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.
rofl
Goodnight, and God bless.
She's in the kitchen.
So can overgeneralization, though - it's the answer to the question of why there are no bears in Africa. There used to be, though, several million years ago. But bears are generalists, jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. They don't hunt as efficiently as lions and crocodiles, and they don't forage as efficiently as zebras and giraffes. So they got pushed out by the specialists.
By the same token, it's difficult to envision a body plan that would allow a bird to both fly as well as an albatross and swim as well as a penguin. More likely, such a bird would be sort of mediocre at both. Or pretty good at one, and not really good at all at the other. Given the right environment - bears in Alaska - being sort of mediocre at both might be enough to constitute a winning hand. Given the wrong environment - bears in Africa - it might be a total loser.
Don't bail.
Let's open another thread and start an SBR pool
That's the worst argument made in this thread thus far.
"I just don't find it or the so called evidence for it believable."
Nor will you accept such evidence, no matter how overwhelming, which is why you need to accept the fact that you are unwilling to believe in evolution, and leave the discussion.
No one is forcing you to believe in evolution; believe what you believe, and leave others to do the same.
That's the spirit. Freed from central control of all kinds, man can, and does, prosper: economically, emotionally, intellectually, and politically. Freeminds and free markets forever; death unto tyranny in all its centralized forms!
And exactly how can you, by empirical scientific means, prove an absence of purpose? The existence of purpose or non-existence of purpose is an a priori assertion, a belief. Especially if the purposiveness were an immensely complex phenomenon that, until enough data could be assembled and analyzed as to prove its existence, might seem to be absent.
Just what sort of empirical measurements and experiments do you design to prove the absence of purpose? What is purpose, anyway? Seems to me to be a rather philosophical concept. Before we can decide on its presence or absence, we might actually have to have some philosophical discussion of its meaning. I'm sure you had a meaning in mind, but is that meaning scientifically provable or is it also part of the philosophical assumptions you bring to bear on the subject.
The irrational brigade has managed to toss your excellent thread into the smokey backroom. Never fear. The intellectual value of this thread will persist. I shall henceforth vigorously point out the intellectual connections between Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, and the Founding Fathers. If the creationists squeal, it's because their totalitarian worldview is exposed for all to see.
OK, OK, but no kissing.
Okay, I'll toss in Aristotle.
So says this near atheist.
It's all a guess. They don't know crap
The problem with those calculations is not so much the number or frequency of mutations but the restriction of the target sequence to only one possible functional protein out of many hundreds of thousands. If the question gets extended to abiogensis, as happens frequently, other factors that affect the probability calculation are ignored, including the tendency of some molecules to spontaneously combine.
Tha's the new definition after scientists decided to change it and set limits.
Science used to be defined as the search for knowledge.
Save that idea, though; we could run pools on all kinds of threads. :^)
This was a case of a little friendly fire; it's all been cleared up (freepmail). We are all on the same side here. :)
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.