1. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Comment #113893 by niccodeamus on January 20, 2008 at 11:54 pm

Caterpillar, thanks for the reply. I will look for the handicaps thread

2. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #112191 by niccodeamus on January 16, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Well, good luck Mr Scales.
It was a pleasure to meet you and I laugh at the thought of you instructing your surgeons on how they might perform their functions with greater skill and efficiency.

3. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Comment #112187 by niccodeamus on January 16, 2008 at 2:16 pm

@ caterpillar
"A contradiction. A quality is selected for because it is a hindrance to survival."
is the fact that the hinderance is positively selected for a hinderance or a requirement for survival. is survival a gene matter or a vehicle matter?
how does the "pain for gain" theories translate/relate to altruism and the evolution of societal behaviours. Can it be used to counter "group selection"

4. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #86074 by niccodeamus on November 8, 2007 at 4:28 am

it seems this debate has some popular support.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19626281.500
you need to be a subscriber to read the whole article, i dont know the copyright issues about posting it. in a nutshell, it discusses the (newly re-fashionable) group selection theories and why it was probably wrong to dismiss them in the 60's. Very interesting stuff

5. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #84386 by niccodeamus on November 2, 2007 at 12:48 am

Atticus: Ok, I clearly disagree with Prf Dawkins if his view is that tribal benefits are irrelevant to the individual on a genetic level, so that probably makes me wrong.

6. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #84129 by niccodeamus on November 1, 2007 at 8:34 am

Here is a related question.
How does a population that is 'in extremis' , say famine, respond in the way is distributes resources across the age profile. In African famines we are bombarded with horrendous images of starving/malnourished children. But I have heard, apocryphally, that the adults are often better nourished. I wonder how populations treat their elders in this situation, and whether the children are "allowed" to die off first.
There is small support in western culture in that abortion is condoned but euthanasia is not.
The point would be, how (the genetic pressure of) society values its elders against the personal genetic value of offspring

7. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #84026 by niccodeamus on November 1, 2007 at 3:16 am

This is a flaky website, second go, lost the last long attempt (and only just read the small print to save before posting :-(
I think that society may be a more important driver in evolution that it is given credit for. Altruistic behaviour benefits the individual via strong society, strong societies are more successful than weak. An altruistic behaviour immediately benefits a related tribe, but eventually it becomes standard, were are, after all, all human. The child morality experiments show this nicely.
Taking the elderly issue literally, there are clear benefits in a tribal situation to preserve the elderly (bad choice of words), as they hold the largest amount of acquired knowledge and handed-down information that can be used to benefit the tribe as a whole.
Strong (tribal) societies will expand their populations better than the loose weak societies, and I suggest this is the reproductive advantage.
The disadvantage (in modern times) to this preservation of the elderly, strength of the community, and altruism is the power it hands to memes. If you take religion and slot it into the evolutionary society that humans appear to have developed (or that have developed humans) you have a powerful social tightening effect that could easily have a beneficial population expanding result.
I agree with you last paragraph comment 45, and it still is valid from my view point. Personally, however, I draw the line at GWB

8. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83977 by niccodeamus on November 1, 2007 at 12:11 am

I think Prof Dawkins himself proposed the Meme, but here, only genes need apply. I am not quite clear where you think another unit of selection might be required, but much behaviour is based in the genes, instinct. we are instinctively societal creatures. the selective pressure of that type of behaviour being successful has favoured the genes propagation. In the God Delusion, Prof Dawkins quotes studies that compare the morals of children from different races and religions and find them consistent until religious indoctrination causes deviation. this moral "code" is hard-wired, genetic, and is the base of much of our behaviour. so all i suggest is a reason for being kind and preserving of the elderly and suggest it has an evolutionary benefit and therefore this type of behaviour may be in our "moral genes"

9. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83845 by niccodeamus on October 31, 2007 at 1:07 pm

I would hazard that the evolutionary advantage is the same as the explanation in this case. I think that the evolution of "society", basically Nice Guys Finish First, explains this phenomenon. A valuable reason in pre-historic society for preserving the elderly (a massive drain of often scarce resource) must be their acquired knowledge and wisdom. Man is a societal creature, and if behaviour is looked at from a pre-history societal view point, insight can often be gained. So, I suggest that manners and respect for the elderly are altruistic behaviours that benefited the society as a whole by preserving knowledge (and possibly adversely by preserving religion).
Many laws, including laws laid down by religions, seem have their basis in societal behaviours, and I would be prepared to guess that modern laws that favour the individual above society as a whole will eventually be recognised as destructive and repealled

10. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #14082 by niccodeamus on December 21, 2006 at 4:20 am

the issue of "junk" DNA was raised earlier in the thread, and personally I find it very (if not totally) compelling evidence for evolution. How does a creationist explain "junk" DNA? The issue of whether it is junk or not is hardly relevant. Great stretches of this DNA is virally inserted and can be traced back through our "family tree" for 10s if not 100s of millions of years. It is clear how and why viral RNA can be appropriated into our own genome, we understand the method and even the probability of such an event. The fact is this is an unlikely event, but given the eons available, DNA has been inserted with or without effect (mutation) and passed down the generations.
What is unclear to me is that if we didnt have a common ancestor with (say) a dog then why on earth would we have the same stretch of virally acquired DNA in the same position on the same gene.
Now GodDidIt does allow for this in the same way he might have scattered fossils about in the right order. But what sort of malicious hoaxer would bother?
I look forward to one of the deists supplying answers.