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.
I'm guessing that even our anti-design folks are gonna shy away from those market comments in this article.
They're TSFW.
:>)
I guess I'm not making myself clear. When I say "predictions", I'm requesting a prediction of how a particular organism will look like in the far future, given it's past that we already know about, and it's environmental conditions. Not what we'll find in terms of what has already happened.
I did not say that it is impossible to make predictions at all, and you are a liar for claiming that I said as much.
I never said that you said it was impossible to make any predictions. You did say, though, that you cannot make the type of prediction I was asking for. My intent is not to create strawmen, or take what you say out of context. I'm just saying that evolution, as a theory, cannot predict what organisms will look like in the future. Since it cannot take known data and create future predictions, it cannot be science.
Don't get so upset. We've not talked before, and I know what these threads can deteriorate into. I don't want to get into that. With that, I'm outta here as I've got errands for the rest of the evening. I may check back in tomorrow.
It borders on racist, IMO. Par for the course.
You're joking right? You are really trying to seriously contend that a bird that was fully adapted for flight could match a flighless bird that was somewhat adapted towards swimming at swimming? Have you ever seen pictures of penguins underwater? Try to imagine a flier in an underwater race with a penguin.
Ok..leaving aside whatever else you're claiming, Objectivists and Ayn Rand are about the most fanatical capitalists and anti-communists there have ever been, and that's indisputable.
The reality is you hate atheists and she and Objectivists are atheists. Just say you hate them because they're atheists. That would be accurate.
I realize you don't have the foggiest idea what a Communist is (to you it's a fuzzy-headed notion of "everyone I hate" I'm sure) but because Communists are atheists and Objectivists and Ayn Rand are atheists, it doesn't mean Objectivists are Communists.
Any more than the fact that fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims both believe homosexuality is an evil sin, that thefore fundamentalist Christians are fundamentalist Muslims.
"There are no transitional fossils" is a lie, a provable lie, and I've seen in on every crevo thread on FR, basically.
And how many times has the whole completely debunked "Darwin repudiated evolution on his deathbead" story been rolled out?
I simply call 'em like I see 'em.
The argument is not that market agents are not intelligent. 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.
Thank you. If evolution were a fact, thousands of fossils of transitional forms would be found.
The reason they are absent is because evolution is a lie.
What you are wanting is a specific class of prediction that you know in advance it is impossible to make. It is a chaotic system and chaotic systems cannot be predicted in that way. What do you find unsatisfactory about the numerous successful predicted observations that evolution *does* achieve?
Are there any other sciences who receive such approbrium from you for this one characteristic, or is it just evolution?
How about meteorology, geology, biology, history, medicine, even computer science, etc. Are all of them able to make long term predictions of similar events?
Perhaps there is something wrong with your definition of science?
Parhaps this definition of theory will help:
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses." Addendum: "Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws." (Courtesy of VadeRetro.)
No, unfortunately it is a blindness to the obvious that frequently seizes the brains of creationists when they think they've found some kind of hole in the theory of evolution... "How could 'X' evolve, just tell me that! Hah!"
No, no joke. Flighted birds use their legs to swim and tuck their wings when diving for fish. You've seen flighted birds doing the breast stroke lately?
You are really trying to seriously contend that a bird that was fully adapted for flight could match a flighless bird that was somewhat adapted towards swimming at swimming?
No you just conjured that up out of whole cloth.
Have you ever seen pictures of penguins underwater?
Yeah, have you ever seen a big ole moray eel face to face in a cave at depth?
Try to imagine a flier in an underwater race with a penguin.
Why?
Now back to the original question. What advantage does a flighted bird have that already has a swimming capability gain by selecting out flight?
I've already explained it to you. Only your predisposition is preventing you from seeing the obvious.
Meteorology can't predict what the weather will be exactly one year from today. Is it also not science?
You must have missed that...or you don't have a response to it, in light of the fact that religion is trying to force feed mysticism as science to the masses.
I thought I had pinged you for post 227. Sorry about that. :)
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