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.
If they're citing creationist websites, a bop on the head can't do any damage.
I particularly like the one a ways upthread with Carbon 14 dating on shell and wood producing dates on the order of a million years. And this is a person who actually claimed to know something about the subject.
C14 peters out at about 50,000 years, but a couple of labs are trying to push the AMS form back toward 80,000 years.
No rocket scientist there, eh?
So my simplistic explanation stands by the pioneers of your field" and I can stand by Dr. Libby's words any day over your words of adam smith and these others
Calling the words you cited as "garbage" calls now into question your expertise in the field and the position you supposedly hold.
The cut and paste links are all anti-creationist stuff which again states your bias, your agnostic and or atheistic bent more than your supposed scientific background.
As I stated from the start I am not one of those who is arguing for intelligent design
I have also clearly stated that I do not even care to be drawn into debates about evolution or the gap theory By Christians or non-beleviers like yourself.
I have been at odds with these things since the late 1970's before the word creationist came into being before any of this became another cottage monet making industry in the church.
I merely argued about the original OPENING quotes and comments.
And I responded to a second post that restated and tried to deflect the flood of comments from others than myself fromyou and lay it on someone else as it being their fault and not yours. -- so I called you on that.
Now I see the depth of your intellectual dishonesty in your last statements I see you not only are not an originalist and have not read Darwin and can not make your arguements from his words and writings but you don't cite Dr Libby his writings or words and his colleagues writings to refute my words becasue you have not read their words and if you did, you could still not refute my words.
So I will not longer be a part of this post or respond you your rants.
What you fail to understand, O wicked man of flesh, is that the creationist has access to wisdom that extends far beyond your pathetic materialistic worldview. One day you will finally learn, but it will be too late. And I shall laugh!
</disciple of Jack Chick mode>
Hey, I live in the mountains and I wouldn't purposely choose an automatic if the decision were just mine. And I wouldn't do without the AWD/4WD either, but you flatlanders can do with what you want.
Libby wrote many 50 years ago, and the field has progressed amazingly since then.
Try some modern text books, or even the links I posted. You really do have a lot of errors in what you wrote.
Might hurt your bopper.
I know manuals are good for drag racing. I'm beyond such silliness.
I bet I live at a higher altitude than your biggest hill. I certainly spend a lot of my time at an altitude that would be all air whereever you are.
Thank goodness!
Eternity in the Lake of Fire is preferrable to spending it with some of the reality-disconnected incoherent lunatics who have been posting on these threads in the last four or five days. Where do these people come from? Is it "Internet Night" at the "Outpatient Clinic"?
I will give you that WV can be rugged. I live 9 months out of the year at about 9000 ft. and the other 3 just below tree line (about 11,500 ft around here. It's definitely a respiratory fitness area. Anywhere above 11,000 ft this time of year around here is dangerous. I have 4, 14ers (14,000+) mountains within 5 miles of my front door. Outside of CA and AK, this is some of the highest and most rugged wilderness in the US. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I don't think a 6502 is worried about a burning lake.
"Adam Smith is credited with creating the basis of modern economics and world trade."
He may be credited with explaining the basis of modern economics. He is hardly credited with the creation of economics. Economics is a by-product of human existence. It (economics/capitalism) has been around since before Man could write anything, much less an encyclopedia.
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