Roosh's "Theory Of Evolution Does Not Apply..." Discussion

[Lucky]

The fact that this forum exists signals that men are very interested in sharing their DNA.

Out of the total number of sex acts you have done in your life, how many had a purpose of sharing your DNA (i.e. reproduction)?

I think I know the answer: zero.

You are an evolutionary accident, and your desire to not take advantage of reproduction means you must be weeded out of the gene pool. And if you look around, you are, by far, not alone.

That's right. And in every sex act my aim was to have an orgasm, which is linked to sharing DNA. We aren't consciously driven to have sex with thoughts like "I must reproduce, and therefore must have sex." It's more like "orgasms feel good, so I will pursue them."

Similar to food-- we don't decide to eat by thinking "if I don't eat I'm going to die" but rather something like "I feel hungry, so I will eat to diminish this feeling."

Getting weeded out of the gene pool is not unusual.

-Only 40% of men have ever reproduced

-4,000-8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, only 1 man reproduced for every 17 women

 

[Seadog]

Great article with lots of thought provoking points.

I would argue that the guy willing to blast out 40 kids *is* more fit to flourish under the current system. The women didn't die because they couldn't work while pregnant (as would be the case otherwise), if he can't support them or the kids, they'll still survive (as wouldn't be the case otherwise). There's frankly nothing for him to lose by having another 40, compared with most everyone here. Now it may not be evolution by means of natural selection, but much akin to a dog breeder breeding for specific characteristics, you could argue that the system has set up evolution by artificial selection.

When you say 'fittest' I feel it's not a gradual curve (ie: I'm more fit than you because I'm richer or have a bigger house), but more of a 1 or a 0. If resources becomes more scarce the bar simply gets raised. Right now anyone with an 80 IQ and a pulse is evolutionary fit in the sense they're still here. Evolution is primarily a biological response to external stresses. Right now you see stresses that favour child rearing by guys like the above, meanwhile whom are all indirectly paid for you and me. If a lot of the social safety nets were removed, the survival of these people would be a lot more in question, and the resource rich wouldn't have such disincentives for having kids.

As was touched on with the smaller brains, I would almost expect to see humans in some sense de-evolve. Everything that is attractive is for a million year old reason, and modern technology has made a lot of it redundant. That is evolution looks rearward, while survival looks forward A predilection for big hips isn't nearly as important as it once was to ensure your kids get birthed properly. Maybe someone who likes skinnier asses will have more success, since the girls aren't getting as much attention, and there is no longer a potential issue having babies, and that line (and preference for small hips) will flourish.

 

[Bad Hussar]

The fact that this forum exists signals that men are very interested in sharing their DNA.

Out of the total number of sex acts you have done in your life, how many had a purpose of sharing your DNA (i.e. reproduction)?

I think I know the answer: zero.

You are an evolutionary accident, and your desire to not take advantage of reproduction means you must be weeded out of the gene pool. And if you look around, you are, by far, not alone.

In the modern evolutionary view it's not "you" who is either weeded out of the gene pool or carries forward to future generations, only your genes. And nearly all of them will be carried forward whether you reproduce or not. Of course that's not the way we naturally see things. The stakes for the genes are high so they "create" organisms that want to reproduce. Or rather want to take the actions that will lead to this - sex, orgasm.

It's pretty much impossible to live ones life from the core evolutionary level, that of genes. Inevitably we will view things from the viewpoint of individuals. That's OK. More than OK. But it's not the level that will allow us to understand what is happening in evolution.

 

[Frost]

The theory of group selection is aggressively NOT part of the mainstream Evolutionary Biology consensus, but that doesn't make it wrong. There are definitely some evolutionary biologists who believe in group selection - in fact, Roosh recently wrote a separate RoK article about one - but they are excluded from the mainstream. IMO, group selection is very plausible, and can be modeled if we assume some ability to identify and punish defectors from the optimal group strategy.

