What Are Creationists Afraid Of?

The New Individualist ^ | 1/2006 | Ed Hudgins

[jennyp]

...

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.

...

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.

[Strategerist]

Not that I'd expect you to bother reading it, and I warn you, it has some big words and everything, making that even more unlikely, but you may wish to consult:


http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

[Thatcherite]

Off for the night placemarker

[mlc9852]

"It's a skill they shouldn't have given up, considering the number of 'flightless birds' that are now extinct.
This category includes ostriches, rheas, cassowaries, emus and Kiwis, but we've also included two other orders: tinamou and penguins."

Seems evolution worked against them.

[furball4paws]

non apropos brium placemarker

[P-Marlowe]

The argument is that markets produce results that no single agent could achieve, and that this does not imply the existence of a higher intelligence.

The human body is infinitely more complicated than any economic market and yet you claim that the human body, with all it's interconnected systems for the sustenance and reproduction of life are nothing more than the product of spinning atoms and time. Yet no one can even begin to explain the existence of the atoms themselves, much less how the application of time and energy to those atoms could bring about even one single celled life form, much less an organism that sees, hears, tastes, thinks, reproduces itself and sustains itself thorough a complex nervous system and digestive systems.... ad infinitum.

All you have is the existence of some bones that have turned to rocks to support your theory that any of this is even remotely possible, much less that it was likely.

In essence the evidence is clear that what we see and even the fact that we see it, is the result of some supernatural intervention of a kind which we are wont to even imagine.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"The reason they are absent is because evolution is a lie."

They are not absent at all.

If you believe that they don't exist because you haven't seem them, then how can you be so sure that God exists?

[mlc9852]

I would love to know where you draw the line. I would love to know how biologists determine what makes humans human.

[xzins]

The argument is that markets produce results that no single agent could achieve,

Should read "The argument is that markets produce results that no single INTELLIGENT agent could achieve,"

And there you have intelligence applied at the outset.

And, anything times I includes the factor I.

[jwalsh07]

You've explained nothing actually. You keep reverting to penguins but the penguins habitat offers valid reasons for their flightlessness. A cormorant in the Galapagos is a whole other basket of fish.

There may be a valid explanation of why those cormorants selected flightlessness but you sure the heck didn't offer one. Cormorants use their legs to swim.

[jwalsh07]

Economic markets have purpose and goals, they have direction. Evolution has no direction. The analogy falls flatter than the earth. :-}

[Coyoteman]

I would love to know where you draw the line. I would love to know how biologists determine what makes humans human.

There are still various opinions on some things. A lot of that is scientific nomenclature and classification, trying to draw lines where in actuality none existed.

Most paleontologists probably would place the line just after Australopithecus. This can be seen in the names assigned in the following photograph. When you hit Homo you have reached the human genus (although not the species of modern humans). Of course the new data coming from DNA could change some of this.

Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

[jwalsh07]

See 250.

[bobdsmith]

How do economic markets have a purpose and goal? Im not expert on economics, but as far as I gather markets are the accumulation of lots of parts (people) behaving in a certain way. There is no purpose or end goal of the actual market although it might tend to head in a certain direction.

And now you mention it, this is rather like evolution. If I were to throw my hands up at the sheer complexity of the world markets I might assume there must be some higher intelligence guiding it. I'd be wrong though.

[P-Marlowe]

[mlc9852]

So do you believe humans are still evolving, and if so, into what? Do you believe there are still sub-species of humans?

[jwalsh07]

How do economic markets have a purpose and goal?

You're kiddin' right? :-}

Just joshing.

The purpose of markets is to put a buyer together with a seller so that both profit form the experience.

[jwalsh07]

There is no purpose or end goal of the actual market although it might tend to head in a certain direction.

Exactly wrong Bob.

[Buggman]

What Are Creationists Afraid Of?

That the Evolutionists will continue to sell discredited theories (the primordial soup) and outright frauds (the peppered-moth photos, Haekel's long-ago debunked drawings, Piltdown Man, etc.) to our children in schools paid for with our tax dollars rather than simply teach them the truth: That evolution has no viable theory of abiogenesis and that many of the supposed proofs for evolution that they've been taught all their lives don't actually exist.

So now, you tell me: What are evolutionists so afraid of that they continue to tell outright lies to children in biology class?

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.

Hayek neglects to mention that within that system are millions of micro-systems, each of which does have one or more intellegent designers controling it and responding to events: CEOs, accountants, inventors, coders, assembly-line workers, project managers, etc.

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?

Prove that it did. Don't demand that I take the "scientific" theory of evolution on faith.

Creationists, as religious fundamentalists . . .

A cute way to bias the argument. "Oooh, those eeeeeevil, stoooooopid fundamentalists." Of course, not all Creationists are fundamentalists by any stretch. Those who believe that the universe was created in six 24-hour days 6-10k years ago tend to be, of course. But there are also plenty of Creationists who are willing to grant a 15 billion year old universe--this by your own definitions, the one which you have advanced legally in court, which has every IDer as a Creationist. In fact, these "Creationists" make up the overwhelming majority of the people, both in America and around the world, and span the philosophical/theological range from deist to liberal Christian to fundamentalist Christian to Hindu to Muslim to any other belief system which believes in some manner of Creator.

Of course, this is a standard part of the evolutionist attack, which has been simply to confuse two separate, if co-operative arguments (ID and ex-nihilo Creation, or for that matter, Creationism vs. Young Earth Creationism) so as to make the false argument that one has to believe that the entire universe is only 6,000 years old in order to dispute that evolution is sufficient to explain the origin and development of life. This is a straw-man and a guilt-by-association tactic.

The day that the evo-inquisition pitched a hissy fit and ruined Richard Sternberg's career for his daring to allow a peer-reviewed article by Stephen Meyer supporting ID to appear in the pages of the Smithsonian, never mind that it passed all the standard hurdles for publication, they forever surrendered their scientific "high ground" and put themselves in the position of ardent religionists defending a dogma.

This article, full of logical fallacies and arguments that don't stand up to five seconds of thought, just further proves that.

Thus, it is the believers in evolution who come to their beliefs in part through honest errors and in part from evasions of facts and close-minded dogmatism. And that's why I don't bother to debate this issue the way I used to; it became obvious long ago that I was not engaged in a scientific discussion, but a religious discussion with someone who isn't honest enough to admit it.

[Stultis]

one could ask what are Evolutionists afraid of in letting the Theory of ID and or Creation, be exhibited?

Conservatives (and many non-conservatives as well) are afraid of lowering academic standards. Since creationism or ID has not (yet at any rate) achieved anything remotely approaching the standing in professional science that would normally be expected of any idea included in science curricula, it can only be included on the basis of what amounts to intellectual affirmative action.

If the precedence is established that this can be done even in "hard" subjects like the natural sciences, so much more is the door opened (or further opened) in "soft" subjects like the social sciences, the political left's favorite play pen.

Furthermore the call for creationism or ID in curricula is associated with an "identity group," namely theologically conservative religious persons. This is how much of the leftist pap, pablum, revisionism and other unworthy junk gets into the curricula: it's deemed to be necessary to appease various identity groups, or to support their "self-esteem".

If even some conservatives (creationism/ID supporters) are arguing for academic/intellectual relativism and the validity of identity group politics in determining curricula, how can other conservatives attack these same tactics at the root when they are used by the left?

[Coyoteman]

Not spam, data.

You may not like it, but its real.