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Racism: A Completely Natural Trait?

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  • #46
    Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
    It might not be 'evolutionary wrong'. Most naturalistic ethicists I know base things on preference. Humans have preferences for various things, and we want to live in a world where we have the greatest chance of living out our preferences. They identify this state as the happy life, and then they ask what kind of world fulfils that.
    Like the Europeans that came to North America to live out their preferences?
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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    • #47
      Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
      Wrong. I don't think any evolutionary biologist would say anything like that. You're assuming that if something exists in a current population, then it had survival value and was selected for.
      When it's present in virtually every animal on the planet, yes. This is a gross aberration:



      Second, other than this trait being prevalent, there's nothing to suggest that its hardwired into us.
      Sure there is: it shows up in babies who haven't had social indoctrination yet as shown earlier.

      Much more likely xenophobia builds on more fundamental traits and preferences of the familiar. If these are the ones that have survival value, and xenophobia just piggybacking on it as an abnormal development then you haven't shown that a potential naive evolutionary moralist should take accept these behaviours as good and normative.
      Xenophobic, tribalistic populations have much higher birth rates. They also have high retention rates. They will devour you whole. The reproductive and survival advantages of xenophobia is so obvious to me that it's staggering there are still people on this planet ignorant enough not to see it.

      Thirdly, I don't think anyone who advocates for evolutionary explanations of our sense of morality argues anything like this. So you're building up a strawman.
      There are plenty of right wing atheists who argue exactly like that.
      "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

      There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by seer View Post
        Then we are back to what decides good or evil. If we are not basing ethics on survival value then on what?
        You could have started a thread to ask that question rather than say something provocative based on an answer no one around here would give.

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        • #49
          Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
          You could have started a thread to ask that question rather than say something provocative based on an answer no one around here would give.
          That nobody would give an answer that is obviously true from an atheist perspective is pretty sad.
          "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

          There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
            You could have started a thread to ask that question rather than say something provocative based on an answer no one around here would give.
            Well no sea, one answer leads to another question, and so on. That is often how discussions happen.
            Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by Darth Executor View Post

              Racism isn't morality. Young children don't show the discrimination that accompanies racism (they also eat things off the floor so 'discrimination' of any sort may not be in their make up).
              "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

              "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

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              • #52
                Originally posted by Darth Executor View Post
                When it's present in virtually every animal on the planet, yes.
                I have no idea what this statement even means in the context of racism. I have never heard of a racist canary bird.

                youtube
                This isn't interesting, and I can't watch it for various reasons.

                Sure there is: it shows up in babies who haven't had social indoctrination yet as shown earlier.
                It shows up in babies who are starting to learn how to recognise faces. If they've been exposed to primarily white faces all their life, is it then odd that they find a coloured face odd? And vice versa. This doesn't tell me anything about white babies being hardwired to recognise white parents, this tells me more about what kind of environment they're exposed to.

                They pick up an odd behaviour, later it ought to be unlearned, which is the only right thing to do. Just as they have to learn not to pick their noses, even though that might have figured into learning hand coordination and body mapping at one point.

                Xenophobic, tribalistic populations are awesome
                ZZzzzz... wake me up when you have a point, or can explain why their xenophobia is the cause of that, and not extreme religiosity (which can be a good thing if they're catholics), poverty, etc...

                There are plenty of right wing atheists who argue exactly like that.
                You're right, I tend to ignore stupid people.

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                • #53
                  Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                  I have no idea what this statement even means in the context of racism. I have never heard of a racist canary bird.
                  It means that all animals are hard-wired to support genetically similar animals (usually the same species, though it can narrow down to the same tribe) at the expense of less genetically similar animals (and other life-forms). It's why so many animals travel in packs of similar individuals and hunt animals from packs of other not so similar individuals, or in the case of herbivores, travel together for protection. The difference between lions and gazelles are bigger than that between white people and black people, or english and irish, but it's the same phenomenon. As I explained earlier, genes that do not favor themselves at the expense of others are at a disadvantage.

                  This isn't interesting, and I can't watch it for various reasons.
                  It's hippies wailing over dead trees, like their sister just died or something.

                  It shows up in babies who are starting to learn how to recognise faces. If they've been exposed to primarily white faces all their life, is it then odd that they find a coloured face odd? And vice versa. This doesn't tell me anything about white babies being hardwired to recognise white parents, this tells me more about what kind of environment they're exposed to.
                  No, you don't understand. Babies enjoy it when people (well, puppets) who prefer a different cereal suffer. Dislike of things unlike us is hard-wired.

                  They pick up an odd behaviour, later it ought to be unlearned, which is the only right thing to do. Just as they have to learn not to pick their noses, even though that might have figured into learning hand coordination and body mapping at one point.
                  They don't pick up an odd behavior, they start with the odd behavior. It can be unlearned, but of course, if you don't unlearn it from everybody you end up with predatory groups that extract benefits from the universalists and render the latter at a disadvantage. That all groups have an incentive to turn other groups universalist while remaining tribalistic themselves is also obvious.