Nobody would deny that evolution has occurred, and is occurring.

Few would deny that EvPsych is a useful tool for analyzing behaviour of organisms, humans included.

But is the strictly materialist interpretation of humanity 100% correct? I don't think so. I think evolution is like Newtonian Physics: true and extremely useful, but incomplete in certain extreme cases. Outside of ignorant megachurchians, not many people are willing to say this, because whenever you do, midwits will seize the opportunity to pronounce themselves smarter than the hurrr durrr anti-science creationist. Roosh is taking flak from a lot of mediocre minds, and there are plenty of nits I could pick about his post, but ultimately he's asking good questions and writing about topics that haven't been done to death 1000 times.

 

[The Beast1]

I see many human behaviors that make little sense in the light of evolution, such as

• homosexuality
• transexuality (why would a man want to become a woman and vice versa)
• some practices of avoiding sexual release

Also, we aren't the first culture to experience some of these. For instance, towards Romes' end, Juvenal also describes some odd behaviors that seem counter to what we'd expect from evolution, like a many who refuses to defile himself sexually, so he requires that his slave sleep with his wife and presents the offspring as his own, even though, they aren't.

As a contrast, religions - like Christianity - tend to attribute this counter behavior to man's rejection of God (Romans 1 comes to mind). As man rejects God, he begins to behave in ways that are contradictory to the way God made things, and at a certain threshold, God gives man into this counter behavior (implying that God no longer cares about this person destroying themself).

All of this is fascinating because we see cultures rise to great power, like the Greeks, Romans, Chinese (have been a world power before now), and yet we see declines. The United States was once a great culture (defeated the Soviet Union), yet Russia and China now seem to be taking its place and over the next hundred years, we could see Western societies decline.

What I don't understand, and I can see why Roosh wrote what he wrote, is why this happens. We have history in front of us and most of us have learned it, so why do we keep making the same mistake? At some point, shouldn't we learn and stop this? Also, if we are here to reproduce and that is the highest level of our being, why do we engage in behaviors that don't lead to this? And not only that, but then encourage others to do the same (at least, if we decide not to reproduce, we should know the importance of others doing so).

It was a good read and I've had some of those same questions that don't make sense. Like many religions, people who subscribe to evolution love to rationalize it away, even when their rationalizations make little sense (or are predicated on the assumption that evolution is true, thus leading to tautological problems).

I've argued this before and it's enlightening to see someone else post this. The bible talks about "sin" leading to death. I've debated with a pastor before on this, sin and evolution go hand in hand. I'd love to write up an article comparing these two points.

When the bible says sin leads to death, it means a few things:

1. A spiritual death. This is a rut where you keep trying the same behaviors over and over again expecting different results. Think the gay dude who keeps cruising and the woman riding the cock carousel.
2. You died, death. Self explanatory.
3. Death of a bloodline.

The last one is the most important. Sin is nature's way of culling humanity. A person who is spiritually dead doesn't want to have children for various reasons. This leads to that person's genetics not being passed on.

When a person is gay, trans, LGBBQ, etc. by pure chance when they were born the DNA order that was assembled from his/her parent's genes was assembled in such a way that has dictated an attraction for the same sex.

This is nature's way of removing unfit genes from the gene pool. The same applies to women.

I've always wanted to post to my facebook saying that homosexuality is dysgenic in that an attraction to the same sex leads to no children being born between the two partners. Without their genetic lineage being passed on, homosexuality and the genes that help express that behavior get removed from the gene pool.

The same behavior can be said of women who chose to wait until their mid 30s to have children. If they're not fertile at that point, the "selective" pressures of in this case society have now determined that this woman's genes is unfit to be passed onto the next generation.

