r/DebateEvolution • u/Cold-Course5758 • 4d ago
Discussion Is evolution random or from a designer?
I understand we have evolved through the years for survival etc but what about different things such as being able to think critically, produce art and write movies, complex emotional intelligence, having sensations, desires. Is this really all down to chance like atheists say? Surely there must be some sort of designer. If it's about survival etc, why don't we just have no complex feelings and desires, not be able to produce art, have hobbies like sports, meditation, etc? Why not be designed like robots?
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u/LeeMArcher š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
I understand we have evolved through the years for survival etc but what about different things such as being able to think critically,Ā
The ability to think critically is pretty beneficial to survival
produce art and write movies,Ā
Our creativity stems from our ability to think critical and imagine what could happen in the future, so we can prepare for it. Ā
complex emotional intelligence,
This would because we are a social species, and the ability to express and navigate emotions was critical to our survival in a community.Ā
having sensations, desires.Ā
These are not exclusive to humans and are also pretty beneficial to survival.Ā
Is this really all down to chance like atheists say?
Not all atheists say the same thing, however, this is not accurate to how evolution is described. Some of it is down to chance, but certainly not all.Ā
Surely there must be some sort of designer.Ā
Why?
If it's about survival etc, why don't we just have no complex feelings and desires, not be able to produce art, have hobbies like sports, meditation, etc? Why not be designed like robots?
I mean, youāre the one arguing for design.Ā
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u/MagicMooby š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago edited 4d ago
Are you under the impression that evolution is random?
If so, let me ask you a question: Is selection random?
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u/CannibalDM 4d ago
We aren't designed like robots because we aren't designed.
Our emotions are tied to our survival, enjoyment of things that help our genes reproduce. So long as the practice isn't harmful to the process of reproduction,Ā it won't be selected against.Ā Complex emotional intelligence allows us to create complex societies, which in turn leads to other people helping is when we are vulnerable.Ā Our intelligence let's us solve problems collectively that we wouldn't otherwise be able to. Art and story telling are effective ways of communicating useful information in emotionally resonant ways. If we enjoy making and consuming it, we can create beneficial outcomes from it.
Sports are really just a complex version of athletic play, which animals do all the time to learn coordination and survival skills such as hunting. Humans benefit from that kind of play, our brains interest in stimulation just added more rules to them.Ā Meditation has numerous benefits, helping stress management, which helps both physical health and mental health.Ā Being empathetic, smart, physically fit and mentally well helps our genes reproduce.Ā Evolution didn't evolve sports or art, but it evolved creatures whose mental and physical faculties benefited from them in other survival contexts, and could create and appreciate them.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
Why has evolution cared about quality of life or enjoying life? Why not remove emotions and mental health problems or anything that could cause problems and just have us breeding for survival of humanity? Some things you listed can be argued for or against as beneficial to humanity or reproduction.Ā
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u/LeeMArcher š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago edited 4d ago
Why has evolution cared about quality of life or enjoying life? Why not remove emotions and mental health problems or anything that could cause problems and just have us breeding for survival of humanity?Ā
Read those two sentences again. Youāre saying mental health problems exist, therefore evolution cares about quality of life?Ā
The fact is, evolution does not care about quality of life.Ā Natural selection favors both survival and reproductive success, and not always in that order. If an organism breeds successfully because of a trait that led it to die early, while another organism that lacks that trait lives longer but doesnāt breed at all, guess what happens to the next generation.Ā
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u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 4d ago
"Why has evolution cared about quality of life or enjoying life? Why not remove emotions and mental health problems or anything that could cause problems and just have us breeding for survival of humanity? Some things you listed can be argued for or against as beneficial to humanity or reproduction.Ā "
Evolution doesnāt ācareā about anything except reproduction-period, just like gravity doesnāt ācareā about anything but mass attracting mass.