                  ZZzzzz... wake me up when you have a point, or can explain why their xenophobia is the cause of that, and not extreme religiosity (which can be a good thing if they're catholics), poverty, etc...
                  Fundamentalism is pretty much defined by xenophobia.

                  Do you even live on this planet?

                  You're right, I tend to ignore stupid people.
                  There's nothing stupid about it. In an atheistic environment racism is the obvious way to go, among other things.
                  "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

                  There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                    Racism isn't morality. Young children don't show the discrimination that accompanies racism (they also eat things off the floor so 'discrimination' of any sort may not be in their make up).
                    Yeah, they do. Quite heavily.

                    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/babies-h...s-of-morality/

                    Skip to about 7 minutes in.
                    "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

                    There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Psychic Missile View Post
                      Then why do they carry that stance?
                      Inconsistency with their stated beliefs. They say believe in materialism, but the morals taught to them that they hold to don't stand up to deep scrutiny if everything truly is materialistic. Granted, I'm not going to fault them for holding to something moral. Rather, I'd say that, since their stated materialism necessarily leads to a rejection of their morals, they should therefore reject the materialism.

                      Originally posted by Psychic Missile View Post
                      Plenty of Christians have appealed to God's moral law for the opposite reason. How do you know that Christian behavior is informed by Biblical law rather than the moral zeitgeist and individual traits?
                      Because "Love your enemies, bless those who curse, do good to those that hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you," is written clearly in the Scriptures and taught clearly by our Lord. Also, it's written in the Psalms that those who we are supposed to hate aren't other races, but rather, those who hate the Lord and rise up against Him. Not that hating them is an excuse to not love them, as we are still commanded to do good to them and bless them irregardless of our feeling towards them, but it does mean that our natural xenophobic tendencies are supposed to by re-directed to adamantly oppose them who rise up against our God. The appropriate object of hatred, of course, is the devil and his fallen angels.

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                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Paprika View Post
                        It's more accurate to say that biology can and does inform morality.
                        Can you elaborate?
                        I'm not here anymore.

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                          Second, other than this trait being prevalent, there's nothing to suggest that its hardwired into us. Much more likely xenophobia builds on more fundamental traits and preferences of the familiar. If these are the ones that have survival value, and xenophobia just piggybacking on it as an abnormal development then you haven't shown that a potential naive evolutionary moralist should take accept these behaviours as good and normative.
                          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                          I was puzzled by that as well, but Carrikature isn't prevented from making mistakes like that. It would be up to him to defend that it had survival value in the past rather than postulate it. In the name of gracious interpretation, I think he might just have been defending that even if the basic premise of what you said was true, no morality could be drawn from in the naive way you're proposing.
                          To begin with, I'm not convinced there are real differences between things like xenophobia and racism. In the same way that gambling and alcoholism can be very different manifestations of an addictive personality, I think what we see in xenophobia and racism are different manifestations of the same group preference (if there's an actual word for this I don't know). I think this is what DE is saying as well. That exhibition of preference, and with it discrimination, is indeed prevalent in many complex life forms. I think you actually acknowledge this somewhat in the first quote where you indicate that xenophobia piggybacks on preferences for the familiar. I would simply modify that to say that xenophobia and racism are more extreme versions of preference for the familiar.

                          Looked at in this way, it's not quite the stretch to say that racism may have had survival benefits. I don't know that it's possible to defend a claim that it absolutely did (though I realize that I said as much initially). Of course, most explanations of this nature don't require one to establish that it did happen, only that it's plausible and consistent. I think I can defend that rather easily, but I'm not sure it's necessary at this point. Suffice to say that if preference for the familiar has survival advantages (seems a given), so too would racism/tribalism albeit with potentially less benefit. I'd also say that there are probably sustainable levels of something like racism or xenophobia beyond which ostracization turns inward and becomes detrimental. Too much of any extreme seems to spell death for a species. That's life.

                          Of course, I might be dead wrong. It's happened before. It will happen again.


                          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                          I know that Carrikature does not support the idea that if something exists in nature, then its morally good and should be imitated. Even if it had survival value. I think he sees evolution ultimately as giving us a unified and well defended account of how we got to have our current nature. It explains why humans work in certain ways, and fail to work in other ways.
                          This is spot on.


                          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                          It might not be 'evolutionary wrong'. Most naturalistic ethicists I know base things on preference. Humans have preferences for various things, and we want to live in a world where we have the greatest chance of living out our preferences. They identify this state as the happy life, and then they ask what kind of world fulfills that.
                          I find preference to be part of the story. I think making it the whole story is expecting too much. I think calling it the happy life is a result of current attitudes about happiness and is ultimately misguided. I agree that most seem to take this approach.
                          I'm not here anymore.

