Friday, July 24, 2009
The Controversy Rages
What follows is from an exchange I recently took part in on the ID website Uncommon Descent. The topic at hand was a post introduced by Denyse O’Leary, “Darwinism and Pop Culture Attempts to Pretend that Darwin Did Not Extend His Theory to Human Society.” A frequent topic of debate is whether Darwinism necessarily implies Social Darwinism. Darwin’s defenders often try to deny the link between the two isms. Pay particular attention to the comments from “Mr Charrington.”
1
tsmith
07/21/2009
8:03 am
the darwnists cannot allow their icon, yea verily their god, darwin, to have his holy name profaned. their devotion to him is just further proof that evolution is a religion. atheism posing as ’science’
2
Terry Mirll
07/21/2009
6:29 pm
Actually, the god is naturalistic materialism. Darwin was only its prophet.
The attempt to divorce Darwin from Social Darwinism comes from the innate realization that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s no reason why we SHOULDN’T try to cull the weak, the infirm, the inferior from the human herd. After all, inferior strains of humanity, what Darwin called sub-species, are a drain on our limited resources and threaten our very survival. The trouble is, such a notion has led us to the greatest horrors of the 20th century: eugenics, euthanasia, and the Holocaust.
But, of course, its difficult for Darwin’s defenders to pretend darwinism is true if its end-product is a bunch of brown-shirted knuckleheads shoving Rabinowicz into an oven for no better reason than he’s Rabinowicz. So, they deny the link between their prophet and Social Darwinism.
The problem is, the link is still there.
3
Mr Charrington
07/21/2009
6:35 pm
Terry
“then there’s no reason why we SHOULDN’T try to cull the weak, the infirm, the inferior from the human herd. After all, inferior strains of humanity, what Darwin called sub-species, are a drain on our limited resources and threaten our very survival.”
But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc. Why would mere animals care about their species survival?
Why does it follow that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s any reason that we SHOULD try to cull the weak?
How can “mere animals” care about such things?
4
[Deleted to save space]
5
Terry Mirll
07/22/2009
5:43 pm
#3 Mr. C
But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc. Why would mere animals care about their species survival?
Land o’ Goshen! You HAVE read Darwin, haven’t you? According to Our Lord, PBUH, nature instills the drive to survive in all creatures, great and small. Any organism is innately concerned with its own survival, demonstrating its fitness by reproduction; the more it reproduces, the greater its fitness.
Why does it follow that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s any reason that we SHOULD try to cull the weak?
Again, per Our Lord, PBUH, all living creatures compete with one another for survival, in a constant struggle brought about by our environment’s limited resources. In the Descent of Man, Our Lord, PBUH, argued that man uses his intellect to shape our own evolution (which is why, Our Lord argued, women are just so gawsh-darned inferior to men; men have made them that way). In allowing the weak, etc, to survive, we share with them the limited resources we would otherwise use to feed the healthy and strong, and thus ultimately endanger the survivability of our species.
So, since 1) we are acutely concerned with our own survival, and 2) use our intellect to shape our evolution, knowing that allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival, we would have every reason for eliminating the weak so that the strong would have greater access to limited resources (and, similarly, no reason whatsoever for tolerating the weak); the strong would then display their fitness by reproducing more of their kind, and thus enhance our survival.
The only trouble is, once people get this idea into their heads, eugenics and die Endloesung aren’t too far off.
6
Mr Charrington
07/22/2009
5:50 pm
Mr T
“knowing that allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival”
Does it? Why?
Also, please define “weak”.
7
Terry Mirll
07/23/2009
6:28 pm
Mr. C.
I think I’ve sufficiently explained how, according to Darwin, allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival. If you’re asking me to defend that notion, I won’t. I’m not a Darwinist. If you don’t really believe that allowing the weak to survive actually threatens the survival of the strong, then I’d say you don’t really believe in Darwinism.
As for “weak”–it can’t be defined. This is one of the (many) reasons why I am not a Darwinist. Darwinism rests on precisely such tautological constructs, which is why I feel Darwinism fails.
The “weak”, according to Darwin, are those who aren’t identified as the “strong”, according to Darwin. The “fit” are those that survive; the “unfit” the ones who don’t. They just are. Ipse dixit, says the prophet. Now, either accept that without question, or PZ Myers will forever brand you a Bible-thumping creationist bent on dragging science back into the Dark Ages.
