Anyone ever wonder how random events or evolution led up to humans having free will and the rest of the animals with no free will? If it were random events you would think animals would atleast have a little free will, right?

Would you please explain to my dogs that they have no free will? Free will in humans, and its perceived abscence in animals, is an illusion caused by our capacity for more complex analysis and expectations of the future.

Would you please explain to my dogs that they have no free will? Free will in humans, and its perceived abscence in animals, is an illusion caused by our capacity for more complex analysis and expectations of the future. BTW, the audio is not working for me.

No silly, selection is not random. But! The biochemical processes that generate mutations in sex cell DNA (normal DNA replication in humans produces mutations, i.e. the wrong base pair insertion, at a constant rate of ~1 error per every million base pairs replicated). Usually the effect is negligible because we have so much junk DNA, or the effects are negative and that individual's genes are purged of the population before they can reproduce.

However, when there are mutations at certain genes over time that give a selective advantage (genes for language development in homonids for example) these will undergo rapid non-random selection because of pressures exerted upon the population in their environments. The population gene frequency for this mutation shifts over time such that over many generations more individuals have it than don't. When the gene frequency of a population changes over time, that's the definition of evolution. That's directional selection (one of many types of selection), just for an example.

But let's get it right folks, selection is non-random, but acts on phenotypes that are randomly generated by constant rates of mutation. I'm no expert, just a Biology teacher. Take an evolution course, seriously one of the coolest, mind-opening classes I've ever taken.

I've always thought of selection as random, but biased towards the most fit individuals. But I see your point

And regarding the OP, I've really only heard the argument that animals don't have free will from groups that posit a supernatural. It's hard to imagine someone who accepts evolution as the sole source of the life we see around us arguing that only humans have free will.

the dogs trot freely through the streets. Ah, it's all a coney island of the mind.

But only son-o-sam can tell us what the dogs are saying.

Are you saying that my dog is already pre-determind to act a particular way because an intelligent designer created her that way. Of course my dog free will. She's free to destroy my house at her own will.

"The most important person"

Sounds like he invented what he discovered.

I understand what he meant to say but the importance of the discovered fact should not permeate to the person that did it.

Also, it was once thought that animals did not feel pain since it was "KNOWN" that they did not have souls. They were thought to be just like machines that appeared as IF they felt pain, but could not. (someone contact PETA!) The free-will debate is a religious/philosophical one anyway, often touted as some kind of proof by the christians: "God put us here and gave us free will, so we can chose to be saved or not." Free will has no bearing on environmental selection. Viruses, plants and man as well as all other forms of live do not choose to evolve or survive, it is a reaction.

I think it's quite egocentrical to think that we alone are capable of things. people think that they are 'human' because we wouldn't want to be animals! but in fact we actually ARE animals like the rest of the various species that live on this planet. we evolved to what we are today, just like dolphins and whales and foxes and wolves and apes have done.

audio is buggered up

'free will' is not a different thing altogether from 'no free will'... it's a side effect of having a different degree of brain power. You think you have free will when you have enough brain stuff to think about your own thoughts. You only think you have free will.

Another way to look at it would be that you don't actually have free will. An all-seeing god/alien would probably judge that humans make every choice or decision to suit their own survival, yes even the colour of their car.. much like any life form does.. no 'free will' involved.

Another way to look at it is that everything has free will, yet generally everything chooses to survive and that is why most things make the same choices and thefore it looks as if they are not acting of their own will. All of the flowers in a field will try their best to face the sun... the direction of choice. You can bet they 'want' to face that way... their nerves/brains/sensors/whatever tell them to.

I don't agree with the hypothesis that the reason Americans rejection of Darwinism is so prononced as compared to other parts of the world, is because of Colonialism.

I live in Australia and Australia is far closer to its colonial past than America, yet we here in Australia are a much more secular than America. So the colonial hypothesis doesn't cut it.

There needs to be some other reason.

This goes back and forth between two very hardheaded sides. This is an easy enough concept to grasp, so where does all the animosity come from. It comes from the far right and far left sides of the argument, the Atheist Scientists and the Religious Fundamentalists. Both sides of these two groups hold the other in contempt so strongly that they refuse to listen to neither rhyme nor reason. It is virtually impossible to have intelligible discussion between representatives from these two extremist groups. Why can’t they both just get along. Raymond B www.voteswagon.com

I, too, have a serious problem with statements like "the most important person ever to live." It promotes the same kind of fundamentalist idolatry that Darwin himself, if he were here to speak for himself, would decry. It's a point I've made many times before: science often invites the attacks it receives in its own brand of theocracy—the idolatry of its own, human Gods.

Ours is a culture of noise and competition; the shrill voice of fundamentalism spreads its tentacles even into the realm of the rational. Can't we listen for the soft, glowing voice of humility anymore?