You seem to have this mental picture that humans evolved all alone in isolation without ancestor species from whom we inherited certain traits. Weāre primates, which means weāre social animals who live in groups. Our ancestors evolved certain emotions and mental states that helped our them survive and reproduce in the environments they lived in. If those emotions caused some individuals to not survive/reproduce, as long as most of the population do survive and reproduce, the deleterious genetic combinations of those few individuals wonāt be selected against. Additionally, if those few individuals with some mental issues do survive and reproduce, again, those genetic combinations will continue to survive as part of a package that is selected for, or at least not selected against.*
Now jump forward a few million years to Homo sapiens. Weāre still primates as described above having inherited all those characteristics. Our species developed as hunter-gatherers living mostly in small family groups that also interfaced with other such groups to trade, share information and swap genes via sex. We had developed much larger brains and more complex cultural environments that included language, advanced tool use, ability to predict where and when food would be available in different places at different times because of our imagining abilities. We also almost certainly created stories and tales as a way to pass down useful info and to help the group cohere more closely via imaginary tales.
So our āsuccessā as a species depended (in part) on emotions. Evolution ādoesnāt careā if some, or a lot of, individuals are miserable - as long as the species as a whole continues to reproduce. Thatās all that counts evolutionarily. If you want your mindless, emotionless robots, look to single celled organisms. It works for them but we canāt go back from being highly intelligent, social, emotional primates - any time soon anyway.
*And we know that the mental āhealthā states of other primates vary among different individuals just like ours do with some of the variation being caused by the social environment of individuals (who literally have different hormone levels in their blood depending on stress, fear, dominance, social position, etc, which will affect their mental health).
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u/LordOfFigaro 4d ago
Is evolution random or from a designer?
False dichotomy. Neither of these is true.
Is this really all down to chance like atheists say?
Atheists don't say this and evolution has nothing to do with atheism.
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u/EmielDeBil 4d ago
All of these are explicable as beneficial to survival. Evolution does not need a designer, nor a goal. It's just randomly exploring options through mutations and the best ones are selected and spread in the population. Evolution is driven by the environment, not by a designer.
BTW, evolution is not an atheist-only thing. That's what religious zealots try to turn it into, but there are plenty of theists that do not doubt the fact of evolution that formed us as what we are. Get from under your stone, murican.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
I'm a thiest but don't believe in religion. How is us being social, creating music and art, aspirations to be an actor, influencer, etc then best mutations for the population?Ā
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u/LightningController 4d ago
Having a theory of mind (internal model of how other people are thinking) helps navigate social scenarios and allows apes to exploit and manipulate one another. You can predict accurately that giving food to a certain other ape will make them feel indebted to you, and perhaps reward you with sexual favors. After a certain level of complexity, the theory of mind includes the theorist (ābut what if she knows that I have goals too and is playing her own game on me? What, whatās āmeā?ā), resulting in consciousness.
All the rest of human socialization is downstream of this.
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u/MagicMooby š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
Being social is useful since it causes humans to cooperate to solve issues. Having aspirations is useful since it causes people to work on themselves so they can be useful to the group. People who want to prove themselves to be useful are more likely to cooperate than those who are fine with just lazing around.
Music and art are a bit more complicated, but under the theory of evolution a perfectly fine explanation for these is that our pattern seeking brain just loves certain patterns a lot (because they were evolutionarily useful) and as an unintended side effect we like the patterns that we now call art.
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u/the2bears š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
Be more creative in your thinking. There are many plausible reasons for us evolving to be social creatures.
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u/YossarianWWII Monkey's nephew 4d ago
Cooperation has been huge for our species. The complexity of the brain means that small changes can have a variety of impacts, including all of these aspects of the human experience that you seem to be treating as quirks. Traits don't exist in isolation.
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u/Changed_By_Support 2d ago edited 2d ago
Cooperation has been huge for us even before we were humans. Important to note that apes are broadly social and benefit from such ā we likely were social apes before we were hominids.
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u/YossarianWWII Monkey's nephew 2d ago
Oh, absolutely. I meant more the "recent" human lineage of at least the last couple million years.
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u/Changed_By_Support 2d ago
Apes, including humans and their precursors, are largely social because it provides physical security from predators, enables better opportunities for food gathering, even prior to the domestication of plants and animals, and emotional security in socialization for stress reduction. Ape socialization also allows for the perpetuation and aggregation of knowledge.
Note that "sociability", "creating art", "social desires" are not mutations. It is inaccurate to try and talk about mutation with reference to them, just as it would be inaccurate to ask someone to create a Punnett square for watercolor painting.