(End)
And now some observations:
Note how the Darwinist is unable to address the topic. Is there or isn’t there a link between Darwinism and Social Darwinism? Mr Charrington won’t say. He merely attempts to refute my assertions by asserting contrary assertions, without proffering any commentary whatsoever as to why he feels he’s right. Is this guy even listening? I doubt it. He’s more like John Cleese in the old Monty Python “Argument Clinic” sketch, ready to gainsay automatically anything someone else says.
Note what he has to say in (3). I say there’s no reason why human beings shouldn’t try to cull the weak from our midst, according to Darwin; I back up this assertion with the typical Darwinian caterwauling about competition over limited resources. Mr Charrington’s response is to counter “But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc.” Never mind that the limited-resources argument is PRECISELY the reason why we should cull the weak, if Darwinism is true. Somehow, the very reason why we should eliminate the weak is also the reason why we shouldn’t.
Instead, he counters with this bit of nonsense: “Why would mere animals care about their species survival?”
Never mind WHY. DON’T animals care about the survival of their own? Don’t rabbits try to escape being chased down by coyotes? Don’t lionesses defend their cubs when a jackal gets too close to the pride? Isn’t self-preservation an instinct? The fact that these things occur is self-evident. But I guess if your goal is to do anything in your power to deny that Darwinism implies Social Darwinism, there’s no limit to whatever facts are to be ignored, no matter how obvious.
Note also in (6) that rather than engage the topic, he simply reiterates his musings from (3). Anybody who simply restates a question that’s already been answered isn’t really looking for answers, anyway. But this precisely the sort of gyrations the Darwinist has to go through to ignore the holes in Darwinian theory.
1
tsmith
07/21/2009
8:03 am
the darwnists cannot allow their icon, yea verily their god, darwin, to have his holy name profaned. their devotion to him is just further proof that evolution is a religion. atheism posing as ’science’
2
Terry Mirll
07/21/2009
6:29 pm
Actually, the god is naturalistic materialism. Darwin was only its prophet.
The attempt to divorce Darwin from Social Darwinism comes from the innate realization that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s no reason why we SHOULDN’T try to cull the weak, the infirm, the inferior from the human herd. After all, inferior strains of humanity, what Darwin called sub-species, are a drain on our limited resources and threaten our very survival. The trouble is, such a notion has led us to the greatest horrors of the 20th century: eugenics, euthanasia, and the Holocaust.
But, of course, its difficult for Darwin’s defenders to pretend darwinism is true if its end-product is a bunch of brown-shirted knuckleheads shoving Rabinowicz into an oven for no better reason than he’s Rabinowicz. So, they deny the link between their prophet and Social Darwinism.
The problem is, the link is still there.
3
Mr Charrington
07/21/2009
6:35 pm
Terry
“then there’s no reason why we SHOULDN’T try to cull the weak, the infirm, the inferior from the human herd. After all, inferior strains of humanity, what Darwin called sub-species, are a drain on our limited resources and threaten our very survival.”
But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc. Why would mere animals care about their species survival?
Why does it follow that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s any reason that we SHOULD try to cull the weak?
How can “mere animals” care about such things?
4
[Deleted to save space]
5
Terry Mirll
07/22/2009
5:43 pm
#3 Mr. C
But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc. Why would mere animals care about their species survival?
Land o’ Goshen! You HAVE read Darwin, haven’t you? According to Our Lord, PBUH, nature instills the drive to survive in all creatures, great and small. Any organism is innately concerned with its own survival, demonstrating its fitness by reproduction; the more it reproduces, the greater its fitness.
Why does it follow that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s any reason that we SHOULD try to cull the weak?
Again, per Our Lord, PBUH, all living creatures compete with one another for survival, in a constant struggle brought about by our environment’s limited resources. In the Descent of Man, Our Lord, PBUH, argued that man uses his intellect to shape our own evolution (which is why, Our Lord argued, women are just so gawsh-darned inferior to men; men have made them that way). In allowing the weak, etc, to survive, we share with them the limited resources we would otherwise use to feed the healthy and strong, and thus ultimately endanger the survivability of our species.
So, since 1) we are acutely concerned with our own survival, and 2) use our intellect to shape our evolution, knowing that allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival, we would have every reason for eliminating the weak so that the strong would have greater access to limited resources (and, similarly, no reason whatsoever for tolerating the weak); the strong would then display their fitness by reproducing more of their kind, and thus enhance our survival.
