processes plus survival.

[doc1019]

Amen!

[heartwood]

Contrarian here:

Toddlers being able to read adults and please them is not so much altruism as it is a means of survival.

I have no problem with behaviors, instincts, tendencies and other non-material things arising from DNA. Why did God give us such complicated DNA? For our physical being only? We are not souls driving around in meat machines; we are spirit and flesh in unity.

[GSP.FAN]

[Razz Barry]

Tomasello believes that “shared intentionality evolved very early in the human lineage,” according to a recent article in The New York Times. Perhaps, “in order to survive, people were forced to cooperate in hunting game or gathering fruit.”1 However, while this theory is feasible from the evolutionary perspective, no evidence is offered to support it. No other animal needs or uses the uniquely human capacities for cooperation to hunt or find food successfully, so it stretches credulity to claim that successful hunting must have hinged on a cooperation that depended on unwritten rules of behavior.

Pods of killer whales and dolphins cooperate in hunts, so do lions and wild dogs. Chimps cooperate in hunts to capture monkeys to eat.

[doc1019]

You sound like someone that has a strong point to make. Could you elaborate? I’m most interested.

[GodGunsGuts]

"Research has shown that humans like to help, even before they are old enough to have been taught how to do so. This innate characteristic distinguishes humans from their supposed closest evolutionary family member, the chimpanzee, which doesn’t demonstrate the same altruistic behavior."

[Alter Kaker]

Can altruism be explained by evolution?

Yes.

End of story.

[GodGunsGuts]

He said “uniquely human capacities for cooperation.” Are you saying that chimps and whales employ *uniquely human* capacities for cooperation???

[GodGunsGuts]

What would we ever do without your authoritative pronouncements, AK?

[Alter Kaker]

I don’t think God will take kindly to evos who try to convince humanity that the altruistic behavior of HIS little children is the product of random processes plus survival.

That's nice. I don't think the Almighty will look too kindly on uneducated charlatans like yourself who threaten those who fail to fall for their crackpot theology with eternal damnation.

[GodGunsGuts]

What would we ever do without your wild exaggerations, AK?

[Razz Barry]

He said “uniquely human capacities for cooperation.” Are you saying that chimps and whales employ *uniquely human* capacities for cooperation???

No. I'm saying cooperation is not unique to humans.

[mamelukesabre]

Seems to me that altruism is little more than pack behavior...cooperation in other words. i think you will find altruism in most intelligent species that cooperate in a hunt...dogs and wolves especially. They don’t call dog MAN’S BEST FRIEND for nuthin folks. dogs are more like people than any animal on the planet in this regard...well, maybe dolphins and elephants. You can’t exactly keep a dolphin or an elephant in your hut though.

Here’s some altruism for ya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv-QkUIfRjg

[Liberty1970]

End of story.

Because there is no story. No coherent one at any rate. I've seen some strained attempts at explaining altruism from an evolutionary framework, but nothing remotely concrete in terms of the underlying population genetics that would be required to make such tales more than fanciful stories.

Has anyone read The Extinction of Evolution? I just saw a review of it today and it bears on this subject. It's kind of a Screwtape Letters type of book, expounding how we should behave it evolution really was true. It makes me glad that 99% of evolutionists retain a creationary morality despite themselves.

[count-your-change]

Darwinism cannot explain altruism but it must try as it must explain all human behaviors as a result of evolutionary forces, natural selection and fittness for survival. And it attempts to do sans a Creator.

That makes the appeals to a “theistic evolution” nothing more than a bone tossed to the religious to make Darwinism a bit easier to swallow.

Darwin himself in his ‘Descent’ said he thought savages that were self sacrificing would be victorious and thus pass on these traits. In other words a group altruism.

Altruism then becomes selfishness on some level. No matter how contorted the explanation so long as it leaves out a Creator its given credence by the Darwinists.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!