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PR paramedic team has arrived: It turns out that Darwinian evolution is really about suffering and sacrifice …

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Not ethics is an illusion, as Darwinists say.

In the Gifford Lecture Series 2012 (lectures on natural theology), Sarah Coakley tries to convince us that Darwinism isn’t really about survival of the fittest, like Darwin thought:

In this series, Professor Sarah Coakley explores the implications of recent developments in the mathematical study of “evolutionary dynamics” for ethics, metaphysics, the philosophy of science and theology. Arguing that the last decades of the twentieth century saw a notable failure of nerve in universal accounts of religious rationality, and a simultaneous obsession with the “selfishness” of evolutionary phenomena, Coakley seeks to clarify afresh the importance of the countervailing sacrificial dimensions of evolutionary processes for central issues in the philosophy of science and ethics. Thereby she moves to suggest a transformed way forward in the task of “natural theology”.

Presumably because, as more people, like Ben Carson, become aware that Darwinists indeed really believe that ethics is an illusion, a public relations blitz is needed to convince us all that Darwinian evolution has encoded ethics in our genes ….

For whatever reason, the public does not tend to believe that.

Comments
The OP topped and tailed the comment on Sarah Coakley's lectures with two links labelled "ethics is an illusion" and pointing to a post on Uncommon Descent. Before I descend into a wilderness of mirrors, can I ask if this tagline ("ethics is an illusion") comes from any other reference than the Ruse and Wilson contribution to "Religion & the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement"? The reason I ask is that the extended Ruse and Wilson quote includes the following: "Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will… In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding… Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place." Note the two constraints on their comments about illusion in relation to ethics and morality: "more strictly our belief in morality" and "is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us". Ruse and Wilson are commenting on how we construct our beliefs about morality and ethics, not on the truth value of those ethics and morals.timothya
August 5, 2012
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"Presumably because, as more people, like Ben Carson, become aware that Darwinists indeed really believe that ethics is an illusion, a public relations blitz is needed to convince us all that Darwinian evolution has encoded ethics in our genes …. For whatever reason, the public does not tend to believe that." Right! And Darwinists are only fooling themselves if they think people will ever go for that ridiculous notion. It doesn't take a scientist to know this is not true. We all intuitively know that good and evil are real and not evolutionarily derived meaningless figments of our imagination.tjguy
August 5, 2012
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