The only trouble is, once people get this idea into their heads, eugenics and die Endloesung aren’t too far off.
6
Mr Charrington
07/22/2009
5:50 pm
Mr T
“knowing that allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival”
Does it? Why?
Also, please define “weak”.
7
Terry Mirll
07/23/2009
6:28 pm
Mr. C.
I think I’ve sufficiently explained how, according to Darwin, allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival. If you’re asking me to defend that notion, I won’t. I’m not a Darwinist. If you don’t really believe that allowing the weak to survive actually threatens the survival of the strong, then I’d say you don’t really believe in Darwinism.
As for “weak”–it can’t be defined. This is one of the (many) reasons why I am not a Darwinist. Darwinism rests on precisely such tautological constructs, which is why I feel Darwinism fails.
The “weak”, according to Darwin, are those who aren’t identified as the “strong”, according to Darwin. The “fit” are those that survive; the “unfit” the ones who don’t. They just are. Ipse dixit, says the prophet. Now, either accept that without question, or PZ Myers will forever brand you a Bible-thumping creationist bent on dragging science back into the Dark Ages.
(End)
And now some observations:
Note how the Darwinist is unable to address the topic. Is there or isn’t there a link between Darwinism and Social Darwinism? Mr Charrington won’t say. He merely attempts to refute my assertions by asserting contrary assertions, without proffering any commentary whatsoever as to why he feels he’s right. Is this guy even listening? I doubt it. He’s more like John Cleese in the old Monty Python “Argument Clinic” sketch, ready to gainsay automatically anything someone else says.
Note what he has to say in (3). I say there’s no reason why human beings shouldn’t try to cull the weak from our midst, according to Darwin; I back up this assertion with the typical Darwinian caterwauling about competition over limited resources. Mr Charrington’s response is to counter “But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc.” Never mind that the limited-resources argument is PRECISELY the reason why we should cull the weak, if Darwinism is true. Somehow, the very reason why we should eliminate the weak is also the reason why we shouldn’t.
Instead, he counters with this bit of nonsense: “Why would mere animals care about their species survival?”
Never mind WHY. DON’T animals care about the survival of their own? Don’t rabbits try to escape being chased down by coyotes? Don’t lionesses defend their cubs when a jackal gets too close to the pride? Isn’t self-preservation an instinct? The fact that these things occur is self-evident. But I guess if your goal is to do anything in your power to deny that Darwinism implies Social Darwinism, there’s no limit to whatever facts are to be ignored, no matter how obvious.
Note also in (6) that rather than engage the topic, he simply reiterates his musings from (3). Anybody who simply restates a question that’s already been answered isn’t really looking for answers, anyway. But this precisely the sort of gyrations the Darwinist has to go through to ignore the holes in Darwinian theory.
Labels: Darwin, Darwinism, evolution
Monday, September 22, 2008
Dirk Gently Meets Jake Killjoy
I took the opportunity the other day to read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. I’ve also started Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, the second Dirk Gently adventure.
Sad to say, it’s taken me this long to get around to reading anything of Adams’ work other than the four books of his Hitchhiker trilogy. Adams, rest his soul—presuming, of course, that he was wrong about evolution in that he actually had a soul to rest—was a brilliant humorist and observationist, and I’ve always been a tremendous admirer of his work. His greatest strength was his ability to create an absurd event—say, a sofa impossibly jammed up a staircase—and develop it as a thematic element foreshadowing epic consequences.
Where Adams and I part company, however, is in our general outlook concerning religious faith. Clearly, Adams was a secularist who viewed religious faith as mostly harmless (to use the phrase from Hitchhiker) but ultimately silly. A case in point from DG is the Electric Monk, a being created by aliens for believing all the nonsense the aliens were to busy to be bothered with. In the early chapters of the novel, the Electric Monk sits atop his horse, staring down at the valley below, rapt in his belief-du-jour, in this case that everything is pink. This is, Adams suggests, what believers do. They believe. Some believers believe that the universe was created by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator. Other believers believe that everything is pink. Not a great deal of difference between the two, really. Also, note that the Electric Monk is a monk, and not an electric politician or electric dentist or electric scientist or electric assistant director of sales for the Atlantic seaboard not including Hoboken. “Electric monk” is just another way of saying “religious nutbag.” Seems to me, Adams would look upon such a term as needlessly repetitious.
