Survival of the fittest.

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The last one standing is the Winner.

ruveyn

Exactly - and sometimes 'fitness' means being a well-respected, healthy member of one's community. Too often people equate 'fitness' with 'being the biggest, toughest a**hole,' as if we were tigers or tyranosauri.
This means that we aspies are at a disadvantage, evolutionarily speaking.

And those who go to bed hungry at night are currently winning the reproduction game. Most of the explosive growth is happening in very poor countries. As they become wealthier, their population growth will diminish.

As long as you are getting just enough to survive, and still mating, you are expressing fitness in the current system.

Fit means successful at reproducing and producing fertile offspring. Nature does not care about moral or ethical fitness. There is nothing in the laws of physics that implies an ethical principle or a social principle.

ruveyn

Yes exactly if someone has to act that way to feel fit they are probably overcompensating for something, but since society seems to be kind of built around the whole step on others to get to the top and push everyone out of the way to get to the top it can be hard for even non-aspies to make it anywhere.

But that is not true evolution.

No. Ethical principles themselves are a product of evolution. Concepts of altruism and justice helped humans evolve through cooperation and division of duties. Ethical principles are even visible in families of primates, to a lesser degree.

The baboon which behaves so badly towards other baboons that they eject it from the troop quickly becomes a dead baboon, regardless of how strong it was.
= more baboons in future generations with genetic proclivities to be civil enough towards other baboons that they do not get ejected from the troop.

And in primitive hunter/gatherer primate tribes, strongest hunter is discouraged from hoarding all his catch for himself. Working as a cooperative team is partly what allowed earlier primates to evolve into more complex social animals that eventually became homosapiens.

Alpha Hunter would share with his chief, his hunting partners, and his mate. This would ensure that Alpha was not executed for disrespect, had strong partners for future hunts, and a warm mate to sleep with. He might also give a portion to his shaman to appease the gods and spirits.

You can bet that Alpha never shared with the weak, the crippled, or the sick, as these people would have been burdens on the tribe if they could not contribute to tribal welfare (aka, "earn their keep").

By depriving undesirables of sustenance, Alpha contributed to the Darwinic evolution of the species through Survival of the Fittest - those whom Alpha deemed would enhance his own chances of future survival and comfort.

Evolution favors the strong by culling out the weak.

So do you suggest we treat the weak, crippled or sick the same way? See that is the issue when humans try to control the direction of evolution it becomes something other than evolution.....there is no reason in todays world why such people cannot be taken care of or helped by those who are healthy, fit and non-crippled. it does not hurt evolution any if humans help each other out.......in fact it increases the chance of survival for everyone.

I belive 'together we stand, divided we fall' though Pink Floyds album the wall explored many concepts I think there was also the point that alone humans are nothing as far as the world goes hence divided we fall....you might have to have seen the movie and heard the album to get what I'm talking about though.

I have read actual studies that strongly dispute your notion.

Most likely this is accidental. There is no a priori reason for thinking that ethical behavior is the only way to guarantee reproductive success. You will not that roaches, rats and fish reproduce successfully and there is no sign of ethics there.

It just happened to work out that way for primates. If we replayed reality it might not come out that way the second time around.

ruveyn

So freaking what. I still refute your notion that ethics and compassion are unnatural. If it was unnatural compassionate people wouldn't exist.

I'm not so sure that's true about rats & fish. Many kinds of fish swim in a complex, undulating formation in order to confuse predators. And rats seem to work together in an ant-like fashion -- many of them chewing in the same spot, rather than each rat working on it's own hole by itself. I find it hard to believe that such behavior is accidental. There are situations where it is in one's self-interest to cooperate with others, so that behavior could be evolved.

There are obvious advantages in being part of a group. However, in order for a groups to survive, they have to have certain checks, to prevent cheating, mistrust and other things from destroying the group.

IOW, groups that didn't punish cheaters probably broke down and disappeared, and those which punished cheaters lasted. OTOH, those which punished alleged cheaters on a whim (on, say, one person's word) probably also eventually failed. So, there is evolutionary pressure to create a system of discipline which all participants will support as being fair -- a system of justice.

I don't think humans are programmed with altruism or non- or anti-altruism. I think we're programmed with all three, and the one we engage in is determined by a dynamic sum of many factors -- a "prisoner's dilemma" type of situation. Sort of like how some molds and yeasts change their form depending on the environment.

Yes, and even in the case of tigers & tryannosauri -- they tend not to kill their own kind. That may be a minimal kind of cooperation, but it is still cooperation.

I suggest no such thing. Darwinic evolution encourages survival of the fittest, thus ensuring that only the best qualities get passed along and our species' development progresses. Socialist evolution encourages everyone's survival (including the weak), thus our development as a species either stagnates our declines.

Which is why I wonder what is so "progressive" about Liberal / Progressive / Socialist thinking.