[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> So I just got done reading Matt Ridley's "The Origin of Virtue". Quite good
> until the very end where he (like many authors) slips over from well argued
> science to politics. Ridley (the author of Genome and The Red Queen -two of
> the best books around about modern state of genomes and evolution) argues
> that human morality arose as an adaptation. He starts by talking about game
> theory covering much of the same ground as Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" .
> Lots of neat things about Prisoner's Dilemma and Tit for Tat. He moves
> on to discuss how primates cooperate and about the importance of hunting. He
> tries to establish the narrow circumstances in which individuals would sacrifice
> for the group (only if it benefits one's own genes). He goes from there to
> discussing human societies. At the end he takes an unfortunate right
> turn (I worry that so many of the science writers I like best are or are accused of
> being very conservative) into a defense of private or group property
> ownership. Maybe more libertarian than conservative. Anyway worth the read.
You really need to invent for us a way to just download
these books to our brain. 8^)
But really, speaking of reading on this subject, I just ran
across some references to E. O. Wilson (On Human Nature).
Have you read any off his stuff?
An interesting interview, circa 1979, is posted at
http://www.omnimag.com/archives/interviews/wilson.html
--
Doug
new email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zo.com/~brighto
