No, biology doesn't say that you "should" reproduce / spread your genes

As a guy who graduated in a biology-related engineering degree and actually worked in microbiology research, I get annoyed every time I hear a redpiller say that "Biology dictate your purpose in life is to spread your genes". Often they add a very annoying "those are just biology facts / dont care about your feelings / etc".

Let me be clear. If you are doing this, you are confidently incorrect and you sound ridiculous.

You can choose that your life goal will be to spread your genes if you want to. Everyone is free to make their choices. But pretending that your decision have any scientific basis is both ignorant, illogical, unscientific, and irrational. Here is why.

Biology doesn't care about what you do in life

Biology explain things. Biology does NOT tell you what to do or not do. If you want kids, biology can help you reach that goal, but biology does NOT tell you to have kids.

"Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell" is a neutral fact. It does not tell you what you should do with your mitochondria.

There is only one discipline that tells you what you "should" or "should not" do with your life, and that is philosophy. Maths, physics, chemistry and biology don't give a shit about your decisions and they don't dictate your life. They are tools to achieve your goals and to describe reality, what you do with this is your own choice and is irrelevant from the discipline itself.

"We are made for reproducing therefore we should reproduce"

This logical fallacy stems from the two possible meanings of the word "made".

"Made" can mean something is created for a purpose ("I made a car to travel long distances"), or it can mean something is optimized to do something ("This car is made to travel long distances"). Those are not the same things.

In the first case, there is an implication that the car needs to travel long distances, because I made it for this. In the second case, there is no such implication. It just means that the car can travel long distances, that it is optimized to do so.

When we say humans are "made" to make babies, the correct meaning of "made" is the second one. We are capable of reproducing. If you start assigning the first meaning of the word (we are made in the objective of doing babies) then you are supposing there is an intent by a grand designer (ergo, God).

People who think this way don't realize they actually internalized religious beliefs, they just substitued "God" with "Nature" or "Evolution" as if it was a being able of a purposeful design. You have a right to hold religious beliefs, but dont pretend there's any scientific basis to this.

We are not the consequence of a design. We are consequences of a random chain of events which have causes, but not reasons.

So just because you are optimized to do something doesnt actually give you a reason to do it. We are also optimized to run naked in the woods chasing deers, yet I don't see anyone here pretending we should be doing that.

"Not spreading your genes goes against your biological programming"

This one is a little bit more complex. It can means two different things: One, you are "supposed" to do something for a grand design (see previous section), or two, that "You should live according to evolution, for your own happiness"

Let's decipher that number two. It presupposes a few things:

• Evolution rewards you if you do things that helps with surviving and reproducing

• Therefore you will be happy if you do those things.

There are three problems with this line of reasoning:

• This is not actually always true. The process by which evolution works is not always a net positive for you as an individual. Your happiness and own interests sometimes works towards that goal, sometimes against. Some genes can be evolutionary selected that are just plainly bad for your well-being, but which increase the chance to have kids, or increase the chance your kids have kids. For example, the "masculine jaw" trait is bad for you if you are a woman, but it still gets passed down because it's a net gain for any male offspring you might have.

• Even if you consider that evolution makes you happy when you go in its direction, it is at best an imperfect process. It also tells you you should eat as much sugar as possible, and we all know how bad an idea this is.

• We are not actually discussing what is making you happy or not. If you think having kids will make you happy, then go for it. If your reasoning is that anyone would be more happy with kids, then we're not discussing biology but psychology. And I think we can find many counterexamples out there.

"Spreading genes is a way to leave a trace in this world"

This is irrational on two accounts:

• Do you think I know anything about my great-grandparents just because I share their genes? Of course not. They disappeared into oblivion. They dont "live throught me" just because they were temporary vessels for the information in my genes.

• The wish itself to leave a trace in this world after your death is irrational. Why would you care about what happens in the world once you are dead, if you don't subscribe to any religious belief about death, and therefore accept that it will all be over when you die?

Conclusion

If you want to spread your genes, that's between you and yourself (and at least one other person if you're not cloning yourself). I just ask that you please stop using science so fucking badly.

Stop mixing your own beliefs with science, and then branding your own beliefs as "Scientific Facts", just because you mixed some science in there. It is extremely ignorant, and frankly you look ridiculous doing it.

Edit 1

Most comments make the argument that "Making babies will make you happy because acting in the way of evolution makes you happy". This was already discussed in part 3 "Not spreading your genes goes against your biological programming". I will still clarify:

It is possible that humans are biologically happier if they make kids. I will agree on this. The point of this post is to criticize the line of thinking that says "Biology dictate your purpose in life is to spread your genes" as written in the introduction.

If you think this is a strawman because no one would say this, then you clearly haven't been paying attention in PPD.

Edit 1.2

Again, not the core of the topic at all, but studies say childfree couples are happier

Edit 2

I am SO impressed with the amount of people who comment a small paragraph to this and who clearly haven't read the whole post. Stop replying to what you misunderstood from the title and actually read the damn thing.

Edit 3

Im probably only making it clear for people who did not read the post but still:

This post is not about the fact that there is an instinct for sex. Of course there is one, it feels great.

It's about deciding the goal of life is to spread your genes "because evolution said so" and pretending that's a scientific opinion.