I think Matt Ridley summed up the modern synthesis pretty well in his 2003 book, Nature via Nurture
“Bracingly intelligent, lucid, balanced—witty, too. . . . A scrupulous and charming look at our modern understanding of genes and experience.” — Oliver Sacks
Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about our genes, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature-versus-nurture debate in a thoughtful book about the roots of human behavior.
Ridley recounts the hundred years’ war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture. With the decoding of the human genome, we now know that genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will.
The thing is, that’s a contrived dead-end question. A contrivance of our mind to satisfy our mind.
We are biological bodies, our bodies possesses an innate knowledge based on a half billion years worth of evolution. Our bodies operate on instinct, innate knowledge, (genetic and more) - which is always bouncing off of the reality we are embedded in. Or to put it another way our body has its own agenda.
That body produces a mind that deals with the more complex aspects of life and all the window dressing that we humans are able to add to our existence. That mind is also involved in telling its physical body what to do, or perhaps more accurately suggesting, since the body can override your mind’s suggestions
But there is always a tension between our physical biological body’s agenda and our ephemeral mind’s dialogue, with its limitless dreams that bump up against the constraints of reality.
How can it possibly be one or the other?
That’s such a weird way to look at it.
That is exactly what I’m railing against.
What discussion?
The information is out there, the down to Earth discussion is still missing.
They gloss it over because the lesson hasn’t dawned on them.
Excuse me very much.
These words devolved into incomprehensibility. I have no idea what you are implying or trying to say.
Parents have been telling their child we are God’s children in one way or another. Many are told we can be whatever we want so long as we want it bad enough.
I’ve rarely heard a parents tell their kids they are in reality children of Earth’s processes, and to say “Mother Earth” is amazingly actually factually spot on, because she is and are the products of her processes.
I don’t even hear it in these lofty discussions. Sure lots of wonderful thoughts spoken and shared, but none of it really connects, post card notions rather than deep down appreciation that impact one’s entire outlook.
I believe that is because theres no straightforward coherent “theory of consciousness” - nor any deep introspection into the lessons evolution has to teach us about who we are. I believe that matters hugely is how stupidly we are treating our Earth, its creatures and landscapes. And so on.
Of course many firmly believe humanity is the only reason for the Earth to exist, so I realize most couldn’t care less one way to the other. To me it matters
You’ve also implied (in the past) to me Pinker’s climate assessment is reasonable, when it’s unhinged from the actual science.
His tunnel focus on a particular kind of violence, while ignoring the mass destruction and violence being heaped upon Earth’s other creatures and our very life support systems. Sorry, that sort of disingenuous tunnel vision infuriates me.
What makes Pinker’s book so fascinating are all sorts of nuggets of information along the way such as the fact that the rich used to be as violent as the poor but no longer;…
Does Pinker ever question the inequity that’s grown between executives and workers? Guess that’s categorized as non-violence so let’s not complicate his pretty story.
Instead today’s mega rich have evolved into sociopaths, lost in their own unsustainable pipe dreams that are speeding our own self-destruction. That’s not hyperbolae:
There’s more to violence against humanity than shooting and mugging people.
Feb 26, 2021
In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argues that human violence has declined across history. One part of this argument is that life in a state of nature – before civilization – was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Amongst other things, Pinker argues that hunter-gatherers, tribal societies, were – and are - much more violent than later more civilized societies. Both Pinker and Thomas Hobbes argue that the state and its monopolisation on force and authority have pacified our darker human nature.
This is a common trope:
In the 1996 book War Before Civilization, for example, archaeologist Lawrence Keeley argues that prehistoric violent deaths probably ranged from around 7-40% of all deaths. He says: ‘there is nothing inherently peaceful about hunting-gathering or band society’.
In 2003, Steve LeBlanc and Katherine Register claimed in their book Constant Battles that ‘everyone had warfare in all time periods’
Biologist Edward Wilson ‘Are human beings innately aggressive?’ Yes. Coalitional warfare is ‘pervasive across cultures worldwide’
John Tooby and Leda Cosmides declare that ‘Wherever in the archaeological record there is sufficient evidence to make a judgment, there traces of war are to be found. It is found across all forms of social organization—in bands, chiefdoms, and states.’