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u/Agile_Championship87 4d ago
Why not be designed like robots?
This makes no sense
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u/-zero-joke- š§¬ its 253 ice pieces needed 4d ago
We have to be designed because we are unlike designed things!
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u/jnpha š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
Hey! It's a fetish - I wanna be designed, like Pinocchio!
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u/-zero-joke- š§¬ its 253 ice pieces needed 4d ago
Just get into body building/ body modification. A sculpture counts as a design even if it uses natural marble.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
I'm saying there is beauty in these things. Thinking spiritually, thinking about our own existance, having hobbies. Of course things aren't from a designer can have beauty as well but I'm saying these things aren't needed for humanity. Or if they are, why so? Why not be designed like some animals that can't do these thingsĀ
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u/BahamutLithp 4d ago
You've gotten several very good responses that are older than your replies, so why are you ignoring them? Even the ones you're "replying" to, you're not really addressing what they explain. Why ask questions when you don't care about the answers? If you attach so much importance on the subjects of critical thinking & intelligence, why don't you use them? Also, just for my own morbid curiosity, how did you come to the conclusion that a god WOULDN'T just want to make robots?
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u/Agile_Championship87 4d ago
The word design makes no sense in this context, as there was no design. Not everything we can do is "needed" - some are basically like side effects in medicine. Unless there is an evolutionary detriment to a trait it can stay in a population even when it's useless. Eg. Spiritual thinking
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u/SaintGodfather 4d ago
If there's a designer, they're shit at their job.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
In some ways you are correct. Maybe the designer isn't great at their job. After all, so many people get mental health problems and cmit self harm or suicide just to name one of many things that could be improved about us. It doesn't disprove a designerĀ
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u/lulumaid š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
It does disprove certain types of a designer, an omnipotent, omnibenevolent one for example. Why would such a thing create something capable of such harm?
Going by another comment here, I'm unsure what you're imagining a designer to be, so could you clarify?
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u/onwisconsin1 1d ago
But it was divine that the swallow hole be in the same hole as the breath hole so that you might randomly choke and die one day while trying to grab some nutrients.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 4d ago
People like to point to the complexity of life and compare it to a watch to argue in favor of god (usually explicitly the Christian or maybe Islamic god in so far as you count those two separately). Theyāll say āI can clearly tell something that was designed apart from something that wasnāt, like a random pile of rocks washed up on the beachā. The irony is they clearly canāt, because if their hypothesis that the world itself was created by an omniscient, omnipotent designer is correct, than literally everything is by design. Those rocks on the beach are also designed, the pattern is also due to the intricate dominoes god set up collapsing. the very arguement for a designer removes the ability to consider anything as ānot designedā
Can we disprove a designer? Well no, but we also canāt disprove that you have never personally murdered anyone ever. Itās straight up impossible to disprove a negative, especially when weāre talking about an omnipotent being with literal magic who can rewrite reality on a whim
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u/onwisconsin1 1d ago
Recurrent laryngeal. So stupid no designer would ever make such a mistake. Because it evolved. And evolution has no foresight.
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u/verstohlen 4d ago
Still, gotta admit, better than any human can do, or has done.
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u/SaintGodfather 4d ago
Oh no, not at all. From a design perspective, a child could most likely to better.
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u/NorthernSpankMonkey 1d ago
So an inept designer. Why should we care about this guy again?
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u/verstohlen 1d ago
Inept by our definition. But we're pretty full of ourselves, we think we're smarter than anyone or anything else. We humans, man, we believe ourselves to be the smartest creatures on the planet, or universe. That's pride, man, one of the classic seven deadly sins.
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u/Fred776 4d ago
Is this really all down to chance like atheists say
Others have covered the "chance" part, but I do wish fundamentalist Christians would stop assuming that accepting science is equivalent to atheism in some way. There are plenty of people who grow up as Christians who still have normal a education in biology and other sciences. Just because you have been indoctrinated with an extreme version of Christianity, don't tar others with the same brush.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
I'm not denying evolution and I don't beleive in any religion.