The effect of survival of the fittest and evolution not only includes pressures relating to raw resources (food,water,etc) but also to occurrences where there is a bounty beyond all imaginable means (near unlimited food, shelter,etc). In this case, we saw how at the end of the Roman Empire there were all sorts of weird behaviors being exhibited. Those behaviors lead to a malaise where people didn't want to re-produce, leading to a demographic breakdown. The cultural breakdown lead people to look out for themselves instead of their community. This is what leads to the rise and fall of empires.

Liberalism as a whole is dysgenic.

Where does this behavior come from? Well, that's a good question. Modern science I don't believe has the wherewithal to figure this out, but I'll take a stab.

If you study gnostic texts and the bible, they speak of "spirits" that lead people. There's obviously the "holy spirit" but also a false spirit. This false spirit leads people astray from redemption.

You are an evolutionary accident, and your desire to not take advantage of reproduction means you must be weeded out of the gene pool. And if you look around, you are, by far, not alone.

Until we have children, if we die in some freak accident our genes have been permanently weeded out of nature.

 

[TheWastelander]

Your article was thoughtful, but I always thought survival of the fittest was best applied to simple organisms or animals without much cognitive ability and who still live in a state of nature.

Humans were smart enough to become masters of the wild for whom the base concerns of safety, eating, and fucking are no longer the only ones. Because of smarter members of our species surviving through our darker primitive periods we enjoy the comfort of the lifestyles we have today. We were not as physically strong as the beasts that used to imperil our lives on a widespread scale, but we were smart enough to band together, devise weapons, tactics, and strategies to defeat them and extirpate them if necessary. A level of altruism toward our fellow man was necessary for us to accomplish this and our intelligence was the reason why scientists think we beat out the neanderthals who were physically stronger than us. So that makes us the "fittest."

The irony is our intelligence has led to the development of things like nuclear weapons which, while useful against human enemies, could also lead to the destruction of our species.

You, or anyone else here, deciding not to have kids is not a failure of evolution. It is the result of an advanced human brain that exists precisely due to smart motherfuckers surviving and reproducing generation after generation. Whether you do have kids or you don't doesn't matter one wit to nature. It simply means you were smart enough to pursue the kind of life you wanted to live rather than just behave like an instinctual beast beholden only to its base instincts.

Evolution and the survival of the fittest explains all that pretty well, I think. The things it can't explain well are our origins, how to survive in a human society, and how we should live. I'm not sure that it was ever meant to.

 

[Cheetah]

The fact that this forum exists signals that men are very interested in sharing their DNA.

Out of the total number of sex acts you have done in your life, how many had a purpose of sharing your DNA (i.e. reproduction)?

I think I know the answer: zero.

You are an evolutionary accident, and your desire to not take advantage of reproduction means you must be weeded out of the gene pool. And if you look around, you are, by far, not alone.

Don't forget all of the 'ooops, the bitch is pregnant' threads.

 

[Bad Hussar]

The theory of group selection is aggressively NOT part of the mainstream Evolutionary Biology consensus, but that doesn't make it wrong. There are definitely some evolutionary biologists who believe in group selection - in fact, Roosh recently wrote a separate RoK article about one - but they are excluded from the mainstream. IMO, group selection is very plausible, and can be modeled if we assume some ability to identify and punish defectors from the optimal group strategy.

Nobody would deny that evolution has occurred, and is occurring.

Few would deny that EvPsych is a useful tool for analyzing behaviour of organisms, humans included.

But is the strictly materialist interpretation of humanity 100% correct? I don't think so. I think evolution is like Newtonian Physics: true and extremely useful, but incomplete in certain extreme cases. Outside of ignorant megachurchians, not many people are willing to say this, because whenever you do, midwits will seize the opportunity to pronounce themselves smarter than the hurrr durrr anti-science creationist. Roosh is taking flak from a lot of mediocre minds, and there are plenty of nits I could pick about his post, but ultimately he's asking good questions and writing about topics that haven't been done to death 1000 times.