The book Demonic Males argues that ‘"neither in history nor around the globe today is there evidence of a truly peaceful society’.
Pinker has written that ‘Hobbes was right, Rousseau was wrong.’
Are – and were – hunter-gatherers really that violent? Brian Ferguson and Douglas Fry argue no. Looking at chimpanzees, bonobos, Otzi – the iceman – and a range of much more insightful ethnographical and archaeological evidence is the best way to find out.
Sorry for diverting off the original discussion about comprehending our own evolutionary origins and the obvious conclusion that our Gods are formed from within ourselves, (along with the entire galaxy of our thoughts & introspective consciousness) and absorbing that info -
I’ll do better using Sapolsky as my foil since I have a great deal of admiration for him and the book I’ve been listening to, he seems like a real scientist and sorry but Pinky remains a slimy snail oil salesman to me, and we’ll never have a healthy discuss around him. You are okay with ignoring too much, and I’m too irritated by him and over sensitized by his smugness and shallow dismissal of those who criticize him.
Not at all. The entire point is about the need to take Earth’s physical reality way more seriously than we currently do.
Thinking that human rationalizations and misrepresentations and omissions regarding the reality of humanity’s assault on our climate system and our biosphere health in general, are okay, … that is the problem.
And I’ve been trying to get to the roots of that sort disregard along with the arrogance embedded in so many talks, especial the philosophical kind. Like all that’s ‘out there’ outside our buildings simply didn’t matter.
Conversations full of "what if’s’ and ‘let’s suppose’ and that easily disregard for down to Earth constrains, as if real life was like a Hollywood movie.
That’s the essence of ‘being lost within one’s mindscape’,
That easy disregard (if not contempt) for rock solid facts (even if error margins exist they are solid.)
Or discussing multi decade projects sans all references to the trajectory of climatic upheaval and impacts coming our way, as Earth’ transitions into a more intense climate regime, is but one example.
Then of course the god thing, I wonder why I don’t hear more religious discussions or for that matter philosophical discuss that right in the introduction take the time to underscore that our gods are created from within ourselves, our hearts, soul, and mind. Gods are inhabitants of our mental universe, that is our mind, and Gods are real in so far a we make them real and meaningful and impactful.
Of course that goes hand in hand with a better understanding of our physical bodies and how everything you know is processed through your body/senses/brain then perceived as your thoughts, mind, consciousness.
Seems to me a simple recognition of what science has been learning, has a easier chance of sticking with the help of the sort of outline I’ve sketched out.
=======================
To clear up any confusion this is what I was referring to, the ocean of modern scientific information that is available and that tells a clear story, one that doesn’t need any help from metaphysics to understand human consciousness.
The previous post is my summary of an “Earth Centrist” outlook on life and our human condition, a perspective that acknowledges Earth as our fundamental touchstone with reality.
This Earth Centrist’s perspective can’t be attained by reading a description of it - unless it already resonates within you thanks to your own previous inquiry and inclination. That’s because each of us must engage in our own learning effort.
That is, living your moment and doing the homework and drawing your own conclusions from the evidence you’ve been able to gather. Your deeper understanding emerges out of your own efforts.
Since I’m no scholar, I’ve done my learning by way of some wonderful science communicators, mostly real scientists giving lectures via YouTube along with writing articles and books, with a few talented writers and science documentarians in the mix.
I’ve put together a bibliographic list of my favorites, and of course, it’s geared to the intelligent high schooler or early college student, and for other informed enthusiasts such as myself. It follows a natural progression from matter forming followed by mineral evolution & our planet evolving a “global heat and moisture distribution engine,” to geology and biology combining forces, on to the mysteries of complex dynamic living creatures. Then on to the greatest show on Earth with life’s collective consciousness spectrum.
Since my bandwidth is limited by my crowded day to days filled with other obligations, I’m sure I’m missing many awesome gems. So please do share should you believe you know of some presentations worth adding to this collection.
That is the big story, your consciousness isn’t an unsolvable mystery unless one sets up impossible expectations. The modern theory of mind, in layperson speak is that your biological body/brain interacts with itself & the environment produce consciousness.
The source of this consciousness is buried within the fabric of, not only our human creature body, but all other creatures also, each according to its biological kind.
