it becomes difficult or impossible to determine exactly what “human nature” is in the first place.
I understand the perspective and the rationale is certainly sound on a long timeline (millions of years), but on the timeline of known human history and civilization "human nature" can be observed and defined much more easily.
Even reading the Old Testament and other very old books that give us a picture into a range of a few thousand years, it becomes clear that human nature has not changed in at least that time period. Because of that, observing human nature within the range of a few millennia is perfectly reasonable.
If evolution turns us into something else, then Human 2.0 Nature will become a thing.
But that's only if you take a very narrow definition of what "human" is. I think a better definition wouldn't be as limited on the specific isolated organism, but rather on the organism within its environment – and that includes society as well as the actual physical environment. Nature/biology isn't very exclusionary and a lot of things are better looked at as ecosystems.
From that perspective, the "human" has definitely changed since a few thousand years ago.
It really hasn't though. Customs and laws may change but the behaviors of people in their environments remain pretty much the same. It's very eye opening.
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I understand the perspective and the rationale is certainly sound on a long timeline (millions of years), but on the timeline of known human history and civilization "human nature" can be observed and defined much more easily.
Even reading the Old Testament and other very old books that give us a picture into a range of a few thousand years, it becomes clear that human nature has not changed in at least that time period. Because of that, observing human nature within the range of a few millennia is perfectly reasonable.
If evolution turns us into something else, then Human 2.0 Nature will become a thing.
But that's only if you take a very narrow definition of what "human" is. I think a better definition wouldn't be as limited on the specific isolated organism, but rather on the organism within its environment – and that includes society as well as the actual physical environment. Nature/biology isn't very exclusionary and a lot of things are better looked at as ecosystems.
From that perspective, the "human" has definitely changed since a few thousand years ago.
It really hasn't though. Customs and laws may change but the behaviors of people in their environments remain pretty much the same. It's very eye opening.