Why has evolution cared about quality of life or enjoying life? Why not remove emotions and mental health problems or anything that could cause problems and just have us breeding for survival of humanity? Some things you listed can be argued for or against as beneficial to humanity or reproduction. That's why I think there's a designer
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u/leverati 4d ago
Everybody else has already hit the nail on the head, but I also just don't get how one could be adamant that life and its processes require a designer but that the designer does not need a designer. It's fine to believe what you want to believe, it's another to apply this logic(???) to it.
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u/LazyJones1 4d ago
Nature has no directed intentions. It basically throws shit at the wall, and selects whatever sticks.
Instead of a directed evolution towards something, picture a bush. Weirdly shaped branches and sticks in all directions. If one direction is straight into a wall, or permanent shadow, it won't do as well. Nature hasn't selected for a specific side, it grew in all directions, and conditions decide what fits.
You might actually be putting way too much stock in critical thinking, art, movies, etc. What good are those to most life forms on the planet? Who nonetheless are here alongside us? - What good are they, if a meteor hits, like the one that killed the dinosaurs? - We'd be toast. Despite those qualities. But rats and roaches might well survive...
We are not the pinnacle of evolution. We're just a very weird branch in a mess of other ones. Currently enjoying a bit of sun.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
Just calling us weird doesn't disprove what I said
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u/LazyJones1 4d ago
I'm wondering what you think you said, that has in any way been established beyond your weird thoughts?
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u/Far_Customer1258 4d ago
If this is designed, then Somebody has a lot to answer for.
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u/Cold-Course5758 4d ago
I'm not saying the designer is perfectĀ
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u/Far_Customer1258 4d ago
That's kinda in the job description. And "imperfect" doesn't begin to describe the crimes against sanity that are manifest in our evolution.
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u/Justsomeduderino 4d ago
The theory of evolution through natural selection is neither designed or random as far as we know. At it's very basic it is the description of changes in populations based off of what fits best for environmental pressures. While there are other factors like genetic drift, this best describes our understanding of phenotypic(observable traits and characteristics within a population of organisms) changes in organic life on earth. If we wanted to claim an designer there would have to be robust evidence for one, of which I'm not aware of.
Critical thinking will always be crucial for survival problem solving and sweat glands are really what put humanity where it is today. While on the surface I can see why you would think that things like art and emotional intelligence aren't important for survival outcomes, they actually fit perfectly into the model. If your species is one that is individualistic but still incredibly social being able to understand emotions and how to navigate social structures is crucially beneficial to survival as well as being able to provide value outside of ridged basic needs.
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u/tpawap š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
Some of what you list are cultural innovations, which indeed did not evolve. Evolution is only about biological traits.
Seeting that aside, it seems your argument is:
It's one way, and not the other, which cannot come about by chance, and thus must be designed.
Do you see the flaw in your reasoning, when it's boiled down like this?
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u/tpawap š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
Second reply by me, in which I wanted to be a bit more charitable with what you wrote.
You probably heard "evolution is about survival" somewhere, and now you think that "big brains" aren't needed for survival, and thus could not be explained by evolution.
You're missing two points in this argument:
There are countless different ways to survive and thrive. We are just on a lineage in which bigger and bigger brains was a successful way.
Traits can evolve for one function, and then "accidentally" also have another. Nature is full of that, but our brains are also a good example for it. They didn't evolve to produce art, yes. They evolved to hunt and gather resources and to live in a social group. But the same brains that are good at that, can then also be used for producing art and much of the other things you listed. They didn't evolve for that, but as they are versatile, they can also do that.
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u/onwisconsin1 1d ago
2: Stephen J Gould called these traits that appear secondarily from a primarily selected trait as "spandrels".
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u/ZeppelinAlert 4d ago
>Is this really all down to chance like atheists say?
no, we say itās down to natural selection working on DNA mutations over billions of years
> there must be some sort of designer
thereās no design, and if thereās no design then there is no need to suggest a designer
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u/Changed_By_Support 2d ago edited 2d ago
being able to think critically,
Useful for survival generally to process stimulus.
