“As this rather endearing cetacean plummeted toward the surface of the planet Magrathea, it was in fact asking a perfectly reasonable question, but one that has no reasonable answer. It had been “called into existence” by that Infinite Improbability Drive, and as the improbably constructed consequence thereof, had no purpose whatsoever. The same can be said about every living thing in our own nonfictional world … including you, dear reader, and me. We have all been called into existence by a highly improbable event — meiosis combined with the union of a particular sperm with a particular egg — and so (to pluralize a recent cliché) we are what we are. “Purpose” does not come prepackaged with existence; if we want the former, we must achieve it by how we live.”
“I also agree with the author’s claim that the basic facts of biology dismember all philosophical arguments for “free will,” leaving us with the paradoxical situation of knowing subjectively that we have it, but understanding that scientifically it is indefensible.”
“By virtue of its greater cooperation, it will have out-competed its rival.”
“Don’t misunderstand: cooperation is desirable, socially and ecologically, and — for those so inclined — spiritually, but it is not an evolutionary good in and of itself. Cooperation evolves if and only if its adaptive bottom line is competitively superior to its alternatives.”
“I share Graffin’s disdain for competition as a social good, especially as manifested in the abusive faux-evolutionary ideology of Ayn Rand and her Tea Party epigones, but the distastefulness of a phenomenon is no basis for doubting its verity in the biological realm. Evolution is generally a wonderful thing to learn about, but a terrible thing to learn from.”
“Whitman wrote, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” Population Wars, as described by Graffin, is indeed large, and contains multitudes, but whereas Whitman’s claims were poetic, Graffin’s are scientific, and as such, are not necessarily enhanced by mere multitudinousness.”
“But more troubling still: some of Graffin’s wide-ranging material is of questionable validity, such as his reference to Aristotle as “the great ‘first philosopher.’” Presumably, he hasn’t heard of Aristotle’s mentor, Plato, or of Plato’s (Socrates), or of the slew of notable pre-Socratics, not to mention the galaxy of great Axial Age Asian thinkers.”
“To his credit, Graffin promotes a worldview that is not only ethically admirable but biologically valid, based on the key concept (shared, incidentally, with Buddhist thinkers as well as modern biologists) of interconnectedness. We’d be well advised “to consider ‘ourselves’ as a coalition of many populations, rather than one definitive ‘I.’” Thus, he points out that just as “we are all stewards of our own unique internal environment; perhaps learning to care for it will encourage us to care for our external environment as well.””
“After all, we have a distinct advantage over that woebegone whale with which I began this essay, and whose blubber soon bespattered the Magrathean landscape.”