Topic: Evolution
Quote: **\nDerived from the materialist Hobbesian view that \'life/nature\' is, "A war of all against all."
Response: Hobbes specifically said that this is not the case. Cooperation exists, and is essential. Without it, the life of man would be "a war of all against all", and would be "solitary, nasty, brutish, and short." But man is inherently, biologically social, at the level of the family and the tribe. Daniel Boone, moving further into the wilderness whenever he could see the smoke from someone else\'s cabin, or solitary hermits in the desert, are quite rare, and even they are dependent on the rest of society for sustenance. Solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments short of serious physical damage.\nNor is a war of all against all true in evolution. Evolutionary theory includes the evolution of cooperation and altruism along with murder, hunting, and the like. For example, the cooperation of the cells in your body to form organs that support each other, and the mechanism of apoptosis by which most pre-cancerous cells and others that have suffered damage destroy themselves. Or the convergent evolution of numerous species of hive and nest insects (and naked mole rats) from solitary precursors. Or the cooperative evolution of eye and brain structures from light-sensitive cells, or bird\'s wings along with hollow bones, or symbiosis of all kinds, including intracellular organelles such as mitochondria. Coevolution of bees and flowers is another instance. Or crocodiles not eating the birds that clean their teeth.
0.0