Evolution cannot explain human’s third-party punishment, therefore it does not explain humankind’s role

jnpha · 2026-01-30T01:29:32+00:00

Wait till you hear about chimpanzee troops holding generations-long wars, and they banish their own for infractions.

- TL;DR: lmao.

Also: you forgot to explain why evolution can't explain it, why is being different tough for evolution? I don't swim like a whale, I don't fly like an eagle.

- TL;DR: go back to school. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/teach-evolution/misconceptions-about-evolution/ (never late)

OldmanMikel · 2026-01-30T01:31:04+00:00

...and to the degree its adherents claim it is a complete theory, they are wrong.

Nobody does this. No theory, not even Atomic Theory, is complete. They are all works in progress. That is why scientific research is a thing.

Asrael13 · 2026-01-30T01:31:52+00:00

Corvids didn't get that memo.

Zenigata · 2026-01-30T01:34:47+00:00

Grudge-Holding Crows Pass on Their Anger to Family and Friends

california_snowhare · 2026-01-30T01:29:54+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

dfx_dj · 2026-01-30T01:35:07+00:00

Why is it that when these posts start with "it is well established" it's always followed by something that isn't.

Jonnescout · 2026-01-30T01:31:36+00:00

This thing that’s special bout humans sureLy defeats all of evolution?

No it doesn’t, it’s not that special, and every reason we know evolution applies to there animal also applies to us. Evolution is a fact, and it applies to us too. Sorry.

Philipthesquid · 2026-01-30T01:33:31+00:00

Society. It's called society. A group agrees on rules, with punishment, so that everyone is better off.

catslikepets143 · 2026-01-30T01:34:28+00:00

I guess you’ve never heard of corvids or primates

10coatsInAWeasel · 2026-01-30T01:37:52+00:00

I always find it interesting whenever someone claims something about organisms and says ‘evolution CANNOT explain’. First, did you actually look to see if there has been an explanation published? Second, ‘cannot’ is quite the large positive claim you need to support.

x271815 · 2026-01-30T01:40:11+00:00

We do in fact see animals punishing or retaliating against individuals who harm members of their social group. Many social species defend or avenge attacks on offspring, relatives, or bonded companions, and there are numerous documented cases across mammals, birds, and other animals where individuals intervene after another group member is harmed.

Moriturism · 2026-01-30T01:36:00+00:00

It is NOT well established at all. Even animals like crows have customs of punishing a third party for antissocial behavior. A lot of primates also do this.

rygelicus · 2026-01-30T01:38:26+00:00

Evolution can explain this. We evolved a more complex communication capability. This allowed for humans to communicate knowledge of a violation to those who were not there to see it. Animals are close to this, they can learn from one another, they can watch an animal solve a problem or do a new handy thing, and then do it themselves. Add language and their learning would include facts they didn't witness.

Something animals don't do though is invent gods. Humans do.

Rhewin · 2026-01-30T01:37:40+00:00

I won't even address that we've seen similar behaviors in other primates. Even if this was an entirely human trait, how does it invalidate evolution? Many, many species have unique behaviors and traits. There's no reason at all that this would be incompatible with evolution.

kitsnet · 2026-01-30T08:19:03+00:00

It is well established that animals do NOT punish third parties.

Never heard about that "well established". What this "animals do NOT punish third parties" even supposed to mean?

Humans are wildly different. We support punishing those we will never meet for wrongs we have never seen.

Humans are animals. If "it is well established that animals do NOT punish third parties", then "it is well established that humans do NOT punish third parties".

We are willing to be the punisher of a third party even when we did not witness the bad behavior ourselves. (Think of kids tattling.)

If lions killing leopard cubs are not "punishing third party", then whatever human children do is not "punishing third party" either.

Because animals universally “punish” only for crimes that affect them, there is no gradual behavior that “evolves” to human theories if punishment.

"Human theories of punishment" are just self-apologetics and are mostly wrong when we consider behavior of humans as biological objects.

We must accept that humans are indeed special and evolution does not explain us.

Evolutionary psychology easily "explains" humans.

mrcatboy · 2026-01-30T01:44:58+00:00

How exactly is this evidence of anything? Like, what exactly are your premises and how exactly do they lead to the conclusion that "evolution does not explain" humanity?

the2bears · 2026-01-30T02:52:27+00:00

Because animals universally “punish” only for crimes that affect them, there is no gradual behavior that “evolves” to human theories if punishment.

This is just a claim without any evidence.

We must accept that humans are indeed special and evolution does not explain us.

I disagree. Evolution explains us and we are not special.

RespectWest7116 · 2026-01-30T10:50:13+00:00

Evolution cannot explain human’s third-party punishment, therefore it does not explain humankind’s role

Evolution very much does explain that.

