Posted on 01/26/2006 1:47:10 PM PST by jennyp
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Third, complexity does not imply “design.” One of Adam Smith’s most powerful insights, developed further by Friedrich Hayek, is that incredible complexity can emerge in society without a designer or planner, through “spontaneous order.” Hayek showed how in a free market the complex processes of producing and distributing goods and services to millions of individuals do not require socialist planners. Rather, individuals pursuing their own self-interest in a system governed by a few basic rules—property rights, voluntary exchange by contract—have produced all the vast riches of the Western world.
Many creationists who are on the political Right understand the logic of this insight with respect to economic complexity. Why, then, is it such a stretch for them to appreciate that the complexity we find in the physical world—the optic nerve, for example—can emerge over millions of years under the rule of natural laws that govern genetic mutations and the adaptability of life forms to changing environments? It is certainly curious that many conservative creationists do not appreciate that the same insights that show the futility of a state-designed economy also show the irrelevance of an “intelligently designed” universe.
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Evolution: A Communist Plot?
Yet another fear causes creationists to reject the findings of science.
Many early proponents of science and evolution were on the political Left. For example, the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 affirmed support for evolution and the scientific approach. But its article fourteen stated: “The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible.”
Subsequent humanist manifestos in 1973 and 2000 went lighter on the explicit socialism but still endorsed, along with a critical approach to knowledge, the kind of welfare-state democracy and internationalism rejected by conservatives. The unfortunate historical association of science and socialism is based in part on the erroneous conviction that if humans can use scientific knowledge to design machines and technology, why not an entire economy?
Further, many supporters of evolution were or appeared to be value-relativists or subjectivists. For example, Clarence Darrow, who defended Scopes in the “monkey trial” eight decades ago, also defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. These two young amoralists pictured themselves as supermen above conventional morality; they decided to commit the perfect crime and killed a fourteen-year-old boy. Darrow offered the jury the standard liberal excuses for the atrocity. He argued that the killers were under the influence of Nietzschean philosophy, and that to give them the death penalty would hurt their surviving families. “I am pleading for life, understanding, charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that considers all,” he said. “I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love.” This is the sort of abrogation of personal responsibility, denial of moral culpability, and rejection of the principle of justice that offends religious conservatives—in fact, every moral individual, religious or atheist.
In addition, nearly all agnostics and atheists accept the validity of evolution. Creationists, as religious fundamentalists, therefore see evolution and atheism tied together to destroy the basis of morality. For one thing, evolution seems to erase the distinction between humans and animals. Animals are driven by instincts; they are not responsible for their actions. So we don’t blame cats for killing mice, lions for killing antelope, or orca whales for killing seals. It’s what they do. They follow instincts to satisfy urges to eat and procreate. But if human beings evolved from lower animals, then we might be merely animals—and so there would be no basis for morality. In which case, anything goes.
To religious fundamentalists, then, agnostics and atheists must be value-relativists and subjectivists. Whether they accept evolution because they reject a belief in God, or reject a belief in God because they accept evolution, is immaterial: the two beliefs are associated, just as are creationism and theism. By this view, the only firm basis for morality is the divine edicts of a god.
This reflects the creationists’ fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of morality.
Morality from Man’s Nature
We humans are what we are today regardless of whether we evolved, were created, or were intelligently designed. We have certain characteristics that define our nature.
We are Homo sapiens. Unlike lower animals, we have a rational capacity, an ability to fully, conceptually understand the world around us. We are self-conscious. We are the animal that knows—and knows that he knows. We do not survive automatically, by instinct, but must exercise the virtue of rationality. We must think. We must discover how to acquire food—through hunting or planting—how to make shelters, how to invent medicines. And to acquire such knowledge, we must adopt a rational methodology: science.
Furthermore, our thinking does not occur automatically. We have free will and must choose to think, to focus our minds, to be honest rather than to evade facts that make us uncomfortable—evolution, for example—because reality is what it is, whether we like it or acknowledge it or not.
But we humans do not exercise our minds and our wills for mere physical survival. We have a capacity for a joy and flourishing far beyond the mere sensual pleasures experienced by lower animals. Such happiness comes from planning our long-term goals, challenging ourselves, calling on the best within us, and achieving those goals—whether we seek to nurture a business to profitability or a child to adulthood, whether we seek to create a poem or a business plan, whether we seek to design a building or to lay the bricks for its foundation.
But our most important creation is our moral character, the habits and attitudes that govern our actions. A good character helps us to be happy, a bad one guarantees us misery. And what guides us in creating such a character? What tells us how we should deal with our fellow humans?
