Do evolutionists believe that humans have animal instincts too?

Question

If so then does a man cheating on his wife construe as just animal instincts and disregard the fact that its hurtful to others? I dont know what morals or ethical codes evolutionists go by since the animals have to kill and eat each other in order to live. They mate when its time but it isn't the same partner, are we not a superior being to animals? I just wanted to know what evolutionist believe when it comes to relating humans and animals. Again not criticizing just thoughts?

Good answer jim_darwin we all have our faults and its a good thing we are not saved by what we do or don't do but the fact that we truly believe.

Well I believe in the Bible and back then they even had taxes and didn't live like the cavemen haha

Answer 1

Some animals have only one partner their whole life (humans are more promiscuous than say penguins).
Some animals live in society (some even are more organized than humans and do what they have to do).
Some animals kill to eat (that includes humans).

Every animal behave according to their specie, so, it's a mistake to think a fish has to act like an ant, or that a human has to act like a lion. We are not vegetables, nor minerals, we are animals and animals do not behave like other animals of another specie.

Fear and anger are instincts. Try hitting someone and see if they'll be stoic waiting for your first and not even blink.

Wheter you believe in evolution or not, you can't deny instincts. I'm sure instincts can be accepted without evolution.

Answer 2

I wonder how one could discern between animals and "people". We are part of the animal kingdom. We are mammals by nature. And I love how you mention that animals kill and eat each other I wonder where you think that beef or chicken you ate last night came from. We as the smartest of all the animals just see fit to process are kills a little more efficiently. And there are animals in the world that not only mate with the same partner for life but also at times when there is no need to further there population and even when a partner cant have offspring. We are not the only animals that feel extreme pleasure in sexual contact. For example I once was witness to two male llamas that would only mate with each other not with the female amongst them. Surely they must have found some pleasure in there exploits. And as for the cheating question, I am not certain that ones instincts play a role in that cheating, However humans being so polluted with certain holy than thou religions may play a roll. I have never known or seen an animal in nature that was not wild. We are no different. But we are brainwashed on a daily basis by everything we have created for ourselves. Ethics and Moral code should have little or nothing to do with ones religion. Ethics should be followed anyway. But then that begs the never ending question of what are ethics and what is ethical. I myself have this belief that one should indulge in whatever activity one desires. But then with some ethical dilemma. And for the real question of do we have instincts, most certainly we do. As I said before we are animals. I wonder how fire was discovered without instinct. I wonder how we knew to kill those animals to eat. How we found that we could plant our food. Or warm ourselves with dress, certainly instinct played a role.

Answer 3

Yes, those of us that believe is science are a bizzare bunch for sure!
(I gotta say, I've never heard the term "evolutionst" before. Up until Bush's reign of terror began, I was kinda under the impression that, it being the 21ist century, EVERYBODY kinda believed in Evolution)...
Anyway, to your question: I can't speak for all us Evolutionists, but certainly, this belief does not free humans from being responsible for their actions. If you cheat on your wife, that's WRONG. I don't know what that has to do with animals. Actually, some species mate for life, just as some humans mate for life, while others seem incapable of monogamy. To each their own.
I would also say it's not neccesary to try to distance ourselves that much from the wild creatures of the earth. HUMANS ARE ANIMALS; we're just a different species than what we usually consider "animals". I don't know why religions have such a problem with this concept -- it must have to do with the notion that we have souls, while animals do not. I cannot believe this for a moment. I've seen people who seem to be without a soul (just look at Madonna!) and have seen animals with more "soul" than you can imagine, so I reject this completely.
Also, of course, humans have animal insticts. That's why we have sex. The urge for sex & the urge to procreate are both animal insticts. And there's nothing wrong with that. We evolutionists believe our animal insticts are part of what gives us strength as a species! Another animal instict is the instinct to protect our young -- a human mother protecting her baby & a mama bear protecting her young are operating on the same evolutionary instinct!
Basically, NO: our belief in science does not eliminate morality, just fairy tales!

Answer 4

First off, there's no such thing as an "evolutionist." The way you use the term implies someone who *believes* in evolution, and evolution isn't a question of belief or non-belief, it's a matter of science, observational evidence, and rational thought. Either evolution is the mechanism by which we became the creatures we are (for which there is considerable evidence), or it isn't (for which there is no evidence) -- it's not a question of "belief."

Now, to your question...
People who understand that evolution happened are no different than other people -- their morals, feelings, and actions are complex combinations of animal instinct, cultural upbringing, and social restrictions. So there's no one way that they behave, or that they feel people *should* behave. People who understand evolution don't cheat on their spouses any more or less than people who believe god created the earth in 7 days do. As creatures with large brains capable of thought and emotion, they understand like everyone else does that cheating on a spouse -- even if it's a biological drive that is difficult to ignore -- can cause the end of a marriage, emotional difficulties, etc. You don't have to have a make-believe "god" that tells you something is going to cause problems to know that it causes problems. That's simple rational thought, not a moral system imposed by a made-up god.

One of the triumphs of human evolution is that we have evolved brains large enough to think about our actions and their effects, to understand that we still have "animal" instincts, and to make a conscious choice between following our instincts or not. How that choice is made is up to the individual, just like it is with anybody.

Answer 5

This is an odd question and I don't think someone has to be an evolutionist to believe humans have animal insticts. When humans are hungry they eat, when humans are thristy they drink. When human fell the urge they mate. Just like animals. If there is no food at the grocery store they gather and kill. If there is no other food available they revert to cannibalism (historically documented dammer party, soccer team crash in bolivia). Like all animals human main desires are to live and procreate.

