1. The Group Delusion

Comment #110818 by spiderdancer on January 12, 2008 at 5:46 pm

In response to tribalypredisposed it is important to remember that genetic evolution is a very slow process. The genes simply haven't had chance to keep pace with technological and cultural changes of the 20th century.

I fully accept that the warrior example might be a case of group selection as the tribe generally fights a battle as a single vehicle. The point is that the bravery of an individual benefits his reproductive success directly relative to the population as a whole.

This is in contrast to kin altruism where an individual may severely incapacitate his own reproductive prospects if in doing so this increases the chances of his genes being passed on by a relative.

2. The Group Delusion

Comment #110767 by spiderdancer on January 12, 2008 at 10:50 am

Kin selection is vital in explaining altruism. And it is crucial to distinguish this from group selection.

Real altruism is when a vehicle reduces its chances of directly propagating its own lineage (often spectacularly) for the sake of another. This must occur because the behaviour in evolutionary history has generally led to in indirect propagation of its genes through a related vehicle.

Altruism due to group selection is fundamentally different. A brave warrior may also be said to be 'altruistic'. But this is only in the sense that he puts himself at a fitness disadvantage compared to other members of his tribe. But looking at the bigger picture, he is still behaving as a 'selfish vehicle', still maximising his number of direct descendents across the whole population. In other words he is really just helping the tribe as a means of helping himself, and dragging along a few free riders in the process. The bigger picture may also mean several generations (as it may take time for tribes with few 'altruists' to implode). So this is not really altruism at all or at least it is altruism of a different flavour.

Altruism of the second kind, unlike kin selection altruism, is susceptible to 'subversion from within', that is the 'altruist' being outcompeted within the group before the bigger picture can play out. Special conditions for group formation and extinction are therefore required for this kind of altruism to persist.

3. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #107806 by spiderdancer on January 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Of course the article has cherry picked some of Harris arguments to make the case more compelling. But in my view Gorenfeld has every right to do this.

The issue is absolutely fundamental and Harris has absolutely no reason to leave room for doubt. So I undertand why some on this thread think Dawkins should distance himself. James Randi at least has joined in the crtiticism.

It is either rational thinking using the scientific method or not! The results of the experiments Harris cites have not been properly verified. But the point is even if they were true the evidence would only be compatible with reincanation as well as an indefinite number of alternative hypotheses. Reincarnation is extremely improbable. To put reincarnation on a pedestle amounts to pseudo-science.

It won't do for Harris to claim he has been misrepresented. He is brilliant at debunking belief in God but he must come out and admit he has now abondoned these ideas to be worthy of the title of rational thinker.

4. Interview with Richard Dawkins: On Christmas

Comment #100412 by spiderdancer on December 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm

Not bad but not quite as good as the excellent CBC performance. Just a little bit aggressive, not relaxed enough for my liking (though in response to Vine perhaps anyone would be).

5. CBC News: Sunday - Richard Dawkins

Comment #100101 by spiderdancer on December 18, 2007 at 8:39 am

Absolutely top marks to Dawkins here. I've watched so many of these and this one was very good. Seemed to talk at a higher tempo than normal and with a smile. Not so aggressive but full of fluent answers.

6. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #99927 by spiderdancer on December 17, 2007 at 9:55 pm

It may well be Harris (not Hitchens) who doesn't deserve to be in the company of the others. His position on (belief in?) reincarnation - not discussed in this conversation but available on YouTube - is irrational, embarrassing even, given his prominence as a voice of reason. He urgently needs to clear this up.

Hopefully the others will challenge him head on next time round!

7. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #99715 by spiderdancer on December 17, 2007 at 11:50 am

What an excellent 2 hours. Good comments by IanG. Think I'm leaning towards a moderator.

This is all about rational thinking so smoking (not after all irrational) has nothing to do with it.

But I too have my reservations about Hitchins. Great to have someone charismatic and from a different background. But he seems to be a poor listener. The main problem is his occassional tendency to answer the same question differently; his repeated contradictions perhaps aided by alcohol. Are religions equally bad? Would the world be better if religion is irradicated? Also loose use of 'non-overlapping magisteria' not in the way Gould used it etc. All of this suggest muddled reasoning or that Hitch values theatre more importantly than the ideas.

