Subject: 
             [evol-psych] Richard Dawkins: Our big brains can overcome our selfish
             genes
        Date: 
             Tue, 12 Feb 2002 09:09:23 -0000
       From: 
             "Ian Pitchford" 
 Organization: 
             http://human-nature.com/
         To: 
             




Independent
Richard Dawkins: Our big brains can overcome our selfish genes
>From a lecture by the Charles Simonyi professor of the understanding of
science, given at the Royal Institution, in London
12 February 2002

"What comes naturally" is a topic which Darwinism might be expected to
illuminate. Darwinian natural selection gives us just about everything else in
our nature - our bones, our organs, our instincts. If there is a reason to
exclude our values, it had better be a good one.

The values of sustainability are important to all of us here, and I
enthusiastically include myself. We therefore might hope that these too are
built into us by natural selection. I shall tell you today that this is not so.
On the contrary, there is something profoundly anti-Darwinian about the very
idea of sustainability. But this is not as pessimistic as it sounds. Although
we are products of Darwinism, we are not slaves to it. Using the large brains
that Darwinian natural selection has given us, it is possible to fashion new
values that contradict Darwinian values.

Full text
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=119462