You assumption that humans are monogomous in mating and animals are not as a justification of superiority is completely false. First humans aren't monogamous. Stastically the number of people who have only had one sexual partner their entire life is very small. Due contraception and birth control this mating isn't fruitfull. Second there are many animal species who do have monogamous mating.

The only thing that seperates people from animals is a written history and a complex language. Without a written history much of the world as we perceive it would not exist. Invention and innovations would not build upon one another. Social structures and ethical codes would not be as complex. We would rely on a the limits of a a game of telephone and the human memory to pass on a verbal history. Break that connection of verbal history and you lose the complex language and we are simply animals.

This is a very testable fact, but not an ethical experiment. First anthropologicallly there are many example of history of children raised by animals in the wld. They behave like animals and have no verbal skills or our socially instilled behaviors. Second you could take some babies and raise them in complete isolation without exposure to language. They would create their own social order with its own rules and a very limited language of grunts. They would kill and steal from one another. Just imagine a bunch or selfish 2 year old that can't talk wanting everything their way.

As a being we ae not superior to animals it is just our complex written history that makes us seem so much different than animals.

Answer 6

Yes, humans certainly do have animal instincts. Haven't you ever experienced the urge to kill someone, or to cheat on your mate, even if it was only momentary and you didn't act on it?

The existence of animal instincts does not preclude morality. There are good arguments for morality itself being an evolutionary construct, built into the human brain by natural selection. Within these arguments, morality is viewed a higher-level conflicting instinct that can overrule other instincts. But even if you don't buy that particular argument, moral behavior still has obvious value even to people (such as atheists) who don't believe it has a divine source.

It is a sadly common misconception among religious people that atheists cannot be moral because they don't accept god. But this assumes that morality comes from god, a belief which the atheist (of course) does not share. Just as an atheist has no problem accepting that life exists without accepting the common belief that it was created by god, so it is equally possible for him to accept that morality exists without agreeing with you about its source. Actual atheists are no less moral (as a group) than religious people, and there have been arguments that a philosophy of atheism is inherently MORE moral than a philosophy of christianity. (The arguments are too complex to go into in depth here, but the basic gist is that atheists are bound to morality that makes rational sense, rather than the contradictory edicts of various holy books.)

Good question.

Answer 7

Of course humans have animal instincts. We are mammals. At what point did you think that we weren't?

I'm not sure what Bible you read, but even in there there is no shortage of humans killing each other.

Morality and ethics have nothing to do with creation or evolution. Morality and ethics are the ways humans figure out how to get along. Societies that have never heard of God have standards of morality and ethics.

Some animals, like humans, mate for life. We are not unique in anything we do other than technology.

We are not superior to the animal kingdom, we are part of it. Humans have just learned somewhat better ways to RELATE to each other... means other than animal instinct.

Answer 8

We have morality because of ability to reason. Therefore cheating is just animal lust, but we consider it wrong. I do kill other animals to live. It is how everyone, but vegetarians, do live. Many animals keep the same partner. We are animals, plain and simple. This does not depennd on believeing evolution. We share many instinctive traits. Have you ever heard of fight or flight response? It is an instictive trait that helps most animals survive. That is why squirrels run from us, and we run from bears. You are no better than any other creature in this world. The only thing that humans possess is self-awareness and reasoning. Although I have met a few people who seemingly could not even qualify in those aspects.

Also, thank goodness for our instincts because without them my baby girl would not know how to eat. We did not teach her this trait. She came out with it already instilled in her...you guessed it...INSTINCTS!!!

Answer 9

We are not superior to animals, we ARE animals! Sure, we think we're pretty great, but of course that's a biased point of view...

We are not the only animal species that is considered to have monogamous relationships (and we aren't really that monogamous if you count all the cultures around the world). Nor are we the only species that shows altruistic behaviour.

One can believe in evolution and be an atheist, and still have morals which are based on personal values and societal norms. A man cheating on his wife is too complex to be explained in one sentence - there are so many possible factors.... e.g. he married for the wrong reasons, his upbringing was bad and gave him poor family values, etc etc.

Answer 10

It comes down to whether you believe religion dictates morality, or merely reflects a current morality. Most modern Christians wouldn't kill their wives anymore, take more than one wife, or sell daughters into slavery: the needs of society have changed.

During wartime the morality further changes to allow killing ("don't worry, it's not 'murder'"). Christian morality has also made it okay to torture strangers or lynch black people -- and Christian morality has made torture and lynching immoral again. So it's all pretty flexible.

As for animals, one can study monkey and ape groups. There are very recognizable behaviors related to social stuff and betterment of the group. You get behaviors like solicitude towards sick and pregnant, self-sacrifice to save another, and, yes, specifics about who can sleep with whom.

It is the high-level ethics -- and our flexibility with them -- that make us human. If you really wanted unchanging, eternal social codes, you'd almost HAVE to look at the animal kingdom, as the rules there are pragmatically defined to maximize survival. For us humans, we have survival handled, so we can get into more advanced topics like religion and philosophy.

And so we get to our complicated human version of the naturalistic codes: There's a fire in a room which has a 5-year-old girl, and 100 frozen human embryos. The fireman, a good Catholic, can save one or the other -- does he save the 100 frozen embryos and leave the girl to burn to death?

The fireman's mind tells him one thing, but his heart tells him another. That's the human/animal divide.