passages-exactly-imagine-standing-arguing-darwin-exists

# And what exactly do we imagine standing outside... > And what exactly do we imagine standing outside all of this? Altruism, perhaps. Compassion. Sacrifice. The supposedly luminous evidence that somewhere inside the murderous primate lives a creature capable of escaping itself. There is something profoundly beautiful in an organism giving up its life for another, and even this last refuge wobbles under evolutionary examination, because biology{Biology{ has spent generations arguing over whether altruism escapes self-interest at all or whether most of what looks selfless dissolves into kin selection, inclusive fitness, reciprocal exchange, reputation, coalition, group advantage and the delayed mathematics of survival.}} Perhaps genuine selflessness exists. Perhaps sometimes one animal really does choose another life over its own with no ledger waiting in the back room. But even that possibility{Even the possibility of genuine selflessness{ is a candle burning inside a universe that has made absolutely no promise to shield it from the wind.}} {{Altruism may be the thin moral membrane stretched over the savage animal, and even altruism is still arguing with Darwin about why it exists.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “And what exactly do we imagine standing outside all of this? Altruism, perhaps. Compassion. Sacrifice. The supposedly luminous evidence that somewhere inside the murderous primate lives a creature capable of escaping itself. There is something profoundly beautiful in an organism giving up its life for another, and even this last refuge wobbles under evolutionary examination, because biology has spent generations arguing over whether altruism escapes self-interest at all or whether most of what looks selfless dissolves into kin selection, inclusive fitness, reciprocal exchange, reputation, coalition, group advantage and the delayed mathematics of survival. Perhaps genuine selflessness exists. Perhaps sometimes one animal really does choose another life over its own with no ledger waiting in the back room. But even that possibility is a candle burning inside a universe that has made absolutely no promise to shield it from the wind. Altruism may be the thin moral membrane stretched over the savage animal, and even altruism is still arguing with Darwin about why it exists.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-exactly-imagine-standing-arguing-darwin-exists ```