Hat tip, to you, fishtank!
That same point has been the basis of my tag line for many years.
FReegards!
Posted on 05/06/2016 11:22:38 AM PDT by fishtank
Monkey minds
How evolution undercuts reason and science
by Keaton Halley
Published: 5 May 2016 (GMT+10)
If our minds were not designed, why would we trust them?
Atheists routinely style themselves as champions of reason and science, and they view evolutionary theory as a triumph of both. Indeed, they believe that evolution helps them to explain features of the world that would otherwise be inexplicable. As Richard Dawkins put it, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”1 Ironically, however, evolution cannot possibly bear this burden, because if evolution were true it would undermine our confidence in human rationality. While Christianity has the resources to account for reason, the atheistic paradigm self-destructs. The contrast can be seen by comparing what each worldview says about the origin and composition of human beings.
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
Nice post. You are pointing out how reason is not a trait.
It does illustrate why the concept of “reason” is meaningless or superfluous in an evolutionary context.
To an evolutionist what we call reason is instinctual stimuli-response, selected behavior.
It’s no different than microorganism chemo-taxis.
61 is a good post.
I will point out that reason still is just a more sophisticated form of chemo taxis. A selected for behavior.
Evolutionists have no use for reason or free will.
You’re splitting hairs, and being obtuse.
Either that, or you genuinely cannot understand how being able to solve problems could be a survival characteristic.
Do you not yourself profess them as faith?
The one that tries to equate a designed entity (life) changing itself because it was designed to do that with an undersigned entity (static) changing itself into a designed entity (a broadcast signal) for no reason at all.
The original question being: “if our minds were not designed, how could we trust them?”.
I laid out a sequence of evolutionary stages, using simple language, that explains how a reliable capacity for reason could develop over time by benefiting those creatures that possessed it, and that humans as the eventual result of that evolutionary process would consequently possess that same reliable ability to reason, and thus be able to trust that mind.
The original question isn’t about concrete evidence; it’s about whether or not it could be possible to trust a mind that was the product of something other than design. I showed one way that we could trust a mind that wasn’t the product of design.
Hat tip, to you, fishtank!
That same point has been the basis of my tag line for many years.
FReegards!
“Either that, or you genuinely cannot understand how being able to solve problems could be a survival characteristic.”
I am pointing out the shallowness, or unsophisticated nature of your arguments and understandings of evolution. Nothing personal.
Being able to solve problems is a great survival “characteristic”, but you are mistaking it with adaptability.
Solving a problem is a behavior. It is selected for based on environment. In a different environment the ability to solve a problem as done in the other environment may lead to death.
Moth to the flame is an excellent example.
In an evolutionary worldview what we call reason is no more than a more complex form of chemo-taxis. An instinctual stimuli-response that has been selected for.
Concepts such as reason and free will are superfluous at best.
Well what I was responding to was the assertion that reason doesn’t help with survival. As for whether or not it’s a trait how many animals out there show the ability to LOGICALLY (not physically) adapt to their surrounding? Just us. So that clearly makes it a trait. Which means it’s not meaningless in evolutionary context.
It IS an instinctual stimuli-response, we have a brain that can figure that stuff out and react to it even before we have language skills, look what happens when pre-language kids do things that get them hurt. They stick their finger in that hole in the wall and it hurts and they stop sticking their fingers in holes in the wall. The family pet needs a lot more shocks to figure that one out, if they ever do. The fact that we’re better at learning from our mistakes shows it is a selected behavior.
“laid out a sequence of evolutionary stages, using simple language, that explains how a reliable capacity for reason could develop over time by benefiting those creatures that possessed it, and that humans as the eventual result of that evolutionary process would consequently possess that same reliable ability to reason, and thus be able to trust that mind.”
Did I argue against it?
“It IS an instinctual stimuli-response”
Exactly. Therefore in the evolutionary atheist view it isn’t really reason as we understand it. In that world view there is no free will, and no reason which is a function of free will.
I am always amazed that the cognoscenti so cavalierly dismiss free will. But I guess they have to.
Certainly as a philosophical paradigm, but that has nothing to do with the science.
To understand the magnitude of the problem is to reject such fairy tales. Using terms like "simply physics-chemical processes" would constitute a breech of ethics were it not so commonplace.
No it IS reason as we understand it. The point is we have an INSTINCT to LEARN and apply reason. There’s still plenty of free will, we have the ability to ignore our reason, and to apply an additional level of reason, and to seek news things and expand our reason. Using my previous example if we couldn’t apply free will to our reason no kid would ever grow up to be an electrician.
I’m amazed by how much you make up your own definition of things and then insist that people who think that way are wrong even though nobody thinks that way.
“The point is we have an INSTINCT to LEARN and apply reason. There’s still plenty of free will...”
I agree with you.
I am presenting the atheist evolutionist “scientific” view.
Most of the populizers we hear don’t understand it.
That is exactly the premise. Static is the naturally occurring variant of the broadcast.
There are plenty of human beings who, absent any good reason to do so, get drunk, stay out too late, bed the first equally un-reasoned human being of the opposite sex, only to learn in short order that they will soon be parents.
This is where the premise above, as stated, fails.
Reason alone is not necessarily "good." Reason must be informed against a standard with which to measure good and evil, right and wrong, favorable and unfavorable.
The question always comes down to who sets the standard based upon what metric that defines "good."
The Christian premise is that it is Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Universe (John 1:1-5), who sets both the standard and the metric for that which defines "good."
Absent Jesus Christ, the materialist has no credible, objective standard which defines "good." He only has himself.
It comes as no surprise then that the materialist is the definition of the self-serving, godless man .
FReegards!
No you’re not. You’re presenting a made up strawman that bears absolutely no relationship to the scientific view.
The only principal in the premise (life) was explicitly defined as having been designed. There were no naturally occurring, un-designed entities specified. You've injected a dissimilar (naturally occurring and undesigned) entity into the premise and then made that the basis for your argument.
Yes.
No one answered when I asked for evidence.
The guys who procreate most are unmarried, on welfare, etc...Not the type who are best at reasoning things out.
But it is quite reasonable in the atheistic evolutionary view to have as many offspring with as many women as possible. That’s the most reasonable thing to do.
In other mammals, “reason” is defined as being physically superior to all other competitive males - ie being able to defeat them in a fight and thus able to procreate with the females.
Why do you say that?
Cite one evolutionist who believes in free will?
Are you a scientist?
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