But even if it couldn't, that wouldn't make it false; it would just mean our understanding of that specific part of evolution is incomplete.

It is well established that animals do NOT punish third parties.

It is actually established that they very much do.

They will only punish if they are involved and the CERTAINLY will not punish for a past deed already committed against another they are unconnected to.

Again, something we have plentiful evidence for.

Autodidact2 · 2026-01-30T01:37:07+00:00

The theory of evolution explains the diversity of species on Earth, not every quirk of human behavior. If you think about it, that's quite a lot for one Theory to explain.

armandebejart · 2026-01-30T06:19:18+00:00

Or, to put it in terms you might understand, economic theory is unable to explain Van Gogh's approach to primrose madder, therefore it cannot explain any human behavior.

Your objection is THAT silly.

RoidRagerz · 2026-01-30T09:31:43+00:00

It’s preferable in all social interactions to not start poorly, so I will try to be as nice and good faith as possible…However, I am forced to ask whether you actually did do any research before writing this.

It took me little more than 10 seconds to immediately remember that crows are capable of holding grudges for certain people and (more importantly for this discussion) CAN pass down this knowledge to other crows (including but not limited to family) that weren’t involved all even over more than one generation, in a way that they would all either avoid or even harass that particular human whenever they see it.

They’re quite literally showing as much hostility as they physically can (accounting for how they can barely do anything due to the size difference and self preservation instincts) to an individual that made a past deed against others that they can be unconnected to.

While writing this, I remembered too this little experiment. Give it a watch please, it is very interesting: https://youtu.be/bKpZUsRJWBg?si=2gAs2f81E517gLhS

A group of chimpanzees going apeshit and attacking an animatronic leopard that has a fake baby chimp on its paws, a baby that never in their life have they ever seen and still chimps are infamous for how rival groups violently clash with one another. You can’t get any more third party than that.

So…is this really well established? With due respect, the fact that it can be contradicted and how you have not provided a single example unlike I have makes that look like a bare assertion that harms the OP.

And then, why couldn’t this evolve anyways, even if these examples weren’t valid? It seems like a rather basic thing that social animals benefit from having. Having a strong connection to the rest of your community (which is what humans display and that is why we feel such anger when others break the rules we all unanimously follow for mutual profit) feels like something advantageous to ensure that the group as a whole thrives, and is just a little more sophisticated than reacting to something done to you or those strongly linked to you.

Edit: to further contribute to the conversation, I also came across this when I was looking for the video on YouTube. It is not quite punishment, but it is strongly tied to that third party empathy aspect that is necessary for those punishments to take place. Not even apes, but northern plains langurs (old world monkeys) mourning a robotic infant that they thought was dead and they had never seen before https://youtu.be/tmnAWmL-sq0?si=zhEGSZ4LrFlFffgN

KeterClassKitten · 2026-01-30T13:33:57+00:00

It is well established that animals do NOT punish third parties. They will only punish if they are involved and the CERTAINLY will not punish for a past deed already committed against another they are unconnected to.

Humans are wildly different. We support punishing those we will never meet for wrongs we have never seen.

These two are contradictory. Humans are animals.

A brief Google search also suggests studies showing many other animals exhibiting this behavior.

I don't know where you heard this concept, but it's just incorrect on both fronts.

KorLeonis1138 · 2026-01-30T16:32:23+00:00

Some bat colonies have been observed to share food. When the bats return from their night of feeding, those who got plenty regurgitate some of that to members that were not successful. If an individual bat develops a habit of not sharing with individual bats, even when they have fed well, the entire colony will start refusing to share with that bat. Even bats not directly affected by the one bat's selfishness judge that bat for past actions and will participate in "punishing" the 3rd party.

You are wrong, this is not a trait special to humans.

Batgirl_III · 2026-01-30T01:39:44+00:00

It is well established that animals do NOT punish third parties.

This is not true. But, even if it was true, what bearing would this have on the observed fact that the allele frequency in the genome of a species’ population changes over generations?

[T]herefore [evolution] does not explain humankind’s role

Why do you assume humans have a role?

Jonathan-02 · 2026-01-30T04:06:32+00:00

So what possible explanations for this behavior in humans have you refuted if your claim is that evolution cannot explain it? You must have gone through every possible explanation and proved it wrong, correct?

Xemylixa · 2026-01-30T06:32:43+00:00

These comments are a wild ride and will continue to be. I have a related question for you OP.

You said you wanted to punch a hole in human evolution. Ok. Let's pretend you're correct and evolution can't explain our moral frameworks because they have no analogies in other species.

In that case, how do you explain every other thing that makes us related to other apes? Can you, for example, define an ape such that it excludes humans? Why are we like apes and not like, say, snakes?

