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Originally Posted by photon
Sure that's the purpose of our biological processes.. Read his Selfish Gene, from a gene's point of view we're merely transport mechanisms for genes to propagate.
Humanity could also be seen as a host for language to transmit and propagate itself if you are a linguist.
It depends on what context you are talking about.
Ultimately what else are we than survival machines then? And like I said before, you liking or not liking a view doesn't have anything to do with the validity of that view.
I lost you, evolution is a major tool in modern biology (biology being the quest to explain and understand all aspects of biological development, which includes humans). Without evolution, modern biology does not exist.
What's an example of using evolution inappropriately as an ideology to explain human development?
Of course it was, but if evolution hadn't been discovered yet, they would have went ahead anyway using some other reason agreed?
Like I said, just because someone takes something like natural selection and misuses it for their own ends doesn't mean ANYTHING with regards to the validity of that thing. Agreed?
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I agree with you to a certain extent. I do think that an understanding of human beings as simply existing to be survival machines has an effect on how we view the value of human life.
What I'm wary of, and I think a lot of sensible scientists agree, is the danger of how much consilience we are willing to allow between biology and the rest of our human understandings.
How does the validity of natural selection affect our moral understanding of certain issues, such as euthanasia?