Eden and Evolution

The Washington Post ^ | February 5, 2005 | Shankar Vedantam

[CobaltBlue]

Ricky Nguyen and Mariama Lowe never really believed in evolution to begin with. But as they took their seats in Room CC-121 at Northern Virginia Community College on November 2, they fully expected to hear what students usually hear in any Biology 101 class: that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was true.

As professor Caroline Crocker took the lectern, Nguyen sat in the back of the class of 60 students, Lowe in the front. Crocker, who wore a light brown sweater and slacks, flashed a slide showing a cartoon of a cheerful monkey eating a banana. An arrow led from the monkey to a photograph of an exceptionally unattractive man sitting in his underwear on a couch. Above the arrow was a question mark.

Crocker was about to establish a small beachhead for an insurgency that ultimately aims to topple Darwin's view that humans and apes are distant cousins. The lecture she was to deliver had caused her to lose a job at a previous university, she told me earlier, and she was taking a risk by delivering it again. As a nontenured professor, she had little institutional protection. But this highly trained biologist wanted students to know what she herself deeply believed: that the scientific establishment was perpetrating fraud, hunting down critics of evolution to ruin them and disguising an atheistic view of life in the garb of science.

[potlatch]

I'm glad it worked out just right and you liked it Calpernia. Devolve made it and he did a good job. He is a nice guy and gave me credit because I did a Google search for a 'barcode'!!

[Shalom Israel]

Even the modern eugenics movement predated fascism by decades...

You're confused. Eugenics predates Mussolini's fascisti, yes. However, it hardly predates totalitarian government in which property was permitted to reside in the hands of the citizens, but subject to the absolute control of the dictator. Most governments throughout history have been essentially fascistic.

You might have realized you were selecting the wrong definition of "fascist", had you considered that eugenics was popular in countires other than Italy and Germany--though in those countries, it was once government policy.

Feudalism, for example, is closely related to fascism. Britain emerged from that blight gradually, and evolved a common law which ultimately gave birth to the US legal tradition. However, the aristocracy was still rife with feudalistic elements as recently as the turn of the 20th century, and remnants of it persist to this day.

I mention England particularly, because modern eugenics was invented by Sir Francis Galton in 1865, and he explicitly based his ideas on those of his cousin, Charles Darwin. In other words, a fascistic individual pondered Darwin's theory, and literally invented eugenics.

When you recover from the shock of the previous paragraph... but no, take your time. Reread it once or twice. A real person: Sir Francis Galton. A particular date: 1865. A direct link with Darwin: his cousin, who specifically credited Darwin with inspiring his own ideas.

So when you've recovered from that incredible shock, you should have a sudden epiphany: you'll finally know what I meant when I said I was stating a historical fact. Sheesh.

LOL. That's precious. Really. What are you, twelve years old?

If I were, your humiliation would be total. As it is, I'm middle-aged and have a PhD, so you don't have to be utterly humiliated at your ignorance of history. You should still be pretty embarrassed, though.

[Shalom Israel]

Can we agree that both natural selection and Christianity have been misused by evil people to justify their policies?

I believe I said that more than once.

[potlatch]

LOL, forget all your care and woes, your first try was a success!!

[Ken H]

(n) eugenics: the study of methods of improving genetic qualities by selective breeding (especially as applied to human mating) --wordnet

The practice of selective breeding, as well as the practice of both genocide and tyranny, preceded Darwin by thousands of years.

_____________________________________

I mention England particularly, because modern eugenics was invented by Sir Francis Galton in 1865, and he explicitly based his ideas on those of his cousin, Charles Darwin. In other words, a fascistic individual pondered Darwin's theory, and literally invented eugenics.

Just like a fascistic person (A. Hitler) pondered the New Testament and developed his attitude toward Jews?

A direct link with Darwin: his cousin, who specifically credited Darwin with inspiring his own ideas.