Your body/brain is the cumulative product of half a billion years of a specific bloodline, dealing with an ever changing environment. Our bodies contains layers of innate understanding and imperatives totally beyond what our conscious mind can recognize, though we can see the results if we pay attention.
Your consciousness is best understood as a reflection of your own body communicating with itself.
Biological body/brain interacting with environment produces our Mind.
That brings us to the Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide.
As for Nature via Nurture that is subsumed by understanding that consciousness is an interaction, and each unique organism is living a unique life & times. It’s all interconnected and every moment produces it’s unique imprints, before rushing on to the next moment. And you get to play your part
I wasn’t asking for a discussion of Pinker and weighs gladly get to the Sapolsky talk. I’m not sure what to believe. You can find some disturbing references on Pinker, that video jumped around a lot, and seemed to be missing some of the actual themes. But I haven’t bread the book. I find others in agreement, mostly shorter articles with a few footnotes. This one seemed pretty thourough
No dude I listen to Pinker’s words, and then I do a little fishing to see if my gut feelings are off in left field, or if there are respectable people who’ve looked into the details who’s considering opinion & evidence, support my suspicions or not.
Some will call that bias fulfillment. So then it comes down to the quality of information one is willing to trust.
I’ll get back to Sapolsky, you’ve given me something worthwhile to work with, but I’m not going to rush it. Today was busy with water hauling and jazz.
As for Pinker, it’s that whole focus on violence I find a bit offense, because of it’s exclusion of other forms of “violence” and destruction inflicted upon our Earth’s systems; the violence of systematic economic inequity that has grown to utterly grotesque extremes; and so forth.
Also, his reactions to critiques further supports my impression of him as thin skinned, untrustworthy and unwilling to test his money-making formulation.
He’s created a bubble for feel good, just what the public is desperate for.
Can’t really argue against that. He gives the occasional nod to climate change, but inequity seems peripheral to him. I would need to see how he reacts to a direct question, but he’s up there in his ivory tower.
Economic inequality isn’t new. That has always led to revolution. This time, we face the possibility of using all these weapons we have or can we have that revolution through democratic change?
Kind of along these lines. The darkest parts of history have stories of compassion. Indeed, it is in those times when compassion is most needed. My fear in these times is that I’m seeing so many people turning away from their own good intentions and aspirations, frozen by the hate that is so easy to find, the terror that helps sell crap we don’t need.
Tru dat.
Hope is a survival strategy in hopeless times. I’m all for it.
But the conversation is bifurcating again. I’ll sign Howards Zinn’s statement. But my writing isn’t about the world.
My first priority is saving my sanity and living out my days honorably and constructively with every day holding its own adventures and challenges, even if some of those adventures really suck, the challenge is to deal with it. The heroic journey.
So let’s get back to Sapolsky.
The biology of our best and worst selves | Robert Sapolsky
1:25
I admire Sapolsky, but that doesn’t mean I endorse everything he says.
For instance, in this vignette about torturing Hitler, I do agree that every one of us is probably capable of killing given the circumstances. But there’s a far cry between killing to accomplish a goal, or a moment of rage, but to engage in gleeful torture and receive joy from inflicting agonizing pain to someone - that’s on an entirely different level.
I’m really surprised that Sapolsky never said anything about what it does to a person that treats another sadistically. I’m a proud man and here it comes down to possessing a solid sense of self, honor, ethics, and a determination not to allow some monster like a Hitler, or a Trump, to turn me into them.
As for emotions they get pretty well accounted for within a biological appreciation of our evolved creature body/brain producing its own mind, as it’s actively engaged in a dance with a complex physical/social world to achieve a productive satisfying day.
3:22 “Now, for starters, what’s totally boring is understanding the motoric aspects of the behavior.”
Here I disagree with the professor, I’m a sensualist.
Matter matters!
I have been utterly enthralled when learning ever more details of how my amazing body/brain operates, along with how the insides of other things function, it’s a fantastic pageant. I have had the good fortune of living through this spectacular past half century of amazing discoveries and insights about matters that humanity has spent tens of thousands of years wondering at, and thinking about.
One of the reasons these pieces of bio-mechanisms are key to truly understanding myself, is because of how they reveal the animal in me, nay, the animal that is me. I wonder if that aspect isn’t abhorrent to Sapolsky and others who cling to the echo’s of pre-evolution/biology/plate tectonics philosophy, we aren’t animals, we are god’s gift.
