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.
One must look at the habitat. Then introduced species appear, often courtesy of our species (like rats or cats), and the habitat changes, or climate changes, and yes, sometimes the skill lost, sometimes becomes the skill needed.
Well, then simply don't tell them ;-)
Sorry but the validity of a syllogism does not rely solely on correct form. If the either of the premises are incorrect, a correctly formed syllogism does nothing but guarantee an incorrect conclusion.
Your premise is incorrect.
"Objectivists don't know how to use it.
'It' being what?
I have stayed out of the ensuing fray. Science is more my thing.
"The limits are unknowable while setting upper and lower limits necessarily limits what can be known."
Unobservable, untestable claims do not advance knowledge. That will always be the case.
No it isn't. The lcd is the search for knowledge. Junk scientists, social scientists and the natural scientists all use different methods so your statement can not be true.
I'm stiil trying to get around him making one (1) propostional statement, then saying "Examine my statement for logic"
Ever seen a penguin fly? Or know of anybody that has?
Wow! Nearly 500 posts and no solution yet? I'll be back tomorrow for the answer.
Very good. I threw you a hanger! :-}
Actually from what I can see, you are the one having trouble with logic.
No, I don't think they're knuckle-draggers either, but we are talking about beliefs people hold because they hold them to be true, not merely useful. The claim is being advanced, more or less, that we, the enlightened, have no need of such illusions, but that it's useful for others to continue to believe in them, despite the fact that we, the enlightened, know those beliefs to be false. I think it's not too hard to see why some might find that claim rather offensive - it's good for you to believe in this lie, as one of the unenlightened, so just go ahead and carry on there, Charlie Church. I mean, the wording may be deliberately provocative, but isn't that what we're talking about, when you get right down to it?
"Ever seen a penguin fly? Or know of anybody that has?"
Is there a point to this question? Nobody has said they do; only that there is excellent evidence their ancestors did.
Awareness of what we are unlikely to learn from research using the scientific method advances knowledge. Awareness of what we don't know advances knowledge. In short awareness of ignorance both in the present, as well as the smaller subset of what will likely remain beyond our understanding, in the sense of being resolved or even addressed with useful effect by the scientific method, advances knowledge. JMO.
The spamming was cool, though.
That's the worst argument made in this thread thus far.
Really? You actually want to argue that we cannot believe in something unless we've actually seen it first hand with our own eyes?
YOURS is the worst and WEAKEST argument.
Yes, but I have to run. I'll get back you on penguins. Adios all.
Come up with an accurate probability calculation of abiogenesis and you might be taken seriously.
Maybe, but it is to some extent semantics. We ALL, if we are other than sociopaths, make a priori leaps of faith about morality. We can and must.
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