Then you would also have to say there is a direct link between Christianity and Nazi policies toward Jews. Hitler specifically credited Christianity with inspiring his antisemitism. (see post #20 on this thread)

Are not both of the above attempts at linkage an exercise in sophistry?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Eugenics was de rigeur in Sparta. (Greece, not Mississippi.)

Sparta seems to have been an even more evil society than Rome (however, Thebes finally stood up to Sparta.)

[PatrickHenry]

Greek warrior Spartan civilization. Weakling infants were left in the mountains to die.
The Republic, Book 5, Section 1. Plato recommended state-supervised selective breeding of children.
History of Australia. Before Darwin, England exiled criminals to purify the race.

[Shalom Israel]

Are not both of the above attempts at linkage an exercise in sophistry?

Look up sophistry. It means plausible but incorrect logic. I stated a fact of history. Facts cannot be sophistical.

[Shalom Israel]

Are not both of the above attempts at linkage an exercise in sophistry?

Look up sophistry. It means plausible but incorrect logic. I stated a fact of history. Facts cannot be sophistical.

[Ken H]

When someone says that there is a link between evolution and eugenics, but refuses to acknowledge a similar link between Hitler and Christianity, they are not being intellectually honest.

It means plausible but incorrect logic. I stated a fact of history. Facts cannot be sophistical.

So do you acknowledge the fact that a link exists between Hitler's crimes and Christianity?

[illinoissmith]

"'The combination of fascism plus fear of evolution leads to the idea that deadly government intervention is necessary and justified for stopping evolution.'

That's a bit of a non-sequitur: if you don't believe in evolution, then you don't believe there's a need to stop it."

You misunderstand, and I apologize for not being clearer. I'm not talking about people who disbelieve that evolution accounts for the material origins of life. I'm talking specifically about people who believe evolution accounts for the origins of biological life and for mankind, but who believe that evolution itself is evil. See my previous posts on this thread about Dawkins. Also see Dawkins comments in the article. Also search for his various interviews over the past 16 years or so. Also check out _The Extended Phenotype_. Also see Peter Singer's writing on ethics. There are people who believe in evolution, believe it is evil because of the way in which, in their beliefs, it is related to pain. They aim to use government to stop it. That will get very ugly if it is allowed to happen.

"I've already mentioned what happens when a fascist discovers christianity: he decides that heretics should be burned for their own good. That would probably include evolutionists, but they'd have to get in line with the wiccans, queers, low-church Anglicans..."

Philosopher-king systems, fascist or socialist or whatnot, will always tend to do this. The problem is having all the power of a society (especially a modern, technological society) in the hands of a few. With that structure, there is no safety mechanism against a handful of people getting into the top positions and killing millions, or enslaving millions, or literally destroying life on earth, or any number of other extremely evil things.

"'It is crazy to think that in an industrialized modern society, with all the wealth that creates, that you gain much anything by killing weak people instead of letting their relatives provide them with basic food, clothing, and shelter.'

I think even arguing that point means you're playing by the madman's rules. Feeding your sick parents isn't about whether it's cheaper to whack 'em--sometimes, it is. You feed them anyway."

Yes of course, but that wasn't my point. Your comment here is the non-sequitur.

First, my point (as should have been clear from context) was that if you are talking about people designing social systems, and they claim to be designing them with goal X, and instead they are pushing for things with no serious relation to goal X, suspect that they are actually working toward some other goal, goal Y. (In my previous post, the X is "evolution" and Y eventually proposed as being "power to kill those they envy".)

Second, yes of course you feed your sick parents, and yes of course that is good in essentially all circumstances (what if there is famine and you must chose between feeding your one sick parent and your hungry child?), but I think it is worthwhile to investigate why this is. I do not, unlike C.S. Lewis and other Christian thinkers, believe that by thinking about the source of the fact beyond "God says so" I am opening the door to evil. Of course being reckless and attempting to change things in this area is going to leave to evil. Trying to understand it is not the same, much as it might help bolster your belief system if it were the same.

