Tom Bethell: Denigration of the human race has become fashionable, constant and, in the academy, almost obligatory.
| March 3, 2012 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, News |
In “Why humans are unique” (Washington Times, February 28, 2012), Tom Bethell reflects,
… denigration of the human race has become fashionable, constant and, in the academy, almost obligatory. Sagan derided “our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe.” Evolution theorist Stephen Jay Gould made similar comments.
It’s as though we go around sounding like Mohammed Ali: “We’re the greatest!” But who say such things? Sagan and Gould never identified them. In most cases, I think, the real target is not human boasting but faith in God. Often, the complaints are made by those who have lost their own faith. What really upsets the Darwinians is not that we think we are so great, but that we still think God is greater.
You wonder why all these academics do not seek their salaries from bonobos instead, out of pure principle.
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8 Responses to Tom Bethell: Denigration of the human race has become fashionable, constant and, in the academy, almost obligatory.
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The denigration of humanity that Tom Bethell notes is a philosophical extension of the Copernican mediocrity principle.
The Earth is not “special” because, as everyone knows, special things are At The Center. If the Earth was special then it would be at the center of the solar system and the solar system would be at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which would be the center of the universe. Wait. According to the big bang theory, everything is at the center, but that doesn’t count.
Also, humans are also not “special” because humans have bodies just as animals do. Also animals have intelligence. So, nothing special there.
The point of all this is related to the Carl Sagan argument that I read somewhere:
1. Viewed from way far away, the earth looks like a pale blue dot.
2. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.
You see, Carl Sagan also discovered that being At The Center was not the only quality of being “special”. This involved numbers with lots of zeros. To be special you need to be Really Large or Very Rare. Our sun is not Really Large or rare at all.
None of this is Science in my opinion.
Although the Copernican mediocrity principle has been overturned by advances in physics:
Another very strong indication that humans are uniquely set apart from animals, even ‘special, indeed an indication that we are ‘made in the image of God’, is that man can uniquely generate functional information:
As well, although Tattersall and Schwartz, the authors of the fairly recent ‘Evolution of the Genus Homo’ paper, appear to be thoroughly mystified by the fossil record, they never seem to give up their blind faith in evolution despite the disparity they see first hand in the fossil record. In spite of their philosophical bias, I have to hand it to them for being fairly honest with the evidence though. I especially like how the authors draw out this following ‘what it means to be human’ distinction in their paper:
The authors of the ‘Evolution of the Genus Homo’ paper, Tattersall and Schwartz, try to find some evolutionary/materialistic reason for the extremely unique ‘information capacity’ of humans, but of course they never find a coherent reason. Indeed why should we ever consider a process, which is utterly incapable of ever generating any complex functional information at even the most foundational levels of molecular biology, to suddenly, magically, have the ability to generate our brain which can readily understand and generate functional information? A brain which has been repeatedly referred to as ‘the Most Complex Structure in the Universe’? The authors never seem to consider the ‘spiritual angle’ for why we would have such a unique capacity for such abundant information processing. i.e. They never seem to consider the reason why we have such a unique ability to process information may be that we were indeed created to have a unique relationship with God:
And indeed ‘information’ is found to be the foundation of the universe:
Moreover, besides man having a unique capacity to understand functional information, and the ‘spooky’ correlation that the foundational level of the universe is found to in fact be information, there is the spooky correlation of ‘consciousness’ preceding quantum wave collapse:
Moreover, the argument for God from consciousness can be framed like this:
Further notes:
At the 11:50 minute mark of this following video world 21 year old Chess champion Magnus Carlsen explains that he does not know how he knows his next move of Chess instantaneously, that ‘it just comes natural’ to him.
The boy in this following video rivals, or surpasses, Nikola Tesla as an example of innovative ideas coming fully formed to the mind without any need for trial and error:
Then, of course, Sir Isaac Newton stated this:
bornagain77,
I am afraid this dogmatic and almost pathological self-hate is impervious to evidence.