The current gene centered view of evolution will absolutely have it's Newton moment someday. I suppose it's possible that this is reached by going "back" to group selection. But I think it's much more likely that the unit of selection will get smaller, rather than bigger, in future revisions. Small as in on the atomic scale. Like I mentioned in a post above there is at least one (MIT) Bio-Physicist who is developing theories along these lines. Still much too early in my opinion to produce a firm theory since we aren't close to having exhausted our study of genes. But it's obviously a free world and he may well have something interesting to say.

I think people misunderstand the "group selection" vs "gene centered view" of evolution. It's partially a matter of which perspective gives you the most understanding. In a process where it is genes which are the units of selection this will still pretty obviously have EFFECTS which look a bit like group selection. The genes inside one lion survive (genes) - the lion survives (individual organism) - it mates and protects its mate and offspring (group...well sort of) so that....the genes in the offspring have a chance of replicating.

When evolutionary biologists say they disagree with group selection, it is the "selection" bit they are disagreeing with. Not that there are no groups. Or that groups don't co-operate and so on. It's just that, biologically, it is the genes that actually replicate themselves (and are therefore what is subject to selection), not the individual or group.

 

[TheWastelander]

I should add that I detected frustration with internet atheists (who are mostly just anti-theists), who worship guys like Dawkins) in your article. I understand it quite well. They've bought into a movement that believes since there's no scientific proof of the divine and no heaven, we should strive to create one on Earth through embracing their utopian political ideas about how society should be set up and men should be ruled. Science, to them, is merely used as a political cudgel since traditionally religious societies stand in the way of their idea of "progress."

It is no coincidence that the "four horsemen" (Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet, and Harris) are/were leftists.

I do believe it's possible (but increasingly rare) to be an atheist and at the same time, not an anti-theist. I imagine there are a few who evaluate the various major religions independently and weighs their pros and cons rather than categorically saying all religion is evil superstitious nonsense that leads to millions of deaths (while simultaneously ignoring that the highest body count belongs to the secular atheistic religion of communism because it is a cousin to their own ideologies).

Anyway, I don't want to derail the scientific discussion in this thread but I thought it worthwhile to comment on what I felt was expressed in parts of the article.

 

[Sonsowey]

Your article was thoughtful, but I always thought survival of the fittest was best applied to simple organisms or animals without much cognitive ability and who still live in a state of nature.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" brings up the notion of an animalistic hunter gatherer using his brains, wit, speed and strength to make it in the world. But all it only matters if he reproduces. Just surviving means nothing evolutionarily, you could kill a thousand lions with your bear hands, fell trees with a stone axe and build a village like a boss, if you don't have kids, you may as well have never been born from an evolutionary perspective.

As long as some humans have 7 kids, some only have 1, and some have 0, humans are still reproducing at different rates and some traits are passed on more frequently, while others less frequently or not at all. Whether the cause of not reproducing is being killed by a wild animal or just spending your life on the computer, the impact is the same. We are not beyond evolution, we are not beyond selection, it is just a whole different set of factors now that go into who reproduces and who does not.

 

[TheWastelander]

Your article was thoughtful, but I always thought survival of the fittest was best applied to simple organisms or animals without much cognitive ability and who still live in a state of nature.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" brings up the notion of an animalistic hunter gatherer using his brains, wit, speed and strength to make it in the world. But all it only matters if he reproduces. Just surviving means nothing evolutionarily, you could kill a thousand lions with your bear hands, fell trees with a stone axe and build a village like a boss, if you don't have kids, you may as well have never been born from an evolutionary perspective.

Yes, I know.

As long as some humans have 7 kids, some only have 1, and some have 0, humans are still reproducing at different rates and some traits are passed on more frequently, while others less frequently or not at all. Whether the cause of not reproducing is being killed by a wild animal or just spending your life on the computer, the impact is the same. We are not beyond evolution, we are not beyond selection, it is just a whole different set of factors now that go into who reproduces and who does not.