However, this oversimplifies the nature of belief. Some beliefs are arbitrary, sure. But some are not. Some beliefs come about through experience and observation. For anyone who says that belief is wholly arbitrary, allow me to suggest they poke their fingers into the whirling blade of a running lawnmower. I believe they’ll come off.
It is true, though, that some beliefs defy all good sense. What my own comic detective, Jake Killjoy, will attempt to demonstrate is that there are lots of really looney, whack-a-mole beliefs out there—but these are paraded as scientific, and anyone who dares express doubt about them can find himself subject to attack, whether verbally, academically, professionally, or even physically.
Sad to say, it’s taken me this long to get around to reading anything of Adams’ work other than the four books of his Hitchhiker trilogy. Adams, rest his soul—presuming, of course, that he was wrong about evolution in that he actually had a soul to rest—was a brilliant humorist and observationist, and I’ve always been a tremendous admirer of his work. His greatest strength was his ability to create an absurd event—say, a sofa impossibly jammed up a staircase—and develop it as a thematic element foreshadowing epic consequences.
Where Adams and I part company, however, is in our general outlook concerning religious faith. Clearly, Adams was a secularist who viewed religious faith as mostly harmless (to use the phrase from Hitchhiker) but ultimately silly. A case in point from DG is the Electric Monk, a being created by aliens for believing all the nonsense the aliens were to busy to be bothered with. In the early chapters of the novel, the Electric Monk sits atop his horse, staring down at the valley below, rapt in his belief-du-jour, in this case that everything is pink. This is, Adams suggests, what believers do. They believe. Some believers believe that the universe was created by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator. Other believers believe that everything is pink. Not a great deal of difference between the two, really. Also, note that the Electric Monk is a monk, and not an electric politician or electric dentist or electric scientist or electric assistant director of sales for the Atlantic seaboard not including Hoboken. “Electric monk” is just another way of saying “religious nutbag.” Seems to me, Adams would look upon such a term as needlessly repetitious.
However, this oversimplifies the nature of belief. Some beliefs are arbitrary, sure. But some are not. Some beliefs come about through experience and observation. For anyone who says that belief is wholly arbitrary, allow me to suggest they poke their fingers into the whirling blade of a running lawnmower. I believe they’ll come off.
It is true, though, that some beliefs defy all good sense. What my own comic detective, Jake Killjoy, will attempt to demonstrate is that there are lots of really looney, whack-a-mole beliefs out there—but these are paraded as scientific, and anyone who dares express doubt about them can find himself subject to attack, whether verbally, academically, professionally, or even physically.
Labels: Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Monday, August 04, 2008
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, For Life is Meaningless
There is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which begins with Dr. Beverly Crusher, played by the oh-so-fetching Gates McFadden, who returns to Earth to attend her grandmother’s funeral.
The service has all the trappings of a real funeral—a group of appropriately-dressed mourners, many in black, standing around a freshly-dug grave. The casket, adorned with flowers, stands ready to be lowered into the ground, as a frocked cleric addresses the crowd, offering a few words of praise for the dearly departed as he comforts the bereaved. Everyone looks sad, especially Dr. Crusher, who, we surmise, loved her grandmother very much.
The one difference, of course, because this is TNG, is that the cleric is an alien, and so instead of offering the usual do-not-mourn-for-lo-you-shall-see-Granny-again-some-sweet-day-in-Heaven line, or ending the eulogy with the traditional reminder about the return of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, our alien cleric offers these words of comfort: Granny isn’t really dead, because she lives on in our memories.
I have said that Darwinism is a religion, and a dreary one at that. The episode of TNG serves to reiterate the point. William Provine asserted that when we die, we die, and even went so far as to call this assertion an “inescapable” conclusion of Darwinism. The extraterrestrial cleric, echoing Provine, does not and cannot believe in an afterlife; he cannot appeal to any notion as decidedly Christian as the Resurrection; he is certain that Granny is dead, and that no one is ever going to see her again. So, he offers what comfort his world view will allow. Mind you, this is simply the best he can do.
And no better. Granny is dead, but not ENTIRELY dead, because some part of her lives on in us, so long as we continue to remember her.
This is a COMFORT? Prithee, HOW?
Suppose, for instance, that because of a transporter malfunction during her return to the Enterprise, Dr. Crusher has her memory erased. Then, while examining her personal files in hopes of finding who she is, she learns that she had a grandmother whom she loved very much, and that this grandmother is now dead. Pastor ET’s words of comfort would mean nothing to her, since they are contingent upon Dr. Crusher’s ability to remember someone she has now forgotten. I see no means of finding comfort in such a situation.