What is interesting is that derision of human nature (and all those who think humans are inimitable) is done in the name of reason and/or science which are uniquely part of human condition. Go figure!
MercyMe – Beautiful – music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh7-RSPuAA
Academics might feel this way, but there really are profound gulfs between animals and humans.
“The prefrontal cortex . . . is most involved with elaboration of thought, intelligence, motivation, and personality. It associates experiences necessary for the production of abstract ideas, judgment, persistence, planning, concern for others, and conscience. . . . It is the elaboration of this region that sets human beings apart from other animals.” (Marieb’s Human Anatomy and Physiology)
We certainly see evidence of this distinction in what humans have accomplished in fields such as mathematics, philosophy, and justice, which primarily involve the prefrontal cortex.
Why do humans have a large, flexible prefrontal cortex, which contributes to higher mental functions, whereas in animals this area is rudimentary or nonexistent? The contrast is so great that biologists who claim that we evolved speak of the “mysterious explosion in brain size.”
Professor of Biology Richard F. Thompson, noting the extraordinary expansion of our cerebral cortex, admits: “As yet we have no very clear understanding of why this happened.” Could the reason lie in man’s having been created with this peerless brain capacity?
Other parts of the brain also contribute to our uniqueness. Behind our prefrontal cortex is a strip stretching across the head—the motor cortex. It contains billions of neurons that connect with our muscles. It too has features that contribute to our being far different from apes or other animals. The primary motor cortex gives us “(1) an exceptional capability to use the hand, the fingers, and the thumb to perform highly dexterous manual tasks, and (2) use of the mouth, lips, tongue, and facial muscles to talk.”—Guyton’s Textbook of Medical Physiology.
Chimpanzees have been taught some limited sign language, but their use of it is essentially limited to simple requests for food or other basics. Having worked to teach chimps simple nonverbal communication, Dr. David Premack concluded: “Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory because it is vastly more powerful than one can account for.”
We might ponder: ‘Why do humans have this marvelous skill to communicate thoughts and feelings, to inquire and to respond?’ The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics states that “[human] speech is special” and admits that “the search for precursors in animal communication does not help much in bridging the enormous gap that separates language and speech from nonhuman behaviors.”
Professor Ludwig Koehler summarized the difference: “Human speech is a secret; it is a divine gift, a miracle.”
Sir John Eccles referred to what most of us have also observed, an ability “exhibited even by 3-year-old children with their torrent of questions in their desire to understand their world.” He added: “By contrast, apes do not ask questions.” Yes, only humans form questions, including questions about the meaning of life.
“At the 11:50 minute mark of this following video world 21 year old Chess champion Magnus Carlsen explains that he does not know how he knows his next move of Chess instantaneously, that ‘it just comes natural’ to him.”
I believe such knowledge is directly infused by the Holy Spirit, who also coordinates the strands of our intelligence, insofar as we will allow him to do so.
It’s not difficult to see God teaching risibly intellectually-pretentious atheists, via the less intellectually able ‘savants’, the folly of imagining themselves to be the ultimate super-rational, intellectual hot-shots. Man has zero to boast of before God; least of all his worldly intelligence.
Premonitions, telepathy, etc would seem to be other forms of infused knowledge.
Barb,
What drives me crazy is the imaginative storytelling that pervades Darwinian explanations. Prominent in these stories is the “musta” element. For example, there “musta” been extinct and undiscovered intermediate steps in human evolution that made language / mathematical aptitude / reasoning ability / etc. to have provided incremental reproductive advantages. This has been called the “Darwin of the Gaps” method.
Conversely, the lack of change in “living fossils” is explained as their environment “musta’ been isolated and remained virtually unchanged for millions of years. Yep, no question. It musta. This might be called “the Grace of Darwin” method.
It reminds me of Paul Bunyan’s Goofus birds that fly backwards. “It doesn’t give a darn where it’s going, it only wants to know where it’s been.” Likewise, Goofus Darwinius is terrible at predicting anything, only at explaining how what has already been found fits perfectly into the theory of evolution, which is also modified if needed.