On Evolution & Creation

[Hooded_Crow]

Yes, non-human animals go by instinct
Yes, people do good or bad things but Not because of instinct

Can you elaborate? What separates humans and some non-human animals in terms of moral behaviour? Some evidence would be good to back up your claim.

Edit: are you resistant to the idea that humans and some non-humans can share a common trait such as moral behaviour because of religious reasons? Does it, in your view, somehow 'degrade' the status of humans?

Edit: In the earlier example, the rat chose to free another individual in distress. This demonstrates empathy. The rat prioritised freeing another individual over gaining food for itself, thus incurring a biological cost. This demonstrates altruism.
A person gives money to help a charity for the homeless. This demonstrates empathy. This also demonstrates altruism as the money could have been used to further the benefit of the donor (buying food for themselves, for example), but they chose instead to give it to feed a stranger.
What is the difference?

 

[YoursTrue]

Forms of moral behaviour, such as altruism, empathy, care for others other than one's own kin (or even species, in some cases) are observed in non-human animals. Do a search. You'll find many examples. If evolution is a continuum, it stands to reason that moral behaviour would be found in many social species. It's not a uniquely human trait.


Just because these behaviours exist doesn't mean that everyone abides by them. People do good things. People do bad things.

Taking that into consideration, I was thinking that animals such as gorillas and monkeys do not have law books written out for them to hold judicial court trials about innocence or guilt of accused criminal activity. So, what does this mean to me? That humans are vastly different in terms of their cognitive ability, even if they're "wrong" in judgment. Gorillas and starlings, let's say, do not have lawyers trained in law schools and elections and nominees for courts. And -- various cultures have different ways of looking at things, and I believe much of the various laws that may be different in different parts of the world, are based on the prevailing religious concept there.

 

[Tiberius]

Experiments in social behavior point to its changing as its social setting changes. We're born with some important moral instincts, appropriate for living in cooperative groups ─ dislike of the one who harms, like of fairness and reciprocity, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, a sense of self-worth through self-denial ─ but how to interact socially with family, relatives, friends, the opposite sex, people older or younger, authority figures (teacher, doctor, police), how to behave when dining in company, when in a group, when in a team, the communal observation of pairings, birth, coming of age, death, &c are all learnt behaviors..

As to the evolved behaviors, I gave a brief outline of one the experiments here >Atheists acknowledging historical Jesus' goodness<, should you be interested.

Yeah, pretty much. Behaviours can be phenotypical, such as the dam building behaviour seen in beavers. When it comes to Humans, genes that code for behaviours that are advantageous in a social species are likely to be selected for through natural and/or sexual selection. There are many arbitrary social behaviours, such as don't put your elbows on the dinner table, but these really don't make much difference in how well a social group survives. But the behaviours that do, such as helping out others when they are injured, do indeed make a difference to the survival of the social group.

 

[Hooded_Crow]

Taking that into consideration, I was thinking that animals such as gorillas and monkeys do not have law books written out for them to hold judicial court trials about innocence or guilt of accused criminal activity. So, what does this mean to me? That humans are vastly different in terms of their cognitive ability, even if they're "wrong" in judgment. Gorillas and starlings, let's say, do not have lawyers trained in law schools and elections and nominees for courts. And -- various cultures have different ways of looking at things, and I believe much of the various laws that may be different in different parts of the world, are based on the prevailing religious concept there.

Just because non-human animals don't codify their behaviour the way humans do doesn't mean that the behaviour doesn't exist.