(June 24, 2015 at 12:39 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Evolution unfortunately works with force and cruelty, one example would be pregnancy through rape. But we also evolved with empathy and compassion which is why we react negatively to such things.I think that one thing we're learning is that we also have evolved with a very self-centric view of the world. Even as we find ways to fit in with various social groups due to our mental wiring, we nonetheless place an inordinate amount of value on our own place within those groups. We not only matter to ourselves, we're pretty sure we matter a lot to everyone else... but they're thinking the exact same about themselves.
In any case, it's not surprising that a species that has a wildly overblown sense of its own value would build a mythology around just that concept. A universe birthed by a being of overwhelming power and magnificence, who nonetheless is quite concerned about what is happening on some barely-discernible dot on the fringes of his peripheral vision. It's the equivalent of any of us suddenly taking a keen interest in the opinions (and breeding habits) of the Demodex that we happen to host.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
