Bass Ackwards Darwinism
| May 6, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
There are people who believe that because Darwin provided a theoretical basis that humans and animals have a common ancestor it becomes a rationale for treating humans more like animals. Thus we get things like Nazi Germany and the holocaust.
I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.
Another equally valid way of looking at it is that common ancestry becomes a rationale for treating animals more like humans. Thus we get things like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
It’s all a matter of how you choose to look at it. It’s really more a reflection on your own soul which way you choose to see it.
Good people do good things. Evil people do evil things. Knowledge (like Darwinian evolution and the recipe for dynamite) is inanimate and can be employed by good people for good things and evil people for evil things.
45 Responses to Bass Ackwards Darwinism
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Not so fast. The point of the argument was to establish the logical necessity of a transendent standard. Are you saying that you accept this? If not, any attempt to find some kind of consensus just comes down to “I like chocolate but you like strawberry” preferences talking past each other.
steveb
“The point of the argument was to establish the logical necessity of a transendent standard. Are you saying that you accept this?”
A logical necessity? Possibly! Where does it come from and how do we know if it’s really transcendent or just stuff we made up?
I will however agree there appears to be a practical necessity for a transcendent moral standand such that if such a thing doesn’t exist we end up inventing them and agreeing for a while that it’s the proverbial final answer.
I applaud DaveScot for talking candidly and openly about a topic that is often assumed amongst fellow IDists – that Darwinism means the end of morality, or that it means that there cannot be absolute morals. Darwinism as a scientific hypothesis doesn’t say anything about these things, and in some cases, darwinists try to uphold their own views of morality with talk of altruism and evolution. Yet, many IDists, borrowing from creationists, espouse the idea that accepting common descent turns the world into a beat-up-on-the-little-guy free-for-all blood-bath.
The implication is that Intelligent Design provides an alternative. How? How does recognizing the design in nature translate into establishing an absolute morality in nature as well? Sure you could talk about implications, such as, well, if this flagellum was made with a purpose (function), then my person was made with a purpose (life calling), which is an equivocation – two different kinds of purposes. Or if the Designer(s) made life on this planet, they must have had control over the moral fabric of space-time?
Life was designed, I’m quuite sure of it. But given that I’m not religious (as is DaveScot), I don’t automatically assume that the Designer(s) are an omnibenevolent deity with us in mind – those are religious and not scientific beliefs. The same goes for statements of the absence of purpose if Darwinism is true, or the presence of purpose if ID is true.
What if we were to discover, say, that the Designers intentionally made us as a reality-TV show (like in South Park) to kill each other for their entertainment? That would be a wicked purpose, and I don’t think anyone here would subscribe to it after finding it to be true. Indeed, there is no evidence one way or the other, going from the design induction, to the existence of an omnibenevolent deity, nor an absolute morality that we would recognize as being moral.
Indeed, I could envision a version of ID that could lead to horrible atrocities – for example, given that selective breeding is a form of human design, what’s to keep people from deciding that others are “less well designed” than others? This assumption that our morality proceeds from whether or not life was designed is absurd.
Michael Behe has come a few steps down the path to realizing this, IMHO. He accepts common ancestry, although considers it to be guided. But more so, he recognizes that many pathogenic organisms on this planet were intentionally designed. Designed to make people suffer or get sick. Can we not find more cases or malicious design in the world?
jp
Perhaps if you’d followed the link I left to the ethic of reciprocity you’d have been led to some of those other books.
Borne
Do no murder
Do not steal
Do not rape
Do not act unjustly
Do no adultery etc.
I don’t believe that religion has a monopoly on these. They are simple, reasonable, logical rules for peaceful coexistence that are not difficult to come up with. Heck, lots of species of birds and mammals follow those rules by instinct alone at least when dealing with others of their own kind.
Religion has a monopoly on stuff like worship no other idols before me, keep the sabbath holy, and stuff like that. Everyone seems to forget about peaceful coexistence when their own version of the sacred cow is gored.