For that matter, even if the transporter malfunction never takes place, even if Dr. Crusher remembers her grandmother fondly for the rest of her life—it would only be for the rest of her life, however long that may be. Even if she lives another hundred years, it would mean the memory of her grandmother would only live on for another hundred years—and then die when Dr. Crusher dies. And all those others standing around the casket, listening to Pastor ET, will die as well, and with them their memories of Granny.
So, what then? Does young Wesley take up the charge of keeping his great-grandmother alive by remembering her? How? He doesn’t have the same memories as his mother, presuming he has any at all. Worse yet, one day young Wesley will become Old Wesley, and he’ll die, too, and with him the memories of his great-grandmother (whatever those may be) and those of his mother.
There is simply no scenario escaping the inevitability of Granny being dead, buried, and ultimately forgotten. Not if when we die, we die, and that’s it.
Worse yet, consider this point: the memory of someone you love is only a memory; it is NOT the person you love. Memories are faulty, inexact. Sometimes, memories are outright false. To draw from another popular TV series, as Hawkeye Pierce once noted of Frank Burns, “No, I’m sure he remembers it that way. More’s the pity.” And true or false, a memory is all in your head. No part of it is physically real.
So, to sum up: never mind if Granny is dead and you’ll never see her again; you can delude yourself that it isn’t really so, even if it really is, just long enough until you die, at which point it won’t matter that you were deluding yourself, as if it ever mattered. This is all okay, because even though the universe is an accident, which means that life is an accident, and that Granny and all those who come before and after her, yourself included, are an accident, too, go ahead and tell yourself that Granny mattered, because… uh… the delusion will facilitate your survival. Yeah, that’s it. Your survival matters. Somehow. Even though nothing matters. Even though you and everyone you know and everyone who will ever be are all going to die, because even survival is at best temporal; when we die, we die, and that’s it. Not that you or anyone ever mattered in the first place.
This is simply what passes for “comfort” in a Darwinistic framework.As I’ve said in another post, if there’s anything inaccurate in describing such an outlook as “bleak,” it is only in that the description represents a rank understatement.
The service has all the trappings of a real funeral—a group of appropriately-dressed mourners, many in black, standing around a freshly-dug grave. The casket, adorned with flowers, stands ready to be lowered into the ground, as a frocked cleric addresses the crowd, offering a few words of praise for the dearly departed as he comforts the bereaved. Everyone looks sad, especially Dr. Crusher, who, we surmise, loved her grandmother very much.
The one difference, of course, because this is TNG, is that the cleric is an alien, and so instead of offering the usual do-not-mourn-for-lo-you-shall-see-Granny-again-some-sweet-day-in-Heaven line, or ending the eulogy with the traditional reminder about the return of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, our alien cleric offers these words of comfort: Granny isn’t really dead, because she lives on in our memories.
I have said that Darwinism is a religion, and a dreary one at that. The episode of TNG serves to reiterate the point. William Provine asserted that when we die, we die, and even went so far as to call this assertion an “inescapable” conclusion of Darwinism. The extraterrestrial cleric, echoing Provine, does not and cannot believe in an afterlife; he cannot appeal to any notion as decidedly Christian as the Resurrection; he is certain that Granny is dead, and that no one is ever going to see her again. So, he offers what comfort his world view will allow. Mind you, this is simply the best he can do.
And no better. Granny is dead, but not ENTIRELY dead, because some part of her lives on in us, so long as we continue to remember her.
This is a COMFORT? Prithee, HOW?
Suppose, for instance, that because of a transporter malfunction during her return to the Enterprise, Dr. Crusher has her memory erased. Then, while examining her personal files in hopes of finding who she is, she learns that she had a grandmother whom she loved very much, and that this grandmother is now dead. Pastor ET’s words of comfort would mean nothing to her, since they are contingent upon Dr. Crusher’s ability to remember someone she has now forgotten. I see no means of finding comfort in such a situation.
For that matter, even if the transporter malfunction never takes place, even if Dr. Crusher remembers her grandmother fondly for the rest of her life—it would only be for the rest of her life, however long that may be. Even if she lives another hundred years, it would mean the memory of her grandmother would only live on for another hundred years—and then die when Dr. Crusher dies. And all those others standing around the casket, listening to Pastor ET, will die as well, and with them their memories of Granny.
