According to an opinion piece that appeared in the May 16, 2011 edition of the New York Times entitled "Nice Guys Finish First" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17brooks.html?sq=brooks&st=Search&scp=9&pagewanted=print the conventional view that aggressively self-interested behavior promotes survival is being challenged by recent scientific research:

"In his book, “The Righteous Mind,” to be published early next year, Jonathan Haidt joins Edward O. Wilson, David Sloan Wilson, and others who argue that natural selection takes place not only when individuals compete with other individuals, but also when groups compete with other groups. Both competitions are examples of the survival of the fittest, but when groups compete, it’s the cohesive, cooperative, internally altruistic groups that win and pass on their genes. The idea of “group selection” was heresy a few years ago, but there is momentum behind it now."

"Human beings, Haidt argues, are “the giraffes of altruism.” Just as giraffes got long necks to help them survive, humans developed moral minds that help them and their groups succeed."

This new scientific research seems to support Tom's contention that in the Big Picture, evolution is about moving towards Love.

Giraffes didn't get longer necks to help them survive, unless we are letting Lemark play now. If this is the logic used, it is faulty then, right?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I have only done some initial screening of that recently posted about paper by Francis Heylighen: The Global Superorganism, but I believe that it contains some of this same kind of thinking. I suggest a comparison of thoughts here. I will get to both eventually.

Ted

Bette,

If one reads the statement literally, then you are right, but I do not think the speaker intended to be taken literally, but only figuratively. That is, he was using a metaphor, a kind of shorthand, I think. He was quoted in a short newspaper article that did not have space to go into detail. If the speaker was here I think he would say something like: some giraffes thousands of years ago had mutations that gave them longer necks, which gave them access to more food, which had a survival advantage, so they passed on more of their genes, and the cycle repeated over and over again yielding the long-necked giraffes of today.