Right, and I thought I alluded to that when I wrote "humans were smart enough to become masters of the wild for whom the base concerns of safety, eating, and fucking are no longer the only ones."

However, I'd argue that it's not a whole set of different factors. Just there's a whole set of additional factors unique to the modern environment we've created for ourselves.

 

[flyfreshandyoung]

I too share similar skepticism towards evolution for one big reason:

-The ridiculous odds that something could evolve an appendage, like a pair of wings for example. If one is to argue an arm transformed into a wing or vice versa over a great span of time, how did this organism survive for so long? It has a mutated appendage that is less than worthless. It would make the organism not fit and not survive. Furthermore, given that mutations are random, this worthless appendage would require another mutation and another mutation and so on, just think of the odds of that. And for a pair of wings, the odds get absolutely insane.

If we grant that millions of years is enough time for this process to occur, for transitioning species to not only survive but survive long enough that another incremental mutation occurs--

The fossil record should be a holocaust of retarded and deformed creatures, and when considering that most mutations are bad, there should bemagnitudes more deformed fossils than regular fossils.

 

[Blobert]

I too share similar skepticism towards evolution for one big reason:

-The ridiculous odds that something could evolve an appendage, like a pair of wings for example. If one is to argue an arm transformed into a wing or vice versa over a great span of time, how did this organism survive for so long? It has a mutated appendage that is less than worthless. It would make the organism not fit and not survive. Furthermore, given that mutations are random, this worthless appendage would require another mutation and another mutation and so on, just think of the odds of that. And for a pair of wings, the odds get absolutely insane.

If we grant that millions of years is enough time for this process to occur, for transitioning species to not only survive but survive long enough that another incremental mutation occurs--

The fossil record should be a holocaust of retarded and deformed creatures, and when considering that most mutations are bad, there should bemagnitudes more deformed fossils than regular fossils.

I share that skepticism to an extent, however I don't think it's relevant when talking about modern day humans.

Evolution in our context simply derives from common sense:
-Children inherit genes from their parents, and the inherited genes affect both their physical and mental makeup
-Different kinds of people have different amounts of children

Which leads to some traits getting rarer and others getting more common. Do you find something disagreeable in this?

 

[RandomGuy1]

Roosh, you wrote:

There must be something else motivating and driving human beings that can’t be explained by current science [...]

I must state that it’s not a comfortable position for me to neither believe in god or human evolution, for I have no working model for my own existence.

And now, that you will move on from Darwinism I strongly recommend you to pursue the path of Taoism. You will find many answers, I promise.

 

[Saweeep]

I too share similar skepticism towards evolution for one big reason:

-The ridiculous odds that something could evolve an appendage, like a pair of wings for example. If one is to argue an arm transformed into a wing or vice versa over a great span of time, how did this organism survive for so long? It has a mutated appendage that is less than worthless. It would make the organism not fit and not survive. Furthermore, given that mutations are random, this worthless appendage would require another mutation and another mutation and so on, just think of the odds of that. And for a pair of wings, the odds get absolutely insane.

If we grant that millions of years is enough time for this process to occur, for transitioning species to not only survive but survive long enough that another incremental mutation occurs--

The fossil record should be a holocaust of retarded and deformed creatures, and when considering that most mutations are bad, there should bemagnitudes more deformed fossils than regular fossils.

This is just the god of the gaps argument.

 

[Caveman]

Ok I see some of the posters in this thread have a fairly solid understanding of the theory of evolution, but are "criticizing" the article in a very indirect way.

I however won't sugar coat it so much.

Roosh I consider this article you wrote a major blunder.

So far I've enjoyed reading your texts, and have gotten a lot of value and great insights from it, but like most people I'm silent when everything is great, and here I am to complain when something is out of whack.

I was gonna write rebuttals to some of your ideas in your text, but then I saw the article recommended by Zelcorpion, the author does a great job at pointing at all the crap he sees in your article, and I agree with all of it.