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Originally posted by Darth Executor View Post
                            It means that all animals are hard-wired to support genetically similar animals (usually the same species, though it can narrow down to the same tribe) at the expense of less genetically similar animals (and other life-forms). It's why so many animals travel in packs of similar individuals and hunt animals from packs of other not so similar individuals, or in the case of herbivores, travel together for protection. The difference between lions and gazelles are bigger than that between white people and black people, or english and irish, but it's the same phenomenon. As I explained earlier, genes that do not favor themselves at the expense of others are at a disadvantage.
                            In this I think we agree.
                            I'm not here anymore.

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              Carrikature in the past you have made it clear that you don't believe in human freedom, free will. And if that is the case biology drives everything, there is nothing else. How we think, our response to stimuli, the cultures and relationships we develop are all dictated by biology.
                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              I understand the claim Carrikature, but you have yet to show how anything, behavior, ethics, etc... can rise above biology. If biology doesn't dictate our moral sense then what does?
                              I want to start with what I think is perhaps the most important puzzle piece in my thinking that you seem to be missing. It's one that I'm pretty sure has never been explicitly stated by me, so I'm going to correct that now. The issue is one of scope and scale.

                              Take lightning for example. When we see lightning, we see a flash of brilliant light moving from the clouds to the ground (usually). We can, and do, come up with all kinds of names for this lightning depending on the form we see. There's ball lightning, heat lightning, forked lightning...just to name a few. We can talk about and compare these kinds of lightning. That's one level of discussion. Another level of discussion would be in terms of electrostatic discharge. We could discuss how voltage differentials build up, we can discuss conditions that lead to these differentials, how discharges happen in steps, and so on. However, when we discuss electrostatic discharge, we're not limited to just lightning. We could be talking about capacitors or an electrical short. We talk in terms of dielectric strength, electrical fields, and dielectric breakdowns. The specific instance of a discharge is less important than the more fundamental mechanism of the discharge itself. The difference here is one of scope. The more fundamental a description, the broader the scope. In addition, some behaviors become noticeable at different scales. It's impossible to see lightning at the discharge scale, primarily because lightning is a series of discharges.

                              Now, when we mention that lightning is a series of electrostatic discharges, have we eliminated lightning as a phenomenon? Of course not. Lightning as a term applies to one scale, electrostatic discharge applies to another. Even though we've defined lightning in terms of electrostatic discharge (reductionism), we do not discard lightning. I have mentioned before the difference between eliminative and preservative reductionism. One could say that lightning is nothing more than electrostatic discharge (eliminative), or one could say that lightning is a specific manifestation of electrostatic discharge (preservative). This is an extremely important difference. It's quite often a subtle distinction, but I don't think I can stress enough its importance. I really can't.

                              The only form of reductionism I have ever seen you express is eliminative. I do NOT hold to eliminative reductionism.

                              Now, language is really messy. We have words, but the meaning of those words are partially internal and partially external in nature. That is, you have something you mean by a word. I have something I mean by the same word. We communicate most successfully when you and I have the same meaning in mind for a word. There are degrees of success, and it's possible to communicate without having exactly the same meaning in mind in most cases. This is where the subtlety of reductionism comes in. When you say "X is nothing more than Y", it's eliminative. When I say "X is nothing more than Y", it's preservative. When you say it, you're actually claiming that X does not exist. This is not true for me. When I say it, I'm actually claiming that Y completely accounts for X. (FWIW, I actually try to refrain from using "nothing more than" specifically to avoid confusion, with limited success).


                              Regrettably, I think that's enough for now. It's almost midnight, and I'm getting up at 5:30am again tomorrow. Before I go, I'll pose a few challenges for you in response to other things you've said.


                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              Well the bottom line, in my view, is that all ethics (good or bad in a godless universe) are driven by biology. Carrikature, Tass and others have made it clear in the past that free will does not exist, therefore it follows that our moral sense is driven by biology - and there is no right or wrong in biology - only what works. If being a bastard helps one to survive, then being a bastard is good.
                              You have skipped a lot of steps to claim "therefore it follows". It does NOT automatically follow that moral sense is driven by biology. There are other options. I challenge you to come up with a few for yourself and present them, no matter how implausible or inept you think they are.


                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              Then we are back to what decides good or evil. If we are not basing ethics on survival value then on what? Here is an example - the Europeans come to North America. They are technologically more advanced, more aggressive, and possibly more intelligent, and eventually more numerous. They pretty much wipe out the native population and take over the land - and prosper. How, in the evolutionary sense, is that morally wrong? It would be no more unethical than one species of bacteria taking over or destroying another species of bacteria.
                              Indeed! If from an evolutionary sense it is not morally wrong, in what sense is it morally wrong? Just like before, I challenge you to come up with some answers and present them.
                              I'm not here anymore.

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
                                You could have started a thread to ask that question rather than say something provocative based on an answer no one around here would give.
                                He had to get to the point where he could even ask that question. It takes realizing that the assumed answer is based on faulty reasoning, which hadn't (hasn't?) happened yet.
                                I'm not here anymore.

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