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.
Q.E.D. Where is the evidence of the energy? Does the needed higher temperature remain low enough to allow a double helix, or does the required temperature result in the molton world shown in your pictures? The "random" in random selection is defined as haphazard or without definite method or purpose. Spontaneous is defined as acting without compulsion, constraint or premeditation. I stand by my statement.
Wow! I didn't know anyone was still following this thread...
That's not really how natural selection works - initial changes & mutations are random, but the mechanism of natural selection forces the propagation of only traits that are favorable to continued reproduction - this is a very definite method/purpose and not haphazard at all.
Of course there are still many open questions about the thermal conditions necessary for the chemical evolution of life (particularly earliest life), but just because we can't identify all these parameters, doesn't mean we don't have other evidence in support of evolution. (I don't know the temperature & thermodynamic conditions on the night OJ killed Nicole, I infer that it happened from other circumstances.)
My point is that thermodynamics does not prove evolution impossible (or even unlikely, for that matter - order from disorder in thermodynamic subsystems is oberved all the time). We just simply don't know (and for the moment, can't know) the thermal boundary conditions specific to isolated biological systems millions or billions of years ago and have to search along other lines of inquiry for evidence. Thermodynamics just doesn't help much, either in a positive or negative way here.
I remember seeing a graph that order from disorder occurred at above .3 the speed of light and with micro processes. These are all macro processes moving slowly. When I see pictures of this subject debated there are two people at podiums and no chalk board for derivations or measurements. The debate over Evolution seems limited to observations, and to assumptions about what they mean. The best science includes observations, measurements, and derivations. At the other end, one criticism of String Theory as a theory of everything is that it can only be described mathematically. There are many unconvinced theoretical physicists who say proponents are moving into the area of philosophy. If evidence for Evolution is at the other end of the spectrum, then I think it should be subject to the same sort of criticism. How much of its utility is scientific and how much is philosophical?
I was gone for a couple weeks driving across country with my son and am still catching up.
Or: People's brains are wired to respond to and create order because an orderly world is easier to control and thrive in, and our ancestors who weren't able to create order very well tended not to thrive.
"King David (try reading the Psalms)"
Wasn't he the guy who saw his neighbor's wife bathing on the roof and had her husband sent to the war front so he could nail her?
BTW, which post of mine *were* you responding to, there? (Long thread)...
Cheers!
"BTW, which post of mine *were* you responding to, there? (Long thread)..."
That was responding to 1253. You know you can see which thread it is responding to on the bottom? You can also click it an be taken back to that thread.
I like the names in the bible. "Uriah the Hittite:. lol I guess I would be something like "SaveUS the FReepite".
Poor choice of words on your part, I knew which thread it was responding to, but not the post *within* the thread.
There is a "View Replies" button which I haven't tried. I don't know if that button only goes "downstream" though.
Cheers!
Even from *that* point of view (adulterer/murderer) David provides something of a counterexample to the earlier claim--when he "took a Bath" (bad pun) he certainly wasn't being motivated by any craven fear of afterlife-type consequences.
But of course the whole issue hinges on whether the "afterlife" stuff is true. If it is, of course it is reasonable to take it into account when considering current actions; but if there is no afterlife, then the short-term good for our fellow-man right now would take more weight than concern for one's soul.
Cheers!
Just did the whole empirical thing. According to my momentous experiment on the leaning tower of FReeper, the button DOES only go "downstream".
Cheers!
Check out Genesis. What kind of name is "Arphaxad" anyway?
"Check out Genesis. What kind of name is "Arphaxad" anyway?"
Maybe that means something like, "Man who condensed God's word so it could be carved on a rock." lol
Yep. I've always said, even even none of it were true, and Jesus were just a regular guy, it still isn't a bad way to live one's life. As long as we understand that science uses facts to makes presumptions, and that is totally a separate thing from faith. That way, we don't drive our neighbor nutty with the scripture screaming. Makes it easier to have a peaceful dialog and debate too!
"even even none of it were true,"
Dang, I've got to proofread.
A little bit of an overstatement. Science does more rigorous checking than other things--but on the other hand, with historical figures, you're always going to be more limited in what you can check.
On an offbeat note, try reading J.R.R. Tolkein's essays Tree and Leaf and On Fairy Stories...
Cheers!
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