Which is at cross purposes with the gene's desire to survive, after all if we overcome our instincts, the gene that regulates that instinct [never mind that we have no idea if there is one that does] is immediately redundant. Ergo, our selfish gene has outsourced itself into wilfully committing suicide.
The history of our species is all about overcoming nature: building tools, taming fire and eventually learning to create it, inventing clothing, curing disease, cultivating plants and domesticating animals to prevent famine, etc. Ultimately we turned our attention to overcoming
our own nature, particularly our pack-social instinct: living in harmony with others who are not members of our own pack (or even our own species), accepting the leadership of people we've never met, caring about and depending on people thousands of miles away who are nothing more than abstractions. So it's not remarkable that we've overcome the nature of our genes too. We've created a new organism, civilization, in which we are the cells. The rules have changed.
quadraphonics said:
I thought you were a biologist by profession? Why are you going to such lengths to misunderstand this stuff?
I too am flabbergasted by the things Sam doesn't know about biology, like reflex centers. She must be a product of the American educational system. They were too busy giving courses in remedial English to people who shouldn't even be attending universities to worry about their biology curriculum.
What some Koran-thumping nutritionist thinks about metabiology is not interesting.
I'm no apologist for Sam but she hardly ever proselytizes her religion and in fact seldom puts her theistic statements in the context of Abrahamic religion at all, much less Islamic. She speaks for theism.
What I'll abstain from is respect for your thoughts on the subject. It will probably still be necessary to jump in in order to frustrate your bonehead evangelism.
And I've never seen her evangelize. She doesn't want to convert us. She just wants to be treated with respect. Which is something I could do almost anywhere but here, because this is a place of science and her supernaturalism conflicts with the scientific method. Even then I wouldn't be so pissed off if she would just find a way to make her points honestly instead of relying so often on disingenuity.
In the past week, I have been mocked about my theism and scientific credentials by the following atheists: 2. who thinks upstream/downstream is a boating analogy
Excuse me, that was me, the Head Linguist around here. It isn't exclusively about boating but it is about life on the river. It's used in IT, manufacturing, and several biological specialties, always with the analogy of the direction of flow of a river.
Are you kidding me? I was told to look out for myself by the admin and mods when I complained about being trolled by atheists.
Are you really talking about trolling, posts that are not germaine to a discussion? Or simply insults? Even so, although we do permit the wholesale insulting of religion, specific religions, and religious communities, we are not supposed to allow
personal insults against specific members. Please notify me the next time it happens. I see the banter on this thread comes pretty close, but for the most part the members are criticizing your style of argument and/or specific things you've said. As I noted above, even I am a little frstrated that one of this forum's very few actual career scientists has such a narrow scope of knowledge. Nonetheless:
* * * * NOTE FROM A MODERATOR * * * *
This isn't my board so I don't have the authority to rap anybody's knuckles with my ruler for violating the rules, but please, everybody:
TRY TO KEEP THE DISCOURSE CIVIL.
We need at least one theist here to hold up the theistic side of the argument, so we should not treat her like an unwelcome guest.
This is btw, a thread on atheism and science and I am very much arguing my point here.
Indeed.