So, what then? Does young Wesley take up the charge of keeping his great-grandmother alive by remembering her? How? He doesn’t have the same memories as his mother, presuming he has any at all. Worse yet, one day young Wesley will become Old Wesley, and he’ll die, too, and with him the memories of his great-grandmother (whatever those may be) and those of his mother.
There is simply no scenario escaping the inevitability of Granny being dead, buried, and ultimately forgotten. Not if when we die, we die, and that’s it.
Worse yet, consider this point: the memory of someone you love is only a memory; it is NOT the person you love. Memories are faulty, inexact. Sometimes, memories are outright false. To draw from another popular TV series, as Hawkeye Pierce once noted of Frank Burns, “No, I’m sure he remembers it that way. More’s the pity.” And true or false, a memory is all in your head. No part of it is physically real.
So, to sum up: never mind if Granny is dead and you’ll never see her again; you can delude yourself that it isn’t really so, even if it really is, just long enough until you die, at which point it won’t matter that you were deluding yourself, as if it ever mattered. This is all okay, because even though the universe is an accident, which means that life is an accident, and that Granny and all those who come before and after her, yourself included, are an accident, too, go ahead and tell yourself that Granny mattered, because… uh… the delusion will facilitate your survival. Yeah, that’s it. Your survival matters. Somehow. Even though nothing matters. Even though you and everyone you know and everyone who will ever be are all going to die, because even survival is at best temporal; when we die, we die, and that’s it. Not that you or anyone ever mattered in the first place.
This is simply what passes for “comfort” in a Darwinistic framework.As I’ve said in another post, if there’s anything inaccurate in describing such an outlook as “bleak,” it is only in that the description represents a rank understatement.
Labels: Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Star Trek
Sunday, July 27, 2008
So What’s So Wrong with Darwin?
In my last post, I stated that Darwinism has the bleakest outlook of any religion. So, what is it about Darwinism that makes it bleak?
The late William Provine, a professor at Cornell University, once wrote about what he called the five inescapable conclusions about Darwinism, if Darwinism is true. These are:
1. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature.
2. There are no inherent moral or ethical laws, and thus no absolute guiding principles of human society.
3. Human beings are complex machines, which become ethical persons by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influence.
4. When we die, we die, and that’s it.
5. There is no such thing as free will. Quote: “There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices.”
It should be noted that in drawing these conclusions, Provine was not trying to disprove Darwinism. He was not trying to portray it as ridiculous or silly. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Bible-thumping creationist viewing Darwinism as a threat to his religion. He remained, until his dying day, a secular scholar who found no fault in Darwinian principles and who agreed wholeheartedly with the Huxleyan assertion that Darwin at long last made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist and who considered himself a member of that good company.
No, this is an open and honest critique, a simple statement of the core beliefs of the faith, made by a member of the faithful. It is the Nicene Creed of Darwinism.
Sidebar:
By “Darwinism” I mean the belief that new species arise from pre-existing ones; that over great periods of time by means of gradual, slow changes from one species to the next, new genera, orders, and phyla are established; that the mechanism behind the change from one species to the next is natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation; that this mechanism applies universally throughout nature; and that the process occurs on its own, without any help from outside the natural system. My standard shorthand is: A Darwinist believes that the great-great-great grandchildren of a fish can become the great-great-great grandparents of a bat. The shorter shorthand: A Darwinist believes a fish can become a bat. Same difference.
End sidebar.
To expand on each of Provine’s assertions just a bit:
1. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. By this Provine means that when something happens in nature—say, the beaver acquires buck teeth—it occurs only because natural forces have allowed it to come about, and never because of some goal-oriented force wanting it so. The beaver has his buck teeth because there is a benefit to having buck teeth, not because someone ever said to himself “If we want the beaver to build a better dam, we’d better give him a couple of whopping great incisors to help him bring down more trees.”
2. There are no inherent moral or ethical laws, and thus no absolute guiding principles of human society. Morality and ethics are mere human constructs, formulated perhaps to help us survive in a world red in tooth and claw (or perhaps for some other reason), but not imposed upon us by some exterior force. They do not exist because they have to exist but because we allow them to exist. Murder, for example, is bad only because society claims it is bad; if humanity were suddenly to decide that murder is good, we could murder with impunity.
