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.
Indeed. Angels may exist and if they do, they may even be capable of dancing on the head of a pin but how are we to know? And how do we determine their number or if they are only dancing clockwise or counterclockwise?
Ah, so many questions...
I said, "science REQUIRES the scientific method". It's that simple. Junk science is not science. Social and natural science, REQUIRE THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.
"And all the intelligences regularly get together and agree on what to do to improve the world economy."
Ever heard of a run on the banks? Were you alive during the 2000 tech meltdown? Ever seen the price of gold rise in response to uncertainty?
"Bill buys a car, June buys a mink, Ted sells his radio...."
And they all watch CNN!
The argument is absurd.
"The placement of the economy is irrelevant. "
Not if your watching rocks in the Gobi desert waiting for them to form an economy!!!
You know nothing about me.
I was a dedicated evolutionist for years.
It was my conversion to Christianity and belief in the Bible, God's Word that opened my eyes.
I have NEVER believed evolution since.
As I said, a rather curious assertion for a professed atheist to make, unless we're into True Confessions® time here.
Well put. This is also what Jacob Sullum addressed in his column Thy Neighbor’s Faith, especially in the last few paragraphs:
So what does it mean when a Jewish politician tells Christian voters that "we" need to reaffirm "our" faith? The message, apparently, is that any faith will do, provided it keeps people out of trouble.But anyone who values religion because it promotes morality must value morality on nonreligious grounds. Hence this argument does not tell us why we should be religious. It tells us why other people should.
It can absent a priori leaps of faith about values. Most atheists who don't think there is a higher power make such leaps, and are thus not sociopaths, at least not in my experience. My totally atheist dad was about the most moral man I had the pleasure of knowing. I still miss his wisdom and guidance, and glowing "spirit." He had a gift.
Some creationists here aren't liars. Some, like Rightwing Conspiratr1, is really so utterly out of touch with reality to believe the lies he spews about us. He really thinks that everyone here who accepts evolution is, without exception, a racist, Jew-hating atheist. It's sad and pathetic that he holds such delusions, but being so stupid and insane is his right.
However he may be proof for a missing link.
The root of the word liberal is liber: Latin for "free". So it was, so ever it shall be.
Liberal Republic: You know it makes sense.
Strauss, and to a certain extent, Gertrude Himmelfarb, came rather close to saying pretty much just that. I'm reminded of Lady Ashley, who, upon being told of the theory of evolution, answered "Let us hope that it is false." Upon being told that it was likely true, she responded "Let us hope that it does not become widely known." ;)
You are the one arguing that you haven't seen something, thus it must not exist, not me.
It's hard to believe that such a stupid person could even exist, let alone use a computer like a normal human.
But then again, we have all seen his posts.
It closed them, not opened them.
There is no "scientific method" for choosing one theory above another. No one has laid down laws to empirically determine which shaping principle, or even which theory must, or ought be, chosen above another. The same data can easily support more than one theory. Certain folks like Judge Jones, however, take it upon themselves to let us all know "empirically" what to think.
I had a professor who was a student and acolyte of Strauss, Leon Cropsey. I found him so mentally challenging, that I had to work hard to get a "B" in his class, very hard. Law school by comparison, was easy downhill skiing on the bunny slope.
If you want to discuss abiogenesis then we can do that. However do not conflate abiogenesis and evolution.
Evolution has much evidence behind it from many sources and many fields of study, abiogenesis as of today has little or no evidence. It has many good hypothesis and many good ideas but little else.
It is, however, far more likely than the poorly constructed arguments against it assert.
I don't think "it can" is being advanced - I think it's rather "it must".
Sometimes going with the flow per inertia, and "parasiting" off the leaps of faithers (as I define it in a not necessarily religious sense), is enough, I guess, so "must" I think is indeed errant. Cheers.
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.