Basically both your article and the book you're citing are taking an extremely simplistic and superficial look at the theory of evolution, and trying to naively apply it to specific situations and draw naive conclusions from there. For example why are you still childless when you're so "fit" to reproduce?

If you had understood how evolution works, you would know that you are NOT fit to reproduce (simply because you don't do it), while the alcoholic man with 40 children in a previous post above IS fit to reproduce (simply because he can in the environment we live in, and most importantly because he DOES it).

You need to differentiate between what you and society think a "fit" man is, and what evolutionary "fit" is.

I can write a very long text refuting just about everything in your article, but I see no point in it when the author above did it quite well already.

The real questions in my mind actually are: Why did you do it? Why did you attempt to attack the theory of evolution? I've got a few possible explanations playing in my mind:

Explanation #1: You genuinely misunderstood it. This is not very likely, considering you've read "The Selfish Gene" which provides an excellent explanation of all major aspects of evolution, and this includes the altruism you dabbled with in your text, and it shows how it helps not only groups but also individuals survive better (hint: altruism towards non-relatives is always coupled with an expectation of reciprocity).

Explanation #2: You don't really believe what you wrote, but have some agenda with this new stance of yours against evolution. This seems more likely to me, especially considering how systematic and thoughtful you've been on all subjects you've written in the past. There are no words to describe how shallow all the arguments in your article are, there's simply no way to embellish a turd to be something pretty, the theory of evolution has so many solid arguments accumulated to back it up (including how it applies to modern humans), I see any attack on it is doomed from the start.

Explanation #3: Maybe this is some kind of a prank, similar as your being imprisoned joke...

I don't know what is happening and what you're trying to do, I've been very happy with the forum and your writings so far, but now you want to start a new ideology (neo-masculinity), if this new stance of yours against evolution is your attempt to attract the religious crowd, I'm afraid it will be at the expense of alienating scientifically minded men who are ALREADY in your camp...

 

[Seadog]

I too share similar skepticism towards evolution for one big reason:

-The ridiculous odds that something could evolve an appendage, like a pair of wings for example. If one is to argue an arm transformed into a wing or vice versa over a great span of time, how did this organism survive for so long? It has a mutated appendage that is less than worthless. It would make the organism not fit and not survive. Furthermore, given that mutations are random, this worthless appendage would require another mutation and another mutation and so on, just think of the odds of that. And for a pair of wings, the odds get absolutely insane.

You're thinking of evolution in the wrong way, it's not all of a sudden a third eye pops up or full set of wings, any major change generally tend to be big screwups, but are also exceedingly rare. Elongated scales or furrier arms could have acted as a primitive form of feather. You don't need to escape by flying, just jump or glide an extra foot so your friend who couldn't ride on air just that little bit further gets eaten.

It's more a gradual push in a certain direction. If food sources became higher because all the low stuff got eaten, animal heights would get incrementally higher in response, then the even high trees would survive better and an upward arms race would begin as the highest trees get selected.

That said I don't think arguing the basic tenants of evolution were the point of the article.

It really needs to be divided into two, survivability, and reproductive success. Generally, the latter is tied to the former via cues people find attractive. But I read about a fish (cuttle fish if I'm not mistaken) who makes itself look like a female, so he can hang out with all the females then reproduce with them. With such a strategy(reproductive trickery?), survivability beyond a basic thresh hold isn't needed.

 

[flyfreshandyoung]

@CrashBangWallop

Never heard of it lol but glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. Though I'm not necessarily arguing for the supernatural (I don't really have a dog in this fight) I find the mental leap required to accept long term evolution every bit as faith based as the religious argument.

 

[scorpion]

Evolution is such an obviously nonsensical idea that, absent total cultural propaganda, it truly does take an impressive intellect to talk oneself into believing it.