3:40 “What’s hard is understanding the meaning of the behavior, because in some settings, pulling a trigger is an appalling act; in others, it’s heroically self-sacrificial.”
“Understanding the meaning of the behavior”
These words baffle me. Behavior is a means for the body to accomplish its goals. What other “meaning” are we trying to find? What is he actually asking? Can you help me with that Lausten?
For many decades I’ve been fascinated in how we automatically adjust our behavior according to who is present in the room. Or how the same bottle of wine tastes different when drinking at home alone, or out at a restaurant after a smooth talking server pours it out for you, and you’re gazing into your sweeties eyes. As Sapolsky points out there are countless influences factoring into our decisions - some we are aware of, others we are oblivious to. Why make some philosophical mystery out of it?
Having Maddy dog pick me, then watching our relationship develop and to the point of it being a camaraderie is a great case study in consciousness. The meeting of a K9 mind with mine. The way I can talk and sing (I do a lot of cadence type singing to her - it’s given me whole new insights into marching solders, but that’s another story) to her and though she can’t understand the words or concepts the way I do, she understands our discussion within the contest of what’s happening. Meaning we are communicating. She recognizes some words and picks up on the tone of my voice, and the energy of my intentions. When a no is negotiable and when no means No, and so much more. It’s all so subtle and slippery to try and write down, wish I were better or had more time, because some of our moments really are fascinating and joyful.
Between that and spending extensive one on one time with a genuine infant starting at two weeks old and then two more babies starting at about a half year old, these past five years (added to previous baby encounters of the close kind), I’ve had a lot of time to mediate on the spectrum of consciousness up close and personal.
Since I appreciation that our consciousness is an interaction with surroundings, the question of why we react differently, kicking the dog one day and petting it the next seems self evident. How else could it be? Precisely because other things and creatures influence us, as we influence them, and then, right back at ya, as the day rushes past.
Key thought that I believe should be part of any introduction, is to explicitly point out that our minds are produced by our body/brain within a very dynamic interactive reality.
Same as it is with countless other biological creatures, each living out their lives according to their body plan and environment.
3:51
The challenge is to understand the biology of the context of our behaviors, and that’s real tough.
And I wonder why is that so tough? Because it seems rather self-evident to me. The biology of context is that your body is you. Your body is interacting with a physical world, while your mind is the reflection of that body communicating with itself as it’s sensing, processing and commanding.
4:02
“if you think there’s going to be the brain region or the hormone or the gene or the childhood experience or the evolutionary mechanism that explains everything.
Instead, every bit of behavior has multiple levels of causality.”
Appreciating that consciousness is a multi-level interaction, makes that self-evident.
That is exactly why “understanding the motoric aspects of the behavior.” Is so important, the whole can’t make sense without appreciating the details. Which is where doing one’s own homework is so important. Only self starters with genuine curiosity have a chance of amassing the information that clarifies.
4:48
So we asked this biological question: what was going on that caused this behavior. What caused this behavior?
I think that’s asking the wrong question.
And it reveals the speakers bias (bias that isn’t meant negatively, we all have our bias), it’s the recognition that’s important - and that makes a big difference to how we perceive the world and our attitude toward life, which in turn influences the way the world and life treat us.
The principle of Karma is for real (on a basic level) precisely because consciousness is an interaction.
9:57
“if you want to understand a behavior, whether it’s an appalling one, a wondrous one, or confusedly in between, if you want to understand that, you’ve got take into account what happened a second before to a million years before, everything in between.”
Here he underscores why a bottom up Evolutionary understanding is important.
Seems to me starting this narrative with asking the audience to try and comprehend themselves as the product of a unique bloodline, passed down mother to child in an unbroken genetic relay race, for a half billion years. Your blood carries the genetic lessons learned during those five hundred million years Earth’s research and development and attrition via countless generations.
Then start learning about the details of those half billion years and realize your body possesses innate knowledge and its own imperatives and goals, that aren’t always in line with what your conscious mind wants.
Add to that the astounding realization that your consciousness is the natural product of an evolved living creature a necessity for successfully participating in Earth’s Evolution race. That is the inside of your biological body processing data and communicating with itself.