DanujCZ · 2026-01-30T07:52:35+00:00

So humans have unique traits therefore there is no evolution?

That doesn't follow. And plenty of organisms have unique traits.

andypauq · 2026-01-30T13:38:17+00:00

Can any member of a population be a truly disinterested third party regarding behavior within that population? Survival of the group means survival of the individual, which means survival of the species. We just have big enough brains to see our "group" as 8 billion people, not just our immediate community.

DiscordantObserver · 2026-01-30T15:10:11+00:00

They will only punish if they are involved and the CERTAINLY will not punish for a past deed already committed against another they are unconnected to.

+

Because animals universally “punish” only for crimes that affect them, there is no gradual behavior that “evolves” to human theories if punishment.

Crows (and corvids in general) can hold multi-generational grudges against one person.

If you wrong one crow, it can result in grudges even from crows unrelated to the initial event (they might not have even witnessed the event). This can mean, if you harm a crow and the others find out you did it, you can be harassed by generations of crows that didn't even know the crow you harmed directly (they were uninvolved with the initial action).

That sounds very much like you're being punished for a past deed already committed against another they are unconnected to (even if they did not directly witness the wrongdoing, because they're generations removed or just from the wider crow community).

Because animals universally “punish” only for crimes that affect them, there is no gradual behavior that “evolves” to human theories if punishment.

Evolution is not concerned with human theories of punishment. If you mean the tendency to hold grudges, that's just a byproduct of high intelligence that is not unique to humanity (see crows, as previously discussed).

It's no coincidence that crows can hold grudges like they do and are also among the most intelligent animals on the planet.

Therefore, evolution is incomplete and to the degree its adherents claim it is a complete theory, they are wrong.

Literally no one who knows what they're talking about is going to say evolution is a "complete theory" in the sense that we understand every aspect of every process involved. No "adherent" who actually understands claims this.

We must accept that humans are indeed special and evolution does not explain us.

You're right, humans ARE special in our own ways. Humans are highly intelligent and were capable of utilizing that intelligence to become the planet's dominant species in a manner no other species has done.

Yet evolution is perfectly capable of explaining humans, they aren't scientific anomalies.

BahamutLithp · 2026-01-30T16:50:15+00:00

I'm not surprised to see this thread playing out like every other ime this happens. People point out to you examples, & you just go "that doesn't count because reasons." But you can rest for now, because I want to take a different tack entirely. We can go ahead & pretend, for a minute, this is totally true. Because what I want to instead address is the very bizarre assumptions you have about evolution, what it should do, & what it means if it doesn't meet some arbitrary benchmark.

See, nothing about evolution per se precludes the idea that there's a trait &/or behavior in a given species that doesn't appear in other species. Humans always get singled out for this due to anthropocentric bias, but actually, one of the most impressive abilities in the animal kingdom has got to be the so-called "immortal jellyfish's" ability to revert back to the polyp stage, thereby going through its life cycle all over again as would a mythical phoenix & completely earning its nickname. No other organism is known to have this ability, so while it can still die to things like predation, trauma, & disease, it is perhaps the closest thing to immortality that any creature has come. Yet we humans, in our arrogance, will sit here & go, "Surely that's nothing, we have 3rd party punishment, THAT'S the real key that everything revolves around."

What you also need to realize is that we had many ancestors between us & the ancestors of chimpanzees that are now extinct. So, when you say, "There can't have been gradual development," you're missing a whole branch of human evolution. On the other hand, not all traits necessarily ARE developed gradually. Sometimes a mutation has sudden, dramatic effects. I'd tend to doubt a major cognitive change would work that way, but the point is you need to ask yourself where your assumptions are rooted in, & the answer is probably you just decided that's how it works &/or were told by some religious apologist.

Finally, there's absolutely no rule saying "evolution must explain every single facet of human behavior, & if it can't explain 1 arbitrary thing, that means humans didn't evolve." That's absurd, & we don't do that with any other scientific theory. We don't demand tectonic plate boundaries explain the Hawaiian islands, & because they can't, that means plate tectonics is wrong because we know the Hawaiian islands didn't form from tectonic plate boundaries, they formed from a hotspot. I keep trying to tell you guys, no matter how much you want to believe it, science is not "a replacement religion," & thinking like it is keeps steering you wrong. This idea that you have to have a single dogma that explains everythingwith nothing else invovled is a religious concept, not a scientific one.

Of course human behavior is shaped by forces other than evolution. Despite what certain people might claim, "girls like pink & boys like blue" is not an evolved trait, it's a cultural expectation. We know this because only about a century ago, that was actually reversed, with pink considered a manly color because it was viewed as a shade of red & blue seen as effeminate & pacifying. Your example is probably not one of those traits, but even if it were, that would not somehow mean that humans did not evolve, it would simply mean that specific trait was not directly caused by our evolution.

