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Shut up or else, Darwin explained

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Evolution News and Views

In “Darwinian Philosophy: ‘Darwinian Natural Selection is the Only Process that could Produce the Appearance of Purpose’” (Evolution News & Views, August 17, 2012),
Casey Luskin comments on University of Chicago’s Jerry Fodor discovering that it is not enough to be a materialist atheist – he is expected to be an utterly convinced, no-questions-asked Darwin fanatic. (See “Being a materialist atheist doesn’t help Jerry Fodor when he is up against Darwinism”)

Anyway, Luskin observes,

the true purpose of Rosenberg’s piece is to warn people not to challenge Darwin or they’ll suffer the same castigation as Darwin-critic (and atheist) Jerry Fodor. Rosenberg writes: “When a philosopher advances a purely a priori argument to show that a well-established scientific theory is fatally defective, it is usually safe to assume that the problem is the philosopher’s and not the theory’s.” Translation: If you question Darwin, expect trouble–and the trouble will come from me and other defenders of Darwinism. Given the logic we see being used to defend Darwinian theory, perhaps the philosopher isn’t the problem after all.

And of course, a major part of Rosenberg’s warning is to claim that Fodor’s arguments against Darwinism lead to “damage with harmful consequences for human well being.” And just what is that damage? Well, as Rosenberg puts it, it is lending support for religion (though he can’t bring himself to put it that nicely).

[ … ]

In any case, this tarring and feathering of Fodor is just the latest frustrated attempt by hardline Darwinians to discourage people from using design terminology. It’s a hopeless effort, because try as they might to impose speech codes on each another, they can’t change the fact that nature is infused with purpose, which readily lends itself to, as Rosenberg calls it “teleosemantics.”

It’s a predictable development, really. The Darwinist state has the same hostility to rational argument and evidence as the Marxist state, and for the same reason: it can’t withstand them.

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Comments
AHA. Fighting religion, especially Christianity i think, is a motivation for stifling investigation into evolutionism! if its a plain spoken motivation how much more a secret one? how much more a psychological one beyond the evolutionist awareness? Could explain why dumb ideas persist eh!Robert Byers
August 18, 2012
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If nature is infused with purpose, what is it?
There are many instances of purpose throughout nature, which is to say, nature is infused with purpose. What is your purpose for posting here?Mung
August 18, 2012
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what is the purpose or design of HIV?
To give us another problem to solve- solving problems = gaining knowledgeJoe
August 18, 2012
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If nature is infused with purpose, what is it?
Scientific discovery
If I’m sitting in the mud in a war torn country, will I feel that purpose?
I will.Joe
August 18, 2012
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If nature is infused with purpose, what is it? If I’m sitting in the mud in a war torn country, will I feel that purpose?
Depends on your priors. If we take the evolution as a prior then the purpose of nature is to climb higher on the ladder of reproductive excellence then the rest of your surrounding ecology. So the purpose you would feel, while sitting in that mud, is that you are to receive a Darwin award and get out of the way of future progress. If you take some other prior then I would assume you would feel some other purpose.Maus
August 18, 2012
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If nature is infused with purpose, what is it? If I'm sitting in the mud in a war torn country, will I feel that purpose? tjguy
Even though it is hard to believe, natural selection HAD to have built it because it is the only natural process that we think has the capability to produce fake purpose and design.
The problem is that when I ask what is the purpose or design behind HIV or the worms that infect your eye I'm told that these are because the design was once perfect and it has deteriorated. So natural selection can produce a worm that has the ability to burrow into your eye (presumably from a perfectly harmless version in the garden of eden) alright but everything you like is designed! Talk about having it both ways. tjguy, what is the purpose or design of HIV?mphillips
August 18, 2012
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Rosenburg says: "There is only one physically possible process that builds and operates purposive systems in nature: natural selection. What it does is build and operate systems that look to us purposive, goal directed, teleological. There really are not any purposes in nature and no purposive processes ether. It is just one vast network of linked causal chains. Darwinian natural selection is the only process that could produce the appearance of purpose. That is why natural selection must have built and must continually shape the intentional causes of purposive behavior." First of all, his claim that natural selection can actually build and operate systems that look to us purposive, goal directed, and teleological would be disputed by many. This is nothing more than his belief, and one that is unsubstantiated at that. Second, for him, intelligence is not even an option. He eliminates that a priori not based on evidence, but simply because it doesn't fit his worldview. As Luskin pointed out, intelligence is seen every day to be a sufficient cause for design, but in science, this is not permitted. Only totally natural causes are permitted. But how do you define natural anyway? If humans were caused by totally natural processes, isn't anything they do also "natural"? Evolutionists throw around this word, but they can't even define it clearly. Thirdly, the fact that the things that exist do seem to have purpose and design is evidence for the ID side. Claiming it only looks like it has purpose goes against common sense and our everyday experience and wisdom. No wonder it is such a hard sell for them. But this quote shows how bankrupt the case for evolution is. It is built on philosophy as opposed to evidence. Even though it is hard to believe, natural selection HAD to have built it because it is the only natural process that we think has the capability to produce fake purpose and design. This is simply one of the tenets of the faith of atheism. They believe this to be the case, but since they can't prove it, in the end, they take it by faith.tjguy
August 18, 2012
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But alas, Rosenberg, nor any other neo-Darwinists, nop matter how much they tell Fodor to 'shut up', can ever scratch Fodor's itch:
The Itch Atheists Can't Scratch - August 2012 Excerpt: Isn’t it odd that we have such a great longing for things that don’t exist? Nowhere else in our human experience has an “itch” so primal, so central to our humanity, developed without any correspondence to a real “scratch.” We’re hungry? We have food. We’re thirsty? We have water. We’re lonely? We have friends and family. But we need meaning, order, and wonder…and we have drugs to distract us from that need? It seems a bit wasteful of evolution to work so hard developing a complex need to match a phantom solution that never existed. http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/08/the-itch-atheists-cant-scratch.html If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. - C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, 136-137) Brooke Fraser- “C S Lewis Song” http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=DL6LPLNX
bornagain77
August 18, 2012
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