Richard Dawkins wrote in his “The Selfish Gene,” that people are essentially biological robots. If he is right then all of our thoughts are simply the result of cerebral and neurological processes. Electrochemical signals produced by entirely physical processes. So, assuming he’s correct, then what reason do we have to trust our thoughts and logic? Perhaps what we think is universally true is not, we’re simply programmed to –think- it is? Actually, that’d be a profoundly effective evolutionary tool for preservation of the species. Our emotional values and logic may have developed as a way to augment survival instincts beyond the level of less cognitive organisms, right? So, why trust our thoughts? How do we know our logic is truly logical and not simply an illusion of logic?

Suppose that a neuroscientist is studying love, and she discovers that romantic infatuation is caused by high serotonin levels, while attachment is caused by oxytocin. Has she actually learned anything about love? More generally, what is the significance of discovering neural or hormonal correlates to particular human emotions or behavior?

I'm passionately interested in Darwin and evolution, but have been bashing my head against the wall recently, over the objection that 'survival of the fittest' is a tautology. The answers to this that I've read state that 'fitness' doesn't mean: "those that survive, but those that could be expected to survive because of their adaptations and functional efficiency" [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html]. But then the reply to this seems to be: "This charge is not repelled by substituting "most adaptable" or "best designed," etc., for "fittest," because these too are determined by survival. (That is, how do we determine that a species, or members of a species, is "most adaptable" or "best designed"? By the fact that it survived.)" [http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/pe02phl3.html] As an aside following on from this, I know that you can then say that there is a lot of evidence. But isn't this evidence for evolution, not the specific theory of natural selection? My question is:...

Complex language would seem to be beneficial to the survival of other species, so why are humans the only species with this trait?

Is human cloning immoral? Or can it help more society rather than do it harm?

Research in anthropology and related disciplines reveals that there is no strong evidence of any universal morals; there are no set of moral beliefs that are found uniformly across all existing countries or cultures. This has often been interpreted to mean that morality is unrelated to the existence of a deity. Some, however, believe that while the lack of universal morals is true it does seem that there is a universal sense of “oughtness”, or a universal tendency to justify what we do, or to place value judgments like “right” and “wrong” on behavior. From a philosophical perspective is this universal tendency toward morality better explained by a need to “get along” to increase fitness in our world (roughly a sociobiological explanation of morality), or is it perhaps better explained by our possessing an intrinsically moral nature, i.e. one that may exist because of the existence of a deity or deities (or even because life may continue after physical death without the existence of a deity). Sociobiology,...

How can life be defined? What is the borderline between life and no life? Are virus alive? In human beings life starts in the conception? A person in coma or with cerebral palsy is alive? What would be the conditions for a robot to be considered as something alive? Sorry for my english.

Is all behaviour learned?

We are a Muslim couple and it's now 5 years and we don't have childrens. Doctors said that my wife is not having eggs to produce although she is only 32 years old. There is only way to take the eggs from another lady. Please tell me that is it ok or it will be a sin. The answer from the doctors is the final that she will never be able to produce her own eggs so this is the only option for ivf..... Please help me. Rashid

Is there any credence to the idea that acting morally works in evolutionary terms, i.e., that it helps preserve the unity and survival of a co-dependent group? If this is the case, surely talk of absolute morality derived from religious scriptures is worthless, and our morality is just a refined survival technique. Thanks for a great site!