On Sep 6, 8:18 pm, Hamady gmail.com> wrote:

You need to give examples then of natural selection of particular
traits as a theory of directed change. In the entire article you
didn't once provide evidence of how Darwin's view was sufficiently
established before he formulated it.

Isn't materialist philosophy one theory about life amongst many,
including religious views. if we compare all the war and death that
have resulted from religious conflict in history with the war and
death that resulted from materialist philosophy, religion has
contributed more.

By this reasoning that Darwin is responsible for what other people did
with his ideas after he died, we could say that any cult based upon
anything Jesus said would make Jesus responsible for the activities of
those people. Weak argument form, but you may have some stronger idea
your trying to say here but it doesn't work in that argument form
because there are to many absurd and unbelievable counter-examples.

Appeal to Tradition is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that
something is better or correct simply because it is older,
traditional, or "always has been done." This sort of "reasoning" is
fallacious because the age of something does not automatically make it
correct or better than something newer. This is made quite obvious by
the following example: The theory that witches and demons cause
disease is far older than the theory that microrganisms cause
diseases. Therefore, the theory about witches and demons must be
true.

An appeal to fear is a logical fallacy in which a person attempts to
create support for his or her idea by increasing fear and prejudice
toward a competitor. The appeal to fear is extremely common in
marketing and politics. What is wrong with this mistake in argument is
that the threat is presented without any supports.

People have "drawn strength" from about anything you can think of and
twisted the original meaning to fit their selfish desires, religion
especially. Another bad argument form makes another possibly good idea
bite the dust but being open to to many absurd arguments that fit into
that form and are claimed to be true and seem so.

I think that Darwinism better explains why people did all the things
you mention in the article.

Xenophobia denotes a phobic attitude toward strangers or of the
unknown and comes from the Greek words (xenos), meaning "foreigner,"
"stranger," and (phobos), meaning "fear." The term is typically used
to describe fear or dislike of foreigners or in general of people
different from one's self.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia

Unreflected Ingroup Favoritism - One who reflects does not
discriminate?: On the role of unreflected cognitive processes for the
occurrence of ingroup favoritism between artificial groups;

A categorization of individuals in two groups
based on completely trivial criteria like flipping
a coin to determine which group one is
assigned (Group X or Group Y), can
be sufficient to cause mutual
preferences for one's
own group.

Social identity theory assumes a fundamental striving towards a
positive distinction of one's own group from other groups. The
tendency to a preference for one's own group is clearly reduced in a
situation involving intergroup judgments on negative comparison
dimensions or distribution decisions on negative stimuli (burdens,
aversive stimuli), in comparison to those in the positive realm.

These basic judgment processes may be the fundamental determining
factors of and conditions for social discrimination. Of some influence
may be the role which evaluations of oneself play for the positive
evaluation of minimal social groups. It is assumed that an unreflected
cognitive process is critical for this, in the course of which, as a
rule, the positive self-image is transferred to the new ingroup. Due
to the lesser degree of similarity to oneself, an outgroup cannot
benefit from such a generalization process.

Correspondingly, a positive distinctiveness of one's own group can
result solely from the self-ingroup relation, independent of an
ingroup-outgroup comparison. There is a generalized positive attitude
to the ingroup, and demonstrating the role of a low degree of
reflection for the occurrence of favoritism in minimal intergroup
situations and considerations of outgroups.

The randomly assigned individuals generally act as if those who share
their meaningless label are their good friends or close kin. Subjects
indicate that they like those who share their label. They rate others
who share their label as likely to have a more pleasant personality
and to have produced better output than outgroup members. Most
strikingly, subjects allocate more money and rewards to those who
share their labels.

In other related social experiments at political rallies it has been
noted that researchers faking injuries, were helped more or less
depending on whether their protest sign, and slogans supported or went
against those around them who could help.

The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/

----------------------------------

Extremism is a term used to describe the actions or ideologies of
individuals or groups outside the perceived political center of a
society; or otherwise claimed to violate common standards of ethics
and reciprocity. It is usually considered by those to whom it is
applied to be a pejorative term. It is typically used in reference to
political and social ideologies seen as irrational, counterproductive,
unjustifiable, or otherwise unacceptable to a civil society. The term
connotes the illegitimacy of certain ideas or methods.

The terms "extremism" or "extremist" are almost always exonymic—i.e.
applied by others rather than by a group labeling itself. Rather than
labeling themselves "extremist", those labeled as such tend to see the
need for militant ideas or actions in a particular situation. For
example, there is no political party that calls itself "right-wing
extremist" or "left-wing extremist", and there is no sect of any
religion that calls itself "Extremism."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremism

---------------------------------

Although we human beings may have inherited biological tendencies that
predispose us toward prejudicial behavior, no one knows for sure
whether or not prejudice is a vital and necessary part of our
biological makeup. In any case, most social psychologists would agree
that the specifics of prejudice must be learned—either through
imitating the attitudes and behavior of others or through the ways in
which we construct our own psychological reality.

The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/

The hypothesis before us is that some gene frequencies are changed in
consistent ways by ecclesiastic selection. Human genes, it will be
recalled, program the functioning of the nervous, sensory, and
hormonal systems of the body, and thereby almost certainly influence
the learning process. They constrain the maturation of some behaviors
and the learning rules of other behaviors. Incest taboos, taboos in
general, xenophobia, the dichotomization of objects into the sacred
and profane, nosism, hierarchical dominance systems, intense attention
toward leaders, charisma, trophyism, and trance-induction are among
the elements of religious behavior most likely to be shaped by
developmental programs and learning rules.

All of these processes act to circumscribe a social group and bind its
members together in unquestioning allegiance. Our hypothesis requires
that such constraints exist, that they have a physiological basis, and
that the physiological basis in turn has a genetic origin. It implies
that ecclesiastical choices are influenced by the chain of events that
lead from the genes through physiology to constrained learning during
single lifetimes.

According to the hypothesis, the frequencies of the genes themselves
are reciprocally altered by the descending sequence of several kinds
of selection — ecclesiastic, ecological, and genetic — over many
lifetimes. Religious practices that consistently enhance survival and
procreation of the practitioners will propagate the physiological
controls that favor acquisition of the practices during single
lifetimes. The genes that prescribe the controls will also be favored.

On Human Nature
by Edward Osborne Wilson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067463442X/