My suspicion is that it has to do with game theory and social relationships (look up the work of John Maynard Smith, the work of E.O. Wilson, especially _Sociobiology_, and look up "evolutionary psychology"), but "vertically" through time, and in a context of cooperation for individuals' interests rather than for genetic interest. This may or may not be correct. At any rate, we know that, excepting extremely unusual circumstances (really - what do you do if there is a famine, and you get your hands on just enough food to ensure that either your kids or your parents, but not both, survive the famine? I'm not saying this because I'm interested in starving parents, I'm saying it because I don't think that anyone would apply your rule as absolute in all circumstances), it is of course good to feed your sick parents (leaving aside the admonishing of certain personages that parents are to be left in order to enable oneself to live carefree and untethered as a sparrow). To imply that thinking about the "why" of this is going to lead to people starving their sick parents (as you seem to do, and as other Christian thinkers I am aware of do) is really just going to lead, instead, to those who are a tiny bit more intellectually honest and investigative--the people who bother to put out arguments on these issues beyond "God says so," (like, really, many leftists in many philosophy departments)--convincing more educated people of their position than yours, and thus setting the ideological course of the society, for better or worse for the human beings in it.

You might be happy with that. I'm not; I don't think building walls in one's mind out of fear ever leads to much good in the long term, for oneself personally or for the world around oneself and the other people in it. As far as the matter of God's will, insofar as that is a concern, I am a deist, and I expect it to work in terms of discernible law, not in terms of mystical fiat. That seems to be how he has authored the rest of the world, so I will, until I see evidence to the contrary, assume it is probably how he authored the goodness of feeding one's sick parents.

[dread78645]

"Eugenic Marxist Luddites love Emerald Nuts" placemark

[illinoissmith]

"That's true at a high level, but deep down we're all wired for socialism because, in small tribal units, it confers a survival advantage."

Thus things like, say, fervency over high school football.

And yet, there is also a survival advantage to catching on quickly (through conscious observation and rational thought) to vitally important change. So the tendency you talk about is, perhaps in some people more than others, tempered significantly by another force - one that pushes toward belief and action and emotional investment based on observation and calculation, rather than based on gut tribal instincts.

"We haven't evolved the right instincts for social structures larger than a dozen or so. That's why even freepers, in a pinch, usually turn out to be statists."

Yes, but we have evolved conscious thought and reasoning ability.

There is a method of preventing that default setting from arising, it involves knowledge of that setting, of the problems with that setting, and of the particular reasons for a particular alternative perspective. That method is education.

Sadly, education has been socialized in the West, and what passes for it is largely dysfunctional for this purpose. If anything, what passes for it actually ends up reinforcing the "default" setting.

[illinoissmith]

I'm sorry, I wasn't taking full account of the context of this reply when I replied to it.

In context, I was thinking more about the higher-level proponents of socialism. I did not say this, or make this at all clear, in my original post, and I apologize for that as well.

Basically, I split it as follows. The higher level proponents of socialism--the academics and apologists and power-brokers of various sorts--are doing it for jealousy. They would be able to see socialism for what it is quite clearly, they are usually easily smart enough to do so, but a psychology dominated by the emotion envy interferes.

The lower level proponents of socialism are usually, but not always, people who are intellectually capable of seeing it for what it, is without very much effort, if thinking clearly. What tends to fog the perception of these people tends to be exactly the instinctual tribal emotions you mention. There really are people who want to institute socialism to help their neighbors. I'm not trying to say such people are bad people, but I do mean to say that they often end up supporting things they wouldn't support if they really understood the consequences.

This is an oversimplification of course, and there isn't necessarily anything preventing crossover between the two groups. But this is basically how I understand it to be.

[illinoissmith]

"If we can't assume that humans are distinct from animals in the abortion debate, should we assume they are distinct in any legal or moral sense, and what are the implications of riding that slippery slope?"

The implications of ever riding that slippery slope are lots of deaths of lots of innocent people that government officials and the intellectuals behind them dislike or find inconvenient for one numbskull reason or another.

The implications of failing to find the solid intellectual barriers separating the level ground from the slope are as follows:

First, that mystics of various stripes will continue to use the supposed absence of such a barrier as evidence that mysticism must, necessarily, be the cornerstone of moral judgments.

