Critical Thinking Post #4 - Midterm Practice

                The theory of Evolution is a fact and personally, I agree that Darwinism opposes humanistic values like altruism. I say this for a variety of reasons. For example, let’s uses Richard Dawkins “The Selfish Gene”. In this work Dawkin believes that altruism lies within a person’s genes, and that person’s gene tends to be altruistic towards other related genes. For example if there was a burning building with a child inside, the child’s father would go in to save that person because the genes in the child match the fathers to a certain extent. This is flawed though because if that was true, those genes would become extinct over time. That lifesaving gene would die out in Darwin’s theory of evolution yet somehow still exist in the modern era. This is shown in Ian McEwans short story “Us or Me”. In it a runaway balloon with a child still inside tries to be stop by a band of people working together. The balloon files up and immediately all of the people let go except for a doctor. The child’s own grandfather let go so that deed alone contrasts with Dawkins view. The grandfather should have been the last one to hold on due to his genes, yet he wasn't. This also contrasts with survival of the fittest because the doctor was the last one to hold on. They both show that altruism has lasted till today, and still plays an important role. Everyone has a hint of it because in McEwan’s story these random people can first to help the little boy (didn't last but it was shown). It should have died out a long time ago, but for some reason it hasn't and that is why I believe that Darwinism opposes humanistic values.