A hopefully constructive criticism of Dawkins too. He seems to frequently back off from the question of whether some religions may have benefit by saying the main thing he cares about whether it (the existence of God) is TRUE and concedes the general ponit that belief in a falsehood could be beneficial. This won't do. Either he's going into the territory of saying the world would be better of without religion and presenting evidence for this or he isn't.

8. Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims

Comment #83022 by spiderdancer on October 28, 2007 at 3:19 pm

NO. Scientific claims require evidence not faith. They will be thrown out if they don't fit the evidence, cannot be tested or contain unnecessary elements that don't add to their predictive power.

Religious claims, on the other hand, are generally not testable and unparsimonious. A believer must have faith as there is no objective basis for choosing one religious claim ahead of its rivals.

9. Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

Comment #75427 by spiderdancer on October 2, 2007 at 4:01 pm

"But it can never be rational to say that because of my non-believe in religion, it would be good to murder, oppress women..."

What if I am brought up with a religious indoctrination that defines murder and oppressing women as sins. Then one day I break free, lose faith and fall into a brand of hedonistic atheism in which anything that feels good is good. Anything that feels right is defined as being right.

Now free from regious indoctrination, I decide take the law into my own hands and murder my brother who stole my inheritance. All of a sudden it is beginning to sound more reasonable to attribute my murderous vigilantism to non-belief.

Dawkins must be careful not to imply just because one defines goodness in a certain way one will be motivated to act according to this. And whether religions on balance do good surely depends on their success in suppressing evil tendencies by indoctrinating good values. This seems to be very much an empirical question and while I am on the atheists side I would prefer to see more evidence and a bit less conjecture.

10. Richard Dawkins Replies to David Sloan Wilson

Comment #56332 by spiderdancer on July 15, 2007 at 5:29 am

To Comment 39 by Luis_Cayetano.

My reaction to reading this is what a shame both DS Wilson and Dawkins lace their serious science with a few personal criticisms. And Wilson seems to be attacking TGD for the purpose of publicising his book.

Putting this to one side the real debate is about the unit of selection. Dawkins and Wilson both accept the vehicle, replicator distinction and that the replicator view can provide great insights as Dawkins has shown expertly. They are also both critical of 'naive group selectionism'.

They agree in one sense replicators and vehicles are the 'apples and oranges' of the unit of selection debate. But in another they compete: which can provide most illumnination to evolutionary theory, which can offer the greatest insight?

Dawkins is the champion of the gene whereas Wilson "has been obsessing for 30 years" about the group. Dawkins argument is that understanding natural selection in terms of levels of vehicles is unwieldly, less parsimonious and likely to cause confusion. Essentially it is an extra layer of explanation that adds little and should be dispensed with. Wilson on the other hand is far open to the possibility that there is plenty to be gained from with-in group and between group perspective (in addition to the gene's eye view).

Wilson in colloboration with Sober (another of Wilson's armchair men?) has pointed out that benefits to a group must ultimately benefit the individual members of a group. And this allows group selection to be represented as individual selection, collapsing the distinction between selection at different levels. Wilson (and Sober) call this the 'averaging fallacy', a common mistake but one Dawkins in general does not commit.

Dawkins agrees group selection is an empirical possibility, just unlikely to have a significant evolutionary influence. This is because group selection will tend to be a weak relative to individual selection as the generation time is longer and the variation between groups is smaller. Group selection, when it opposes individual selection, also has the problem of 'subversion from within'.

This is where Wilson's not-so-private redefinition comes in. (Though it has to be said nobody has yet given a satisfactory definition of group.) It seems that in multi-level selection theory just fleeting acquaintances can count as groups. In his 1994 reply to Wilson 'Burying the Vehicle' Dawkins identified a number of problems with the multi-level approach saying that ''phenotypic effects (interactors) [may be] too diffuse, too multi-levelled, too incoherent to deserve the accolade of vehicle''. But then proceeded, perhaps hastily, to bury the vehicle concept altogether.
1994 - Burying the Vehicle


Listening to Dawkins recently he seems to be more accommodating towards the within-group between-group idea. But has he officially unearthed the vehicle as a potentially illuminating perspective and become a vehicle agnostic?