A code of values, derived from our nature and requirements as rational, responsible creatures possessing free will.
We need not fear that with evolution, or without a god, there is no basis for ethics. There is an objective basis for ethics, but it does not reside in the heavens. It arises from our own human nature and its objective requirements.
Creationists and advocates of intelligent design come to their beliefs in part through honest errors and in part from evasions of facts and close-minded dogmatism. But we should appreciate that one of their motivations might be a proper rejection of value-relativism, and a mistaken belief that acceptance of divine revelation is the only moral alternative.
If we can demonstrate to them that the basis for ethics lies in our nature as rational, volitional creatures, then perhaps we can also reassure them that men can indeed have morality—yet never fear to use that wondrous capacity which allows us to understand our own origins, the world around us, and the moral nature within us.
Edward Hudgins is the Executive Director of The Objectivist Center.
Their own nature?
Ahem.
Creationism is what asks true believers to take things on faith until the future day which will finally prove it true.
Christians keep hoping that Jesus will show up eventually.
Your response isn't really germane to the points I was making.
I was specifically talking about the high frequency of flightless bird species on oceanic islands. No two islands sharing the same species. Easily explained by evolutionary theory. Inexplicable otherwise, except in terms of "God created different flightless bird species on lots of different oceanic islands to make evolution look true even though it isn't."
You're confusing what He "could" do with what He "did" do. That can quickly descend into the silly, "Could God create a rock so big that He couldn't lift it?" musings.
He has revealed what he did do. He created. He didn't just mix up a batch of goo and sit back to see what happened.
"That is to say that the mechanism that caused the first life forms to exist has no bearing on the mechanism by which those imperfect replicators branched off into diverse species, or, in clearer terms, evolution doesn't depend on life originating from any specific method."
that is all I'm getting at. THat there is a possibility that an Intelligent Designer (not like Ralph Lauren) or God created or initiated the originating replicator.
Why do you think Australopithecus africanus was not human?
They based them on the observed rate of mutation in successive generations of cells, if I remember correctly. That is the basis of evolution, is it not?
In any event, I must be getting home now. Thanks to all for an invigorating debate! :-)
Um, sailplanes don't flap their wings, either, yet no one would dream of saying they don't fly.
Proof or "demonstration" in the natural sciences merely means that the theory is better supported by more empirically measurable data than alternative theories are supported by. Strictly speaking, it's not really demonstration, though the word is commonly applied to theories that enjoy widespread acceptance.
Demonstration or proof in the social sciences is roughly the same, though the data may involve less-measurable elements. In economics, most of the data are measurable, but . . .
So what did Hayek prove? He advanced a theory. A lot of people believe it to be a good theory that is supported by the data. Others disagree.
All that quite apart from the questions other posters have raised. This could have been a useful article if the author had actually thought about how explanatory models and theories work in mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, philosophy, theology.
But that would require some complexity and perhaps even a tad bit of intelligent designing.
Besides, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" always struck me as the least convincing part of his system. It seemed like a cheap deus ex machina solution, just a tad bit like religious belief in providence, masquerading under "scientific analysis." Sort of like Newton's way of filling in the gaps he could not yet explain (for lack of sufficient data and sufficient analysis--sort of like an eye that has halfway evolved??).
From an NSF abstract:
As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.
Modified from RadioAstronomers's post #27 on another thread.
This is almost laughable in its illogic.
This author is saying that individuals do not set up distribution channels and methods...that they came about "spontaneously."
ROTFLOL!
Tell that to your friendly neighborhood entrepreneurs. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of it.
Are you saying there are no same species of flightless birds located on different islands?
Okay, we agree that flying squirrels don't fly by flapping their wings.
Your confusion is arising because you are imagining individual birds evolving. Individual birds don't evolve. Populations evolve. It is all about differential productive success. If flying isn't an advantage in the bird's current environment, and flying comes at a high cost, then individual birds that happen to be born as not very good fliers but perhaps lay more eggs or are more tolerant of a varied diet will outbreed the good fliers. Every individual born is somewhat different from its parents, and that individual will during its lifetime either successfully breed children or not. Those that breed more children pass their genes on, and those that don't successfully raise children lose their genes. Mutations and sexual gene-shuffling do the rest by causing the variation of offspring that drives natural selection.
" They based them on the observed rate of mutation in successive generations of cells, if I remember correctly."
They couldn't POSSIBLY have been able to calculate all of the variables. They pulled the numbers out of their butts and fooled those who didn't think too hard on what was being *explained*.
The Objectivist Center is a group of hate spewing athiest communist Christian-hating Jew-hating monsters. 'nuff said.
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