10:11
So what can we conclude at this point?
10:13
Officially, it’s complicated.
10:45 Change
What changes people.
15:06
those who don’t study the biology of what can transform us from our worst to our best behaviors, those who don’t do this are destined not to be able to repeat these incandescent, magnificent moments.
So thank you.
Seems like a confusing over-complication.
Achieving a clear eyed bottom up evolutionary appreciation for how we got here, and who we are, seems to me the key to transforming our behaviors. Talk for talk won’t do it!
An appreciation that we aren’t the only one’s that matter, an explicit recognition that we are the product of Earth’s processes and that the label Mother Earth is actually factually correct, because Earth’s processes did produce and nurture us.
That’s exactly what the talk, and his life’s work, is about, so I’m confused already.
You’re requirements for what it means to “say anything about” are always too high. Even if someone said something somewhere else, you want it said in the context of whatever talk or article or post we’re on. In this case, he just hasn’t gotten to yet, it comes five minutes later in this talk. Sapolsky’s theme of what is happening in the moment combined with 5 million years of biology includes the possibility of a violent past, including within a lifetime, or if your ancestors were nomadic versus pastoral.
On the “motoric” comment, I’m not sure what he means there. I guess he means the chemical reactions, the neurons that don’t themselves think, but are part of creating our thoughts. One of the things I like about Sapolsky is the joy he seems to get from discovering those interactions. I don’t know what he’s said that would get you to wonder if he’s clinging to pre-evolution biology. You say that about just about everyone, but I’m surprised you would extend it to him.
I don’t think I can help you. I’ve tried, so I’m basing that on trying and failing. You write eloquently about meaning in your interactions with land, animals, and your progeny. But if someone else starts to talk about meaning, you say it’s just the body accomplishing its goals. Why are you meditating on the spectrum consciousness, if it’s just biology? I don’t think it’s “just” biology, that’s a fallacy of composition. I don’t think you think it’s just biology because of all the ways you look at the world and think that it matters that humans continues and that your grandchildren don’t suffer. But you keep asking what others mean by “meaning”.
Someone kicking a dog is not self-evident to me. Figuring how it could be different is the project of being human. Sapolsky tells us the challenge by telling us the story of how millions of years of biology go into each choice in each moment. Your answer, that its body interacting with the world and mind reflecting does not inform me about how I can interact with that world to alter it in a way that results in fewer dogs being kicked.
Here you’ve dug your heels deep. You say there is homework to be done, but what? What homework is there to do that Sapolsky does not cover? He covers hormones and fight or flight reactions, then brain development, then accepting that we are all complex creatures and history matters. These are things that directly relate to how we treat the mentally ill, how we punish crime or restore justice, how we treat the stranger, how we understand our connections to people across the world we will never meet and will never have the chance to learn what we know. You gloss over all of that and paint a broad brush of “self-starters”.
Sure, recognition is important. Then what?
Kind of left me hanging with a sentence fragment here. You’re describing exactly what he did in the talk and does with his work. I put this up because it seemed so resonant with your theme. But it seems there’s something about it you think is missing. I can’t figure out what.
Your closing paragraph is the point I’ve been with you for a couple years now. What I hear is if you achieve the clear-eyed appreciation, you will be transformed. Sounds like talk to me. But if anyone else says something similar, you say they are the ones who are just talking. Sapolsky has combined study of neuroscience and biology. It’s hard to find much better. He is also self-reflective and just fun. His work supports others who has spent their life understanding the causes of violence in young people Youth violence, or individuals who choose to listen to wackos and got them to change How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes : NPR.
I don’t know how your work applies, because I don’t see you applying it.
I’m not implying presuming to do one’s own original research ! !
I was specifically talking about the lay individual. And the homework is:
Obviously an incomplete list.
Homework for the layperson is learning about what the experts have been learning and developing an internally consistent understanding based on known facts and revised as more evidence comes in and mixes with one’s own prior knowledge.
Homework is being in the moment, aware, present and learning as much from the infant/toddler, as you are teaching it.
That’s a pretty huge misunderstanding. Remember I started by trying to clarify that what I’m writing about is an individuals relationship with the knowledge they possess.
Which is about our mental framing of the facts at hand.