“Is that how God works now? We don’t have the ability to tell right from wrong until we read the proper book and make the proper ritual motions?”
No Dave. You can tell right from wrong, that is a thing called Natural Law, but Natural Law is incompatible with the sort of materialism that is pushed by Darwinists.
“Are you really going to try to compare PETA to Nazis?”
It depends on what you mean.
They are both a bunch of fanatics with an ideological agenda and a profound hatred of anybody that disagrees with them.
Also, PETA has never come out and strongly condemmed the actions of groups like ALF and others.
PETA is full of crazies and their agenda for “animal rights” is dangerous.
[KJ Klone] that Darwinism means the end of morality, or that it means that there cannot be absolute morals. Darwinism as a scientific hypothesis doesn’t say anything about these things
Of course it does. Haven’t you read chapter 5 of Descent of Man? Or some of the countless other expositions about morality written by Darwinians?
[DaveScot] Knowledge (like Darwinian evolution and the recipe for dynamite) is inanimate and can be employed by good people for good things and evil people for evil things.
If Darwinism is a legitimate science, then why does Uncommon Descent exist?
Vladimir
If Darwinism is a legitimate science, then why does Uncommon Descent exist?
Because Darwinism is not a complete theory of evolution just like Newtonian mechanics is not a complete theory of physics.
Jason
So is PETA pretty close to rounding people up and putting them in concentration camps in your
asinineinaneconsidered opinion?Here are the PETA Storm Troopers at the Norfolk Virginia Head Quarters. Pretty scary. Don’t let the smiles fool you.
Here they are ready to destroy this Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. They’re concealing a V2 rocket launcher behind those innocent looking placards. That KFC is going down in flames.
[DaveScott] Because Darwinism is not a complete theory of evolution just like Newtonian mechanics is not a complete theory of physics
That’s an interesting statement. It seems, at least prima face to be incompatible with the mission statement of Uncommon Descent, which speaks of replacing Darwinism, not completing it. Perhaps you can explain how a theory which posits man to be a meat byproduct of natural selection is to be respected as legitimate science? How is this view of Darwinism as legitimate science (comparable to Newtonian mechanics, you say) compatible with the preamble Uncommon Descent holds that…“?
But maybe something odd has happened here during my prolonged absence.
Vladimir
http://www.uncommondescent.com/id-defined/
This is the definition of ID that has been on this site unchanged for at least 2 years. Note the first sentence say design is the best explanation for CERTAIN features.
Maybe you should go pick up a copy of Behe’s new book “The Edge of Evolution” to see the latest thinking in where Darwinian evolution stops and Intelligent Design starts.
[DaveScot] This is the definition of ID that has been on this site unchanged for at least 2 years.
It says “ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory”. According to you, Darwinism is legitimate science. Therefore, if we were to adopt your view, then ID is in “scientific disagreement” with legitimate science. Perhaps you could change that definition of ID, though, to avoid such ridiculous contradictions with your views about Darwinism.
If what you say is true, that Darwinism is a legitimate science analogous to Newtonian mechanics, and that ID seeks to complete Darwinism, then the mission statement of Uncommon Descent is quite misleading. For it speaks ID as an alternative to Darwinism. Perhaps you can ask Mr Dembski to change that, so that it more correctly reflects your point of view. Or maybe I will ask him to do so.
Vladmir, please give me some quotations, because I don’t have that book on hand.
I do know that many darwinists say that evolution supports their versions of morality, including altruism. At the same time, you have people who highlight the “competition” part of evolution to support the idea that, say, capitalism is justified by nature.
So you have two views of the same thing, and I wanted to point out that you can have those same two views of Design. Are you willing to go out on a limb and admit that Design does not automatically mean there is absolute morality? It only means that if you assume the designer was an omnibenevolent deity, but that is religion. ID is science.