<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # There may be goodness in the animal. There may... > There may be goodness in the animal. {{There may even be something magnificently useless about goodness, some astonishing refusal to optimize, some irrational act of mercy that escapes the cold bookkeeping of genetic interest.}} But nothing{Nothing{ in natural history guarantees that mercy defeats appetite, that cooperation defeats domination, or that the gentle organism inherits anything whatsoever.}} {{Selection keeps no moral score. The dead altruist stays dead while the successful predator has grandchildren, and the grandchildren are the ones writing the history.}} {{Perhaps goodness is real. Nature has simply never promised that goodness will win.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “There may be goodness in the animal. There may even be something magnificently useless about goodness, some astonishing refusal to optimize, some irrational act of mercy that escapes the cold bookkeeping of genetic interest. But nothing in natural history guarantees that mercy defeats appetite, that cooperation defeats domination, or that the gentle organism inherits anything whatsoever. Selection keeps no moral score. The dead altruist stays dead while the successful predator has grandchildren, and the grandchildren are the ones writing the history. Perhaps goodness is real. Nature has simply never promised that goodness will win.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-goodness-animal-something-promised-goodness-win ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->