3. Human beings are complex machines, which become ethical persons by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influence. If no laws of morality/ethics exist, and since morality and ethics are mere tools of our own invention, these come about either because we have evolved with these notions already in mind, or because our experiences have led us to adopt our particular ideas of what is moral or ethical. Any strictly scientific theory such as evolution does not contain within itself the resources to underpin or to undermine a normative activity such as morality. Specifically, the theory of evolution does not tell us directly what we ought to do, but only aids in explaining why we engage in such normative activities.
4. When we die, we die, and that’s it. The explanation for our existence is to be found within nature. Mind is just an epiphenomenon of the neural activity of our brains, and notions such as religion have only come about because they somehow facilitate our survival, and offshoots of those notions such as the idea of Heaven or Hell are but the creation of our own fancies. An afterlife implies a purpose to the present life, which we know not to be the case because the universe is purposeless as stated in #1. Because being is a mere temporal verity having no real ontological meaning, we are thus mere physical beings and not spiritual ones.
5. There is no such thing as free will. Everything that we are is the product of natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation, including our minds and our ability to use our minds in decision-making. The choices we make are due entirely to our heredity, which is the product of our environment, or to our environment, which acts upon our heredity, or to some combination of the two. Since our choices are dependent upon either our DNA or our environment, there is ultimately so such thing as free will, which is necessitated upon an ability to act independently. If we can’t act independently of our genes or our environment, we aren’t free from it, either.
So, why do I find the Darwinistic outlook so bleak?
If Darwinism is true, the universe itself is without purpose. A notion such as God becomes superfluous, since He is not needed in explaining where a fish, a bat, or anything else, comes from. I see no intrinsic difference between a God who is unnecessary and one who does not exist.
If the universe is without purpose, and if everything that exists is part of that universe, then there is no purpose in anything. The fish, the bat, you, me, and the scum on the bottom of your shoe are all on the same level—the meaningless, accidental offshoots of an accidental universe, resulting from blind, undirected, purposeless processes which did not have the fish/bat/you/me/scum in mind as an end product.
If there is no purpose behind our being, then there is no purpose in our living, either. Our creation was purposeless, and likewise our existence and all phases of it: our birth, our life, and our death. What does it matter whether you die today or eighty years from now? There was no purpose in your being here in the first place, and once you die there’ll be nothing left of you to know the difference.
Morality is a purely subjective illusion. Murder is not immoral, only illegal. Were we to change the law, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with murder. And, anyway, if morality is an illusion, so is the law. So we are left with no means whatsoever of establishing murder –or anything else, for that matter—as right or wrong. Murder is only a meaningless event in a meaningless universe, perpetrated by meaningless people upon meaningless others. There’s no sense in crying over spilled milk, especially when even the significance of the milk can be called into question.
Moreover, Provine’s assertions about Darwinism, to use his own verbage, are inescapable—if Darwinism is true.
If there is something inaccurate in describing such an outlook as “bleak,” it is only in that the description represents a rank understatement.
But I believe that free will exists. I believe that right is separate from wrong. I believe that we are here for a purpose. And my only means of reconciling what I believe with what Provine asserts is to understand that there is therefore something wrong with his premise that Darwinism is true.
And that is to realize that Darwinism is NOT true.
The late William Provine, a professor at Cornell University, once wrote about what he called the five inescapable conclusions about Darwinism, if Darwinism is true. These are:
1. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature.
2. There are no inherent moral or ethical laws, and thus no absolute guiding principles of human society.
3. Human beings are complex machines, which become ethical persons by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influence.
4. When we die, we die, and that’s it.
5. There is no such thing as free will. Quote: “There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices.”
It should be noted that in drawing these conclusions, Provine was not trying to disprove Darwinism. He was not trying to portray it as ridiculous or silly. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Bible-thumping creationist viewing Darwinism as a threat to his religion. He remained, until his dying day, a secular scholar who found no fault in Darwinian principles and who agreed wholeheartedly with the Huxleyan assertion that Darwin at long last made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist and who considered himself a member of that good company.
No, this is an open and honest critique, a simple statement of the core beliefs of the faith, made by a member of the faithful. It is the Nicene Creed of Darwinism.
Sidebar:
By “Darwinism” I mean the belief that new species arise from pre-existing ones; that over great periods of time by means of gradual, slow changes from one species to the next, new genera, orders, and phyla are established; that the mechanism behind the change from one species to the next is natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation; that this mechanism applies universally throughout nature; and that the process occurs on its own, without any help from outside the natural system. My standard shorthand is: A Darwinist believes that the great-great-great grandchildren of a fish can become the great-great-great grandparents of a bat. The shorter shorthand: A Darwinist believes a fish can become a bat. Same difference.
