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.
Baloney. You avoid the first step of evolution because you have no natural explanation for it. To even discuss it in the context of evolution opens the door to supernatural explanations and if you invite any discussion beyond a simple naturalistic explanation, then you have to admit that the possibility of a supernatural cause for abiogensis and the evolution of the first life forms would leave upon the door for a supernatural explanation for the development of complex life forms, which you refuse to even consider.
So you drop it from the discussion.
When I took biology in High School we were all told that the lowest forms of life "evolved" from non-living matter. But since the conditions in which such an event occurred have been impossible to duplicate and since there have been significant challenges to that theory, the whole idea of abiogenesis appears to have been silently removed from the curriculum.
No.
They are both informal fallacies in their appeal to false authority. But, don't take my word for it...
TEST my syllogism with a truth table or use a Venn diagram to test it for categorical logic.
Assumptions will kill us.
There were no "ignored" responses. There was, however, a granddaughter that I was babysitting.
(We had to discuss Arnie the Armadillo and Dora the Explora.)
She is a gift from God....no accident by any means...so I guess she fits into this discussion. :>)
Why do you believe that just because something may be a good idea that some organism should have evolved that way? Evolution has no direction, no intent. Its all contingent on what it starts with and what mutations just happen to occur.
Mutation (variation) happens first then the environment decides if it will allow it. Talk about complex systems. The interaction between the organism's parts and thingees and the environment is highly complex.
The mythical rights of women or men are also meaningless.
The very concept of rights is also founded in religion and morality. Since the enlightened person is freed from any primitive superstitions about some ‘God’ they are free from having to worry about rights. Only raw power counts, and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful.
I think you are right. Caught with his pants down he resorts to trying to hide behind flatulence.
Throughout history some men have stood up even when they knew to do so was suicide. In spite of their politics which may not be to my liking, one has to admire them. Stephen Biko is one - Jose Rizal another. The list is not long and many of them were vilified on racial grounds of inferiority.
Fearing God renders all else less fearful.
You were more amusing when you were calling me 'dickhead', actually.
If it is off the table then science is not a search for the truth. A search for the truth does not allow for any possible explanation to be removed from discussion. The problem is that natural science has no explanation for the existence of nature. But since you have ruled out the supernatural from scientific study, you have no scientific way of determining how the natural came into existence.
The fact is that the presence of the natural presupposes the supernatural.
Exactly. What you describe is precisely what I was taught.
Remember them waxing eloquent about that "protein stew" and the lightening bolt?
I'm thinking of my recipe for "Stormy Day Bean Soup with Ham."
Lots of protein :>)
See #403
It's a very strange disconnect that enables people to claim belief in the God of the Bible, but at the same time reject His direct authority over them by rejecting His Words. It's self deceit.
The mythical rights of women or men are also meaningless.
The very concept of rights is also founded in religion and morality. Since the enlightened person is freed from any primitive superstitions about some ‘God’ they are free from having to worry about rights. Only raw power counts, and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful.
What 'ape-like creature'?
If you are doubting transitionals you are misinformed. There are many fossils that appear to be an organism between a chimpy thing and Homo sapiens. Each of them is the 'missing link' and collectively they are the missing link. The link is only missing for creationists. Funny they can't agree on which one is just an ape and which one is just a human. If they can't figure it out then they must really be kind of both ape and man.
Yup, and when they were done with the experiment they would serve up the soup in the cafeteria along with creamed corn and warm milk.
I think we are dating ourselves here x.
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