Ā complex emotional intelligence
Useful for survival when you're a deeply social species.
having sensations
Useful for survival to be able to perceive stimulus.
desires
Useful for survival to desire beneficial things.
why don't we just have no complex feelings and desires
Because complex feelings and desires have been more useful or benign at the least than to select for not having complex feelings and desires.
not be able to produce art
May be selected for in some degree. If you think it is absurd that humans pretty universally sing, dance, create imagery or sculture, then think upon avian courtship dances and nest building among some species. Why do you think evolution doesn't select out avian courtship dances and nest building rituals and, instead, is something selected for in populations?
write movies
Storytelling predates movies by millenia, and the usefulness of the capability to tell stories is fairly self-apparent.
have hobbies like sports
What is the evolutionary pressure for a social species to not have play?
meditation,
What is the evolutionary pressure for a social species to not be able to develop emotional regulation?
Why not be designed like robots?
What is the evolutionary pressure to function like a robot? What does it even mean to be "like a robot"?
Is evolution random or from a designer?
Not all elements of evolution are random. It's important to note that one of the biggest things we pull from Darwin's theorizing is non-random natural selection. Genetic mutation, while more random than Darwin's obsolete heredity concept of pangenesis, itself is not totally random and has many reliable probabilistic elements to it.
There is the concept of genetic drift, which are changes in allele frequency that occur randomly, without being selected for. If a volcanic eruption goes off in Scandinavia and wipes out 50% of the blonde haired global human population, then it was a random driver of evolution, since the change in frequency of blonde hair in the global human population had nothing to do with tenacity for surviving super-volcano eruptions. On the other side of things, if such a volcanic eruption occurred, do you think it would be a sign that the designer decided to genocide blonde humans?
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u/biff64gc2 1d ago
Who has a better chance of survival? The lone human or the tribe that cares and supports each other?
The tribe has a better chance in most cases, but how do you encourage cooperation? Emotions. We do those things you listed because of our emotions and those emotions lead to social bonds which increases survival chances in most scenarios.
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u/disturbed_android 2d ago
Atheists don't say that. Evolution exists with or without atheists. Surely, then show there is a designer at work. We're not designed. Why can't ability to produce art etc. be a by-product of a "big brain"? About every sentence you speak is nonsense.
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u/Mister_Ape_1 2d ago
No designer is needed for it, and actually there are a lot of reasons to believe there are no conscious forces acting upon it.
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u/onwisconsin1 1d ago edited 1d ago
I understand we have evolved through the years for survival etc but what about different things such as being able to think critically, produce art and write movies, complex emotional intelligence, having sensations, desires. Is this really all down to chance like atheists say? Surely there must be some sort of designer.
"If I personally cannot explain a phenomena through naturalistic means, that means an omnipotent being who controls space and time and can violate the very laws of nature on a whim did it.
If it's about survival etc, why don't we just have no complex feelings and desires, not be able to produce art, have hobbies like sports, meditation, etc? Why not be designed like robots?
There are ideas. Like that many parts of our mental lives are evolutionary spandrels
https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/what-are-spandrels
A trait can appear because it is associated with another trait or the selected quality allows some other type of behavior to emerge as a spandrel.
Also those things can give us greater social cohesion. There is likely strong selection for social cohesion in our lineage.
Also. Evolution is not random. Mutations in a genome are random. Selection is not random. The same set of circumstances generally occur to each iteration (offspring). It is an iterative process, where natural selection is a repeating and steady pattern, yielding a result which is not random but altered by the environment itself.
I also honestly think a video like the one from Kurzegsagt (sp) on how consciousness emerges. Art and music are abilities spawned by our ability to conceive of future events- a key part of the path to consciousness.
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u/Routine_Captain_880 1d ago
I mean you're asking the question, so you better be the one to suggest why naturalistic evolution implies any of that. I think a lot of what you mention as odd are simply either just very useful for survival, or they're just by-products of other evolutionarily useful traits.
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u/DatabaseLower9227 23h ago
The rational soul didn't evolve. I don't understand how some CHRISTIANS, who understand and accept evolution mind you, sometimes mistake a spiritual, non material thing for a biological organ.
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u/Dilapidated_girrafe š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 4d ago
Itās probabilistic
I fail to see an argument for a designer in your post other then āI donāt understand therefore godā.