End sidebar.
To expand on each of Provine’s assertions just a bit:
1. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. By this Provine means that when something happens in nature—say, the beaver acquires buck teeth—it occurs only because natural forces have allowed it to come about, and never because of some goal-oriented force wanting it so. The beaver has his buck teeth because there is a benefit to having buck teeth, not because someone ever said to himself “If we want the beaver to build a better dam, we’d better give him a couple of whopping great incisors to help him bring down more trees.”
2. There are no inherent moral or ethical laws, and thus no absolute guiding principles of human society. Morality and ethics are mere human constructs, formulated perhaps to help us survive in a world red in tooth and claw (or perhaps for some other reason), but not imposed upon us by some exterior force. They do not exist because they have to exist but because we allow them to exist. Murder, for example, is bad only because society claims it is bad; if humanity were suddenly to decide that murder is good, we could murder with impunity.
3. Human beings are complex machines, which become ethical persons by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influence. If no laws of morality/ethics exist, and since morality and ethics are mere tools of our own invention, these come about either because we have evolved with these notions already in mind, or because our experiences have led us to adopt our particular ideas of what is moral or ethical. Any strictly scientific theory such as evolution does not contain within itself the resources to underpin or to undermine a normative activity such as morality. Specifically, the theory of evolution does not tell us directly what we ought to do, but only aids in explaining why we engage in such normative activities.
4. When we die, we die, and that’s it. The explanation for our existence is to be found within nature. Mind is just an epiphenomenon of the neural activity of our brains, and notions such as religion have only come about because they somehow facilitate our survival, and offshoots of those notions such as the idea of Heaven or Hell are but the creation of our own fancies. An afterlife implies a purpose to the present life, which we know not to be the case because the universe is purposeless as stated in #1. Because being is a mere temporal verity having no real ontological meaning, we are thus mere physical beings and not spiritual ones.
5. There is no such thing as free will. Everything that we are is the product of natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation, including our minds and our ability to use our minds in decision-making. The choices we make are due entirely to our heredity, which is the product of our environment, or to our environment, which acts upon our heredity, or to some combination of the two. Since our choices are dependent upon either our DNA or our environment, there is ultimately so such thing as free will, which is necessitated upon an ability to act independently. If we can’t act independently of our genes or our environment, we aren’t free from it, either.
So, why do I find the Darwinistic outlook so bleak?
If Darwinism is true, the universe itself is without purpose. A notion such as God becomes superfluous, since He is not needed in explaining where a fish, a bat, or anything else, comes from. I see no intrinsic difference between a God who is unnecessary and one who does not exist.
If the universe is without purpose, and if everything that exists is part of that universe, then there is no purpose in anything. The fish, the bat, you, me, and the scum on the bottom of your shoe are all on the same level—the meaningless, accidental offshoots of an accidental universe, resulting from blind, undirected, purposeless processes which did not have the fish/bat/you/me/scum in mind as an end product.
If there is no purpose behind our being, then there is no purpose in our living, either. Our creation was purposeless, and likewise our existence and all phases of it: our birth, our life, and our death. What does it matter whether you die today or eighty years from now? There was no purpose in your being here in the first place, and once you die there’ll be nothing left of you to know the difference.
Morality is a purely subjective illusion. Murder is not immoral, only illegal. Were we to change the law, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with murder. And, anyway, if morality is an illusion, so is the law. So we are left with no means whatsoever of establishing murder –or anything else, for that matter—as right or wrong. Murder is only a meaningless event in a meaningless universe, perpetrated by meaningless people upon meaningless others. There’s no sense in crying over spilled milk, especially when even the significance of the milk can be called into question.
Moreover, Provine’s assertions about Darwinism, to use his own verbage, are inescapable—if Darwinism is true.
If there is something inaccurate in describing such an outlook as “bleak,” it is only in that the description represents a rank understatement.
But I believe that free will exists. I believe that right is separate from wrong. I believe that we are here for a purpose. And my only means of reconciling what I believe with what Provine asserts is to understand that there is therefore something wrong with his premise that Darwinism is true.
And that is to realize that Darwinism is NOT true.
Labels: Darwin, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