The self starting has everything to do with keeping up on scientific findings and digesting them and incorporating them with what we’ve already learned and experienced, into an internally consistent perspective.
I’m confused by what you are reading into it.
Want to talk about using a broad brush?
Sapolsky was the one who said:
I want to say obviously he doesn’t actually believe that or he couldn’t have dedicated his career to Neuroscience - but I don’t know. What I do know is that here he’s trying to talk to a lay audience at their level, which requires a bit of writer’s license and provocation.
Then it gets incorporated into your over all understanding and outlook, which impacts how one sees and interacts with other people and the world.
For me it’s provides a clear understanding of how my Being fits into the whole of Earth and universe’s story. All around I see people handwringing over how real is reality, or why does a bat feel like a bat, will my everlasting soul go to heaven or hell, and all that confusion about consciousness and body and living that inthedark so poetically wrestles with. I’ve found a clean avenue for understanding my virtues and vices and see how they are both tied in the whole that is mean. Not as words I toss out, but a deep down grounded feeling, understanding.
I think I’ve arrived where most people would like too, that required doing the homework of living an engaged introspective existed and keeping up on the march of science, that required a certain level of self-starting.
I know who I am within a story that totally fits within serious physical science.
No need for Woo, yet I know Woo does also exist. Even God’s are real in a certain context. That is within my Human Mindscape (individual & collective). The thing is I recognize it as such - all while also recognizing the absolute physical reality of Earth. The fact that we are here is proof positive that reality proceeded down on specific past, even if the future is full of possibility, the past isn’t, it is what it was. No matter how much, or little, we know.
It is my self chosen duty to recognize as much as I can, which is different from what I hear most philosophical talking head project. A very subtle undercurrent of A) us being god’s gift, somehow above all the rest of creation and Earth was made for us B) that we define what physical reality is. Or, that physical reality must prove itself to us.
I know that the great universe and Earth (with her many systems) is actual factual reality, and that I am a visiting biological creature. No more, no less, than a filament in the pageant of Earth’s Evolution.
In the end, all of it means as much, or as little, as each of us want it to.
I know the substance of what he said, is as you think.
But show me where in any of Sapolsky’s talks (I add this because this video is so a very condensed) that he offer a simple explicit recognition.
Because it’s the lack of that, and I’ve listened to his Behave a couple times now, so I’m working in good faith on this.
I keep writing a letter to him asking about the missing introduction and why such and such is missing and suggesting these few phrasing I use offer a spine, that all his other facts and observations fit into. But I keep getting diverted and it gets procrastinated down the line. Well and also none has been up to snuff, so it’s rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. This dialogue is helping me further distill my thoughts. You can bet once I have it ready, I’ll also share it here.
Well. Yes. Not in any dramatic, now I’ve got the power sense, it’s way more subtle than that.
It’s more about recognizing our human self-absorbed thinking and self-serving actions. An undercurrent that remain unexamined.
It holds the “power” of gaining a healthier sense of what physical reality is to me the introspective Human Being, and so on. Also with a much healthier sense of the relationship of my thoughts with my body
I didn’t say you were. I asked what you meant, and you referred back to your, which I keep saying, doesn’t lead to answers about how we handle teen violence ir actaul real world problems. Ask someone why they did something bad, and they won’t talk about genetics, they tell you about their family, their history of being oppressed, the unfairness of the world. Academics will explain bad behavior of others using similar criteria. That’s how we think. I know it’s our biology, but live in a world. I can’t look at biology and predict any individual’s specific behavior.
Where have I suggested this is a potential counseling tool?
Listen to me, this is about one’s personal relationship with the knowledge they possess. Not many people on that journey to begin with. It is something that requires serious effort, it’s not a get out of personal crisis card for a human that never had any constructive influences during their childhood. Though it certainly does offer insights into the roots of the sociopathy.
I never have pretended to be a psychological counselor. I’m about understanding what is, and learning to live with it, best I can, since so much of is so unnecessary self-destructive.
Well, actually, that’s not totally true. To an extent. And it does help explain why you can’t look at biology and expect to predict the future. Read Sopalsky’s book, it’s discussed.
I notice you still can’t get yourself to acknowledging the part about our self-absorbed nature and self-serving actions. Remember human empathy and goodwill is usual reserved for one’s own tribe.