Like our brains, organisms themselves are 'smart' in that the can mutate and transform to optimize themselves to their surroundings. That interview was enlightening, and like Charlie Rose says at the end, probably the most important discussion that we can have.

It's a little sad and lonely that there are only 15% of us that are enlightened to the truth, alas, societies don't turn on a dime.

Raymond said, "It comes from the far right and far left sides of the argument, the Atheist Scientists and the Religious Fundamentalists"..

I never considered myself "far left", and there are few Americans who I would consider "far left". Go to Europe or Canada to know what "far left" really is.

But if "Atheist Scientists" are considered "far left" in the eyes of most Americans, then I have trememdous respect for this definition of far left. .

I guess that I am so far left that it blows my mind that you could compare a scientist, who has spent years educating themselves, reading and studying and understanding I don't know how many difficult high-level science books, professional journals, etc etc, with a fundamentalist who has spent years studying one book and has never bothered to educate themselves on the natural laws which govern the Earth that we live on. How can you possibly compare someone who is ignorant about the laws of nature with someone who has devoted themselves to the difficult task of understanding all of this. How many fundamentalists do you know who are studying things like stem cell research which benefit all of society? No, they are too busy working to prevent stem cell research because they supposedly have all of this compassion for a danged zygote.

Sure, one can feel sorry for an uneducated person, but to compare them to an "atheist scientist"? Give me a break.

The more that I think about this as I am responding, the more stunned I feel that you could actually say such a thing. Do you really believe this sh*t, or are you just trying to be diplomatic?

I\'m sure the other 85% of us will be enlightened soon johnny. I mean, right now as an organism, when I mutate myself to optimize to my surroundings most people can\'t handle it, but i\'m sure over the years, bit by bit, they too will start to notice their mutant ways like us enlightened ones. Then what a joyous mutant civilization we will be!

For many who haven't committed to the study of Biology at a college level I imagine it is difficult to understand the significance of Darwin. I was raised to believe that the Devil placed dinosaur bones in the ground to test man's faith and a variety of other scientifically erroneous ideas from my 10 years in Christian schools - luckily, I had an intense interest in the natural world that god(I was told) had created and suffered a severe crisis of faith when much of what I had 'learned' was exposed as mythology during my college education. If only the fundamentalists would attack historians with as much fervor as they attack scientists it would be even easier for their followers to see the weakness in their positions. Progress in the study of the human genome plus other species' genomes and the application of that knowledge may cause the largest crisis the religious community in America has ever faced. What will the fundamentalist community do in reaction to overwhelming concrete evidence of the workings of evolution(I already consider the evidence is already beyond that point, don't get me wrong). Of all the people Western society honors Darwin is possibly the most damaging to fundamentalist beliefs. But maybe I am wrong there, maybe he is just an easy target. Scientists are pretty easily ridiculed these days - think of all the negative conceptions of scientists that children have these days and they do not easily grow out of them. Darwin was a flawed person and despite being long gone still shakes the modern world with his achievement. Can we honor him without being called idolaters? When historians speak of Abraham Lincoln fondly do these same people call them idolaters - I don't think so. The sooner fundamentalists realize that Darwin's ideas are fundamental, the sooner they can stop the damage his ideas cause their faith.

It is virtually impossible to have intelligible discussion between representatives from these two extremist groups. Why can’t they both just get along.

Because the problem with religous fundamentals is that they do not listen to a single thread of logic that goes against their believes. For crying out loud, evolution doesn't even conflict with Creationism; evolution does not say how life got started -- that's ambiogenesis (admittedly, it's a facet of the discussion, but evolution isn't going to be harmed if ambiogenesis is completely invalidated). I mean how many times must people point out that an overwhelming amount of scientists are religious? They even say in the field of cosmology that it's almost impossible for you to study it without having ~some~ kind of a religious meaning ascribed through it (not that it's faith based or anything -- just that the concepts are so aweinspiring and beautiful people tend to ascribe it to a god).

Most religious fundamentalists don't even care to learn anything about a topic that "conflicts" with what they "know." That's why they cannot get along. One group holds arguements by observable, natural, testable, and repeatable proofs -- the other group just believes what they've been indoctrinated with.

It's a point I've made many times before: science often invites the attacks it receives in its own brand of theocracy—the idolatry of its own, human Gods.

It's an arguable position -- but where the heck are the people that say exactly what you say whenever someone says that Jesus was the most important person to live?

I don't think Darwin is the most important person to live. He's definately important, though. But it's in no way a theocracy of any kind.

Obviuosly, the statement about Darwin -- that his was the FIRST and most important and accurate staement about how we got here -- should be viewed as acknowledgement of his accomplishment.

The statement struck me also, but the case can be made.

Merry Christmas!