I doubt very much that most people here would believe in evolution if they had never heard of it before and were presented the evidence with a blank slate. At this point most people simply default into believing in evolution (and by believing I should more accurately say, "not questioning") because of peer pressure ("What, you don't believe in evolution? Wow...and I thought you were intelligent").

There is a certain intellectual blindness that always accompanies hubris. I would caution those who are utterly convinced they know facts about what supposedly happened billions of years ago to keep that in mind.

 

[Truth Teller]

Humans, after the development of language, have obviously taken things several orders of magnitude further. Many evolutionary thinkers believe that there now exists a second unit of replication (in addition to genes) which Dawkins has called "memes". Units of cultural replication made possible by human intelligence and , especially, language. But they are still beholden to genes. They are on "on a leash" in EO Wilson's words. Maybe a long leash, maybe a short leash, but never completely free. And they can and are reeled in every now and then.

Anyway, Dawkins explained these things in the 1970's, much better than I can, and I would strongly suggest that anyone truly interested in evolution read his first, and by far best, book - The Selfish Gene. I know he has a reputation now as a dick who is obsessed with atheism. Even as an atheist myself, I think he would have done better sticking to biology. Religious debate is just impossible and a non-stop circus. But "The Selfish Gene" doesn't deal with atheism, and is the best book by far you need to read if you want to understand what the modern view of evolution is, and why you need to look at it from the genes eye view and not at the level of whole organisms. Even if you don't agree with it, you'll have a better view of what you're disagreeing with.

The "genes eye view" does seem pretty harsh from our point of view, but in reality it is neither harsh nor agreeable. It just is. That's another thing about evolution. Because of the way the theory is set up, it pretty much can't be wrong. Because all the inputs are baked into genes. Add genes to sexual reproduction and the fact that outcomes are uneven and you have the evolutionary process.

PS: There seems to be a recent move to "move on" from the gene centered view of evolution to a sort of "atom centered" view. Some physicist from MIT, who is also an orthodox Jew and has been self-promoting recently, seems to believe that the view of what is live or not is wrong. He seems to take the almost New Age view that everything is "alive" and that the unit of replication is on the atomic level, rather than the gene. So a chuck of concrete is "alive", as is a lion. I think it sounds like a lot of pop quantum-mechanical mumbo jumbo, but will have to look into what he is saying in more detail before commenting further.

The meme is an unscientific joke of an idea. It's never been detected, there's absolutely no evidence of it, and the only scientific journal even vaguely discussing it shut down years ago. I think Dawkins was incredibly far off the mark with his "meme" idea, and it's possible that human culture and ideas follow more of a Lamarckian evolutionary trajectory than that of a Darwinian one. The two evolutionary biologists of note who believe(d) it were Wilson and Dawkins. I'm not even sure that they believe it anymore.

With regard to your MIT Physicist, his name is Dr. Gerald Schroeder. The idea you're referring to is actually called hylozoism, where the entire universe is alive. Alternatively, you're talking about panpsychism, where all matter is conscious. Both are actually fairly old philosophical views. They're not that New Age, actually. Hylozoism dates back to before Kant, and panpsychism (if memory serves) goes back to the Greeks.

The Selfish Gene is now almost 40 years old. There are far better, far more current books on the evolutionary paradigm. I suggest most of Stephen Jay Gould's popular books instead. Alternatively, you can read Francisco Ayala's books.

With regard to evolution, I approach this more as a theological/philosophical question. I'm not a biologist, but I've read some of the literature. Even if we've evolved the moral sense, it doesn't mean that there's no absolute morality. We could still be beholden to an absolute morality (as I think we are, and as I would bet most of us think we are, at least implicitly) and have evolved our moral sense. I am fairly convinced that the modern evolutionary synthesis has at least some of the answers in biology. It certainly doesn't have all of them. Personally, however, I am convinced that there's something beyond simple mutation and natural selection. The theory is clearly incomplete, but we don't know where it's incomplete. This is why scientific paradigm shifts are rare and difficult.