The end result for a human being is to survive long enough to ensure his genes get passed along. Working with a group increases the chances of this happening. Going one's own way (being selfish) stresses the group, reducing the group's chances of survival and consequently reducing the individual's chances of survival. Groups which enforce the survival of the group over the survival of the individual (either through law, religion or tradition, or simply through force -- though the latter can be counterproductive in the long run) increase their odds of survival versus groups that do not. In other words, morality among humans is a trait "selected for" because it promotes survival.
So Gould was an evolutionary failure? His own god hated him?
The Christian Spirit yields a far more profound insight into the end result for a human being.
That insight isn't acquired by science, but by faith. If you don' have that faith, you lack His Spirit, and you are not His.
How empty your philosophy is!
“For instance, if you ask a sociobiologist the question, why do we love our children, he or she will answer that "we love our children because it works." It is an effective means to raise productive offspring, so it was "selected for" over time. Ultimately, then, from this perspective, all behavior is selfish. Everything we do is geared toward furthering our own survival and the production and the survival of our own offspring. Our behaviors have been selected over time to aid in our survival and reproduction and that's all.”
”Evolution is a wasteful, inefficient process. Carl Sagan says that the fossil record is filled with the failed experiments of evolution. Evolutionary history is littered with dead-ends and false starts. Stephen Jay Gould characterizes the nature of the evolutionary process as one of contingency history. Organisms survive primarily by chance rather than some inherent superiority over other organisms. There is no purpose, no goal, no meaning at all.”
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The evolutionist says, “look at this tree, it is merely a product of genes and environment,” and he is correct in his statement. The fallacy comes in when he draws this comparison to man. Man is much more, and once more the evolutionist looks at his tree but misses the forest.
There is good and bad. Morality is the ‘choice’ we make between the two; good and evil. A tree does not ‘choose’ to grow into its’ shape but man has ‘free will’ to choose his behavior.
And here is an interesting read for my Roman Catholic friend.
Gould and the Pope