How Do We Account For Instinct?

walter rondeau
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How Do We Account For Instinct?

I came across this post after wondering how to square instinct and the theory of evolution. http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Do-We-Account-for-Instinct?&id=689449 This is a creationists viewpoint. What could be the atheist/evolutionist explanation for instinct?


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walter rondeau wrote: I

walter rondeau wrote:
I came across this post after wondering how to square instinct and the theory of evolution. http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Do-We-Account-for-Instinct?&id=689449 This is a creationists viewpoint. What could be the atheist/evolutionist explanation for instinct?

This article doesn't seem very scientific to me. The author seems to just accept that humans have 'free will' but that lower animals do not. I think science has pretty much show that free will doesn not exist, it is an illusion. All animals have pre-programmed responses to certain stimuli and they have the capacity to learn new behaviors based on learning from experience. Humans have evolved a much greater and more complex capacity to learn new behaviors. But we don't really have any free will.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-free-will-an-illusion

Don't trust your instincts about free will.

"Evolutionists offer no explanation for instinct. They usually avoid the subject."

This is an bald faced lie. Richard Dawkins for one has written and discussed this extensive and he is far from avoiding its discussion(you can google it). Darwin did as well. This guy that wrote this article is dishonest, so why trust him any further?



 

 

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EXC wrote: "Evolutionists

EXC wrote:

 

"Evolutionists offer no explanation for instinct. They usually avoid the subject."

This is an bald faced lie. Richard Dawkins for one has written and discussed this extensive and he is far from avoiding its discussion(you can google it). Darwin did as well. This guy that wrote this article is dishonest, so why trust him any further?


 

 

Evolution offers no explanation for instinct ? I don't know where the writer of this article has been for the last century, but any visit to your local library will offer TONS of books on the subject. 

That article could have been written by a kindergartner, with it's arguments from incredulity. After all, even if something in nature is inexplicable (which nothing in that article demonstrates) to leap to the automatic conclusion that some deity is responsible for it, is plain illogical. 

After all, millions of years of evolution is what shaped instinct. Thousands upon thousands of species had to either die off or evolve for the world to be as it is today. The process is still happening today. 

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
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"Charles Darwin on the

"Charles Darwin on the Origin of Species"

Chapter VI "What shall we say to the so marvellous an instinct as that which leads the bee to make cells..." 

Chapter VII "Cell making instinct of the Hive-bee"

See also on these chapters and others on the migration instinct questions.

The author of that article has clearly not done his homework and is of the school of " I don't know, must be God".  And since he doesn't have the knowledge, he assumes it doesn't exist. I don't find it worthy of writing out sections of these chapters nor can I put it eloquently in a short summary for you without leaving out many key points. Short of a very large essay I would do Mr. Darwin no credit.

If Darwin isn't enough there are many others who have expounded on this over the last 100 yrs or so. 

Or you can just let the man have his delusional Eureka moment.

"...but truth is a point of view, and so it is changeable. And to rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world is just as base as to use force." -Hypatia


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walter rondeau wrote:
I came across this post after wondering how to square instinct and the theory of evolution. http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Do-We-Account-for-Instinct?&id=689449 This is a creationists viewpoint. What could be the atheist/evolutionist explanation for instinct?

Extreme statistical events are not deterministic no matter how extreme. The statistical rarity of these examples and all the rest of the creationist examples is in itself noteworthy.

There is no mention of free will so the article is not in opposition to anything.

Insects are the oldest land animals from as much as 600 million years ago. Over all those years so few are remarkable that it should show there is no possibility of directed development. Literally hundreds of millions of generations and this is the best they got? Given several generations per year, billions of generations and the vast majority of them are at best merely curious except to the specialists.

And these extremes are over rated. Termites go down until they find water. What does the final depth matter? If at a 100 they found nothing and the colony migrated that might be interesting.

The accuracy of the honeycomb? Given the size ratio that would be more like 2mm to us which is trivial. Given the ratio of the "hands" the honeycomb cell is incredibly sloppy. Why should the long migration be the example as opposed to shorter migrations and no migrations at all for the vast majority? And as the article should say, of all the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of species only 250 migrate. Given the hundreds of millions of years why aren't some insects migrating to the moon? Why have these few species failed to evolve so they do not need to migrate? If we are looking at the losers they are no longer impressive. Throwing in "how do they find this town" is clearly to make it sound more impressive than it is. You might as well ask how they read the road signs.

Here we also have curiosity elevated to importance without evidence. They migrate back to the same place every year. So? Are they too dumb to find some place better? It is 100% certain they are not canvasing the state looking for it. So that they do it is a curiosity, how they do it is of interest. Without knowing more than that it happens anything beyond the fact that it happens is imputing meaning that is not present in the simple fact.

Despite other insects mentioned the discussion is only of honeybees and monarch butterflies. The wasps and others mentioned are hardly remarkable. So there are exactly two species being conflated. There are hundreds of species of bees in addition to the honeybee and thousands of butterflies in addition to this one. And they do nothing but produce something remarkable only in the sense of statistical outliers.

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EXC wrote:
But we don't really have any free will.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-free-will-an-illusion

Don't trust your instincts about free will.

The problem with free will is the lack of working definition. The folks who are against it essentially imply it means decisions without any regard to the context in which a choice is made. Until someone tells me how to step out of this reality I have no idea how that is possible.

A recent study watched the decision making brain centers light up before a question was asked and waxed ecstatic claiming the decision was not made after the choice was offered. If there is anyone who has not thought about how to answer a question they know is coming I would look for brain injury.

In practice all I can see of free will is that one can choose to act against perceived rational self or group interest. That almost never happens and when it does we advise the person to get a psych eval.

As self and group interests are not always simple we do evaluate the choices at some level and do choose between benefits to self against benefits to group. Of course that is something we do. Conflating the word free with making decisions is the madness of philosohers. When it comes to choices we see them, evaluate them and choose among them. What does free have to do with rational behavior?

However let a theist into it and sin is choosing not to follow the simplistic mandate of some priest who wants both his ring and ass kissed.

Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.

www.ussliberty.org

www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html

www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml