I already knew. :)
Posted on 01/26/2006 1:47:10 PM PST by 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.
I've already got a couple of examples from that endlessly quotable source: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON CREATIONISM.
Read a textbook on molecular biology (especialy the chapters on error rates of DNA polymerases) and then come back here and discuss this point with some knowledge on your part.
Precisely not. The greater the number of 'intelligences' the more random the process becomes.
"If you think this outcome requires no intelligence, why don't growing, wealthy economies spring up from schools of fish, or swarms of bees?
They do have their own economies.
Yeah. The William Jennings Bryan scenario.
Wow, you started a heck of a thread.
What the writer notices is that change doesn't need a central planner, it can come about by distributed intelligence, the global equivalent of parallel processing.
This is, of course, true, and it is Von Mise's point, and Hayek's point as well. An economy progresses more intelligently without a central planner, because it takes advantage of a billion minds loosely connected in parallel.
What does any of that have to do with evolution? Not a lot, necessarily. It does suggest a line of reasoning that he almost sees, if he doesn't let himself get caught up in his effort to use this insight to pummel his opponents in another argument.
The remarkable thing about the universe is that, exactly as the writer notes, intelligence has been pushed out to the periphery, to the point of the spear, or maybe better said, to the point of contact. The universe, especially the living universe, acts like a kind of rough, full-contact computer, as various alternatives are tried, some discarded, some built upon and further developed.
He notices this, he realizes that the living world seems to be information-rich, its separate pieces seem to have built-in a means of adapting over time to changing circumstances.
This is evolution in a nutshell. If you are not a believer, you will probably marvel at the rich complexity of the world, you will probably marvel at the strange way in which code gets transferred from one organism to its progeny, and at the astonishing ingeniousness of the moving parts that make up any living organism. You won't assume a supernatural creator, but you will marvel just the same. I think this is what drives any scientist, a sense of wonder at what he sees, and a hunger to get to the "how" and "why" of it.
If you are a believer, and you notice the same things, you agree that the living universe has the ability to adapt itself over time, then you would probably be an "intelligent design" proponent. If you believe in God, and you believe in evolution, the two beliefs combined together pretty much equal "intelligent design". For an evolutionist, if he's paying attention, "intelligent design" means that he has won the argument, because God-believers agree with him. If the argument is only about how the living world has developed and adapted, then he should be happy to know that there is no argument.
But if the argument is about something else, if he was hoping to prove that God does not exist, then it might frustrate him to find God-believers marvelling at the sheer cleverness of the creation. The holy grail for programmers is code that can adapt itself; if you believe in God and evolution both, then you see precisely that, code adapting itself, and you can't help but marvel at the God who is behind it.
I actually know Ed Hudgins. He is (or was?) a scholar at the Cato Institute...one of the few "pure" Objectivists there.
I fully agree his analogy between economics with millions of humans working out there best interests...forming a kind of spontaneous order and evolution is silly.
Leave it to FReepers to see the faults in this. The guy is kind of a nerd...and came from a fundamentalist family (who have rejected him)...seems to still be living out a rebellion rationalized into atheism. Kind of sad his lapses in logical thinking, eh?
I'm more and more convinced unbelief comes from and leads to intellectual blindness.
I'm going to guess that an explanation isn't forthcoming, judging by the sound of crickets here. Which is as good as an admission, if you ask me. Just remember what you're dealing with next time.
Just in case being beaten to death isn't enough of an indignity, some yahoo can always come along and compare you to Australopithecus. One wonders where it would leave the creationists if they stopped seizing the moral high ground in such an effective manner.
I already knew. :)
His is just another soulless animal skull to you followers of the monkey/soup god. Blinded by "reason" darwinists have already built mountains of skulls of other human animals. The irony of a bunch of racists feigning offense is delicious. So where's the cladistical analysis of Jewish skulls and where they fit in the heirarchy of evilution. Are they closer to the image of your monkey god or farther away. Higher or lower on the evilutionary scale than Stephen Biko? Hmmm...
Yes, I am.
Anyone who rejects the economic wisdom of Adam Smith, Hayek, von Mises, and Milton Friedman has no business claiming to be conservative.
Just to be accurate, it isn't the Creationism that I'm getting high on....
It's the fellowship with the Creator.
btw, I'm glad you liked the link about Isabel. When I started seeing the incredible cross connections in the personal lives of each of those 3 women, especially with regards to their childlessness and their spousal relationships, it went far to help me understand how and why libertarianism, intellectually, took off.
Bunk, no transitional forms have been found to exist alive, (which would surely be the case if evolution were true), nor has the 'missing link' been found. What you believe in takes more radical, blind faith than believing in a God Who created the universe. In fact, it takes a conscious desire to not believe in God to believe this crap.
Yes. And anyone who fails to grasp the similarity between unguided markets and uguided evolution has no business claiming to be a thinking conservative.
How about those who embrace laissez faire economics and get their paychecks from the public treasury?
You pulled his name out of a hat, not me. You compared a murdered black anti-apartheid activist to an ape-like nonhuman creature, not me.
LOL. Face it, man - that was an astoundingly racist thing to post. But instead of simply facing up to it, admitting it was in poor taste, or otherwise behaving like a man, you can't help but try and defend it by turning it back on someone else. And it's the idiotic attempt to defend something so blatantly racist that puts it and you beyond simple bad taste.
Whatever. You've got bigger problems than my criticism, pal. Better hope this Judgement Day thing is just your wishful thinking, or answering to me is the least of your problems, no matter how tight you clutch that Bible and pretend you're a good guy.
Three questions for you Jebby.Jebby? :-)1. What is the purpose of markets?
2. What is the purpose of evolution?
3. Who or what directs each of those?
Markets are the macro-effects of many people engaging in trade according to certain rules. The collection of rules they trade by could produce a market that doesn't survive, or one that does. Interestingly, in practice the rules themselves tend to evolve over time as a new market gets established. Some rules are enforced by the coercive power of the state, and some rules are simply conventions & standards that everybody follows.
Likewise, evolution doesn't have a purpose per se. It's more of a macro-effect of random mutation + natural selection played out through multiple generations. Here too, there are rules such as the laws of physics & chemistry, along with ecological and developmental constraints that channel development in various, largely unpredictable ways.
Nobody directs either. Even in the economy, individual persons or companies are virtually never able to design nor predict major changes to the industry or economic landscape they are operating in. Sometimes perfectly well-run companies don't even survive such changes! The business case-study literature is rife with examples of companies that get blind-sided by new disruptive competitors or innovations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.