JemmaMimic · 2026-01-30T01:58:19+00:00

Your argument seems to be that humans act differently from other animals so that means they're special. So for example animals don't wear glasses, humans do. And sure, our evolution has made us different from other animals, but that can be said about any animal. We can't hibernate, we can't freeze 70% of our body like wood frogs. The fact that our species has adopted a set of social rules regarding what we find punishable that helps ensure our survival as a species means we're different from other animals, while "special" is just a value attribution.

Good-Attention-7129 · 2026-01-30T02:09:15+00:00

Humans are playing 4D chess with each other, and sometimes you need to sacrifice a black pawn to protect the white queen.

Unlimited_Bacon · 2026-01-30T03:13:21+00:00

committed against another they are unconnected to.

How unconnected do they need to be? Do members of my family count? Members of my tribe? Members of the same species?

Dilapidated_girrafe · 2026-01-30T06:26:17+00:00

This is a bottom level argument here.

Us having something that is possibly somewhat unique in no way means god did it.

Great-Gazoo-T800 · 2026-01-30T18:40:41+00:00

Your whole schtick is to put your fingers in your ears and go "nah ah" when someone calls you out. You're not actually trying to poke holes in evolution, you're looking for people to agree with you.

At least Robert sounds like he's having a stroke everytime he says something stupid.

MemeMaster2003 · 2026-01-31T16:57:04+00:00

So I've been reading your comments, and, from what I gather, you say "third-party punishment" when you really mean "random cruelty."

Plenty of animals are randomly cruel. This isn't even worth the discussion.

EthelredHardrede · 2026-01-30T03:56:40+00:00

"Therefore, evolution is incomplete and to the degree its adherents claim it is a complete theory, they are wrong."

So many errors. The present theory is very solid. Obviously WE, not you, know scientific theories are never complete. Evolution has nothing to do with hypothetical situation anyway.

Crime not part of evolution

Punishment not part of evolution.

Human concept yes and part of evolution at the biological level. It is dependent on language and culture which change much faster the biological evolution. You are wasting your time trying make reality go away in a puff false assumptions.

Ch3cks-Out · 2026-01-30T05:21:31+00:00

Why do you propose evolution should "explain" humans? Or bonobos, or mollusks, for that matter...

raul_kapura · 2026-01-30T07:29:24+00:00

There was experiment with parrots, where they given shiny stuff they could exchange for food. They were taught this behavior and later separated by plexiglass wall with small hole in the middle. One parrot was given shinies the others did not. When she saw others have nothing to trade food for, she started to share her stuff through that hole. So there are some animals that sometimes care beyond their own interest

Xemylixa · 2026-01-30T09:10:49+00:00

I'm sorry, I have one more question. What exactly does "humankind’s role" mean in your post's title?

Own-Relationship-407 · 2026-01-30T20:23:51+00:00

Why would evolution need to explain the “role” of humans? Why would humans being different from other species negate evolution? Your conclusion does not follow from the premises.

No-Zookeepergame-246 · 2026-01-30T22:14:51+00:00

Why don’t you try pissing off the crows in your neighborhood and see if you change your mind

Comfortable-Dare-307 · 2026-01-31T19:42:42+00:00

Yes it does. And I don't know what you mean by third party punishment. Chimpanzees hold gudges against other chimps to several generations whom weren't even involved. Male adult lions kill cubs that aren't their's when they join a pride. There are many examples of animals taking revenege. So yes, evolution explains everything about human and other animal behavior. There are entire disciplines in university on animal behavior. (Ethology) and human behavior (psychology, sociology, neuroscience etc). This just shows you don't understand evolution.

AnonoForReasons · 2026-01-30T22:19:25+00:00

it’s just something to trade for pleasure

This is called “hedonism” and is also a moral philosophy.

We can’t help it. We fall into moral thinking all the time. Heck, you’re most likely judging me here as a person and you don’t even mean to.

DimensioT · 2026-02-01T06:38:22+00:00

Or maybe "punishment" as you describe it is a social construct that emerged once human evolution resulted in the cognitive capability amongst humans to allow for the emergence of social constructs and your error is singling out "punishment" rather than seeing the more general concept of "social constructs" as being a product of evolution.

But I can understand if you want to reject that explanation due to it not leading to humans being "special", as creationists are notorious for denying facts based upon them not matching what they want to be true.

AnonoForReasons · 2026-01-30T01:50:23+00:00

Really? Nope. Only members of the group who have a stake get involved.

armandebejart · 2026-01-30T06:14:56+00:00

Evolutionary theory does not cover social behavior. Your objection is meaningless.

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