Second, that careless folks, or folks with a nefarious agenda of some sort, will continue developing and advocating philosophies which advocate running fast and furious toward that slope.

[Shalom Israel]

When someone says that there is a link between evolution and eugenics, but refuses to acknowledge a similar link between Hitler and Christianity, they are not being intellectually honest.

I never said such a link existed. For some reason you seem unable to discern what I did or didn't say. That usually suggests you're in the grip of a strong emotional reaction that prevents you thinking clearly.

[Shalom Israel]

Thanks for the clarification. On one point:

First, my point (as should have been clear from context) was that if you are talking about people designing social systems, and they claim to be designing them with goal X, and instead they are pushing for things with no serious relation to goal X, suspect that they are actually working toward some other goal, goal Y. (In my previous post, the X is "evolution" and Y eventually proposed as being "power to kill those they envy".)

...I would once again dodge the entire question by pointing out that "designing social systems" is essentially an authoritarian exercise, and anyone who tries to do it is already the enemy--his precise goals are irrelevant.

[Shalom Israel]

Yes, but we have evolved conscious thought and reasoning ability.

I often seriously doubt that. But I specifically cited "instincts" rather than "intellect", because in case of a tie, instincts usually win. And all you need is, say a nice big hurricane, and even libertarian-leaning freepers are suddenly squealing for the tribal elders to take care of us.

Sadly, education has been socialized in the West, and what passes for it is largely dysfunctional for this purpose.

I despise western primary and secondary education as much as the next guy--we homeschool. But show me the country where education has allowed a majority to overcome their socialistic impulses. Galt's Gulch doesn't exist.

[WildHorseCrash]

You might have realized you were selecting the wrong definition of "fascist",

LOL!!! I see your vocabulary skills are on par with your knowledge of history. Let me guess, you and your friends in the sixth grade make up your own meaning for grown-up words like "fascist" and pretend that everyone who understands what it actually means isn't as cool as your friends in band camp.

I especially like the part about feudalism being a form of fascism. That must kill your classmates during recess.

When you grow up, you may come across a piece written by George Orwell. (He wrote "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Animal Farm," among other works. You'll probably be assigned one or both of them in the eight or ninth grade in English class.) But I'll summarize the piece for you: "the word 'fascism' doesn't mean 'something I don't like.'"

I mention England particularly, because modern eugenics was invented by Sir Francis Galton in 1865, and he explicitly based his ideas on those of his cousin, Charles Darwin. In other words, a fascistic individual pondered Darwin's theory, and literally invented eugenics.

LOL... Yeah, Francis Galton was a "fascistic individual." I guess today, using your magic decoder ring, "fascistic individual" means "Victorian gentleman." LOL!! I can't wait to see what you decide it means tomorrow.

A real person: Sir Francis Galton. A particular date: 1865. A direct link with Darwin: his cousin, who specifically credited Darwin with inspiring his own ideas.

LOL... It's amazing that you can cut and paste facts from the Internet without displaying any indication of actually understanding them. Galton was not contemplating natural selection when formulating his ideas about eugenics; he was contemplating artificial selection. That's what eugenics is. That's why forms of eugenics could predate the formulation of the theory of natural selection by centuries.

Darwin's work may have been a catalyst in Galton's case (or, more likely, may have been used by Galton to give his ancient ideas a modern, scientific cast), but they were a catalyst for him contemplating the application of artificial selection to human beings. If Galton "credited" Darwin, he simply didn't understand Darwin's work, anymore than you understand what the word "fascist" means.

(For your original statement to make sense, you'd have to correct its errors. It would then read, "But eugenics is explicitly what you get when a fascist eugenicist ponders natural artificial selection...")

As it is, I'm middle-aged and have a PhD,

LOL... Where did you get this supposed Ph.D? Clown College? LOL... Let me guess, it from McDonald's Hamburger University. I'll bet you're a doctor of Condiment Studies....