O
- Status
I
itinerant1
Guest
Perhaps you should address some specific text in the Descent that better supports your assertion that Darwin is not teaching moral relativism. Darwins big picture, i.e. the context, is key to understanding Darwins individual points.
Clearly, for Darwin, the moral evolves from the non-moral. Hence, man is not by nature a moral animal. This contradicts St. Paul when he speaks of the law written on the heart of man. We have here an obvious case where the alleged scientific truth contradicts theological truth. This is not an apparent contradiction, but a real contradiction. And since truth cannot contradict truth, it needs to be determined who has interpreted their ‘data’ wrong, the scientist or the theologian.
For Darwin, man is not originally even a social animal. Social instincts evolved from the nonscocial. This is a radically different view of man than what Aristotle observed: man is by nature a social animal. What is implied by Darwin’s alternate conception of man’s nature?
Darwin’s conception of man does not allow for true morality because man has been re-conceived as a brute animal. No major philosopher in western civilization has ever held that position. In Darwin’s scheme, to say that man is a moral animal makes about as much sense as saying a mollusk is a moral animal when the word “moral” is used in its traditional sense. Without true rationality and free will, there can be no question of morality.
What is considered good can be useful, and what is considered useful can be good. However, Darwin equates the good with the useful. This is gross utilitarianism. And Utilitarianism is a false ethic.
You you may not be aware of what is necessarily implied by the denial of the existence of the natural moral law. Such a denial is tantamount to denying man is by nature a moral animal and denying God’s existence.
Darwin made it clear that human consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon. In this conception of man, it makes no sense to speak of man in the traditional and Christian sense as a moral creature capable of morally culpable acts because all of his actions are determined.
To say that the scientist only considers what is useful for survival “as good or evil” misses the primary implication of Darwin’s thesis. That is, if human consciousness is epiphenomenonal, what the scientist concerns himself with regarding adaptability, usefulness, or what is good for survival, becomes all that there is.
All judgments about human acts, even those made by the ethicist or theologian, are reducible to what is or is not useful. Hence, the natural scientist, becomes capable of addressing, at least in principle, everything that directly pertains to human morality.
Darwin ventured beyond the province, scope, and capabilities of the natural sciences when he reduced the human mind to complex physical processes. This reductionism is not a scientific judgment by Darwin, it is a philosophical one. It is an assertion of philosophical materialism. Hence Darwin’s theory is reductionist, materialistic, and deterministic. True morality has no place in his scheme of things.
The same conclusions made here largely apply to Freud’s philosophical psychology. Likewise, Freud went beyond science and made erronoeus philosophical judgement’s about man’s nature that determined how he interpreted his scientific data. In fact, in Freud we see a very similar scheme to that of Darwin’s when Freud discusses the origin of values (Recall, for instance, Totem and Taboo). Freud was a moral relativist as well. It was a sign of the times…
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
However through the fog and filthy air.”
W
wildleafblower
Guest
Interesting dialogue:
And you took what I said and reinterpreted it to wiggle yourself into a ball of yarn!
ReggieM, you’ve distorted again the truth of my original message which has resulted in a ball rolling that you’ve fabricated. You used me which is not nice. Furthermore ReggieM, you did what I kindly asked Barbarian to consider correcting which you failed to do as I requested in my orignal message 303 to Barbarian
ReggieM, I’d really appreciate you setting an example and extend me the courtesy of telling me who you are talking to in msg. 312, 314, and 317? !!
ReggieM steps in by responding to me in the following message #310. Reggie M. quote-mines what I stated in message #303 and distorts the the truth of what I had originally written to Barbarian! :tsk: ( Look below:[msg.303]
The Barbarian;3252226:
Barbarian in your message 301 you don’t tell us who you are speaking to and you basically ask the same questions and cover the same material that Alec did in his message 300. I’d prefer hearing ReggieM. respond to Alec because he addresses his questions to ReggieM which is a matter of being courteous. Also, it makes it easier for viewers to follow.Many non-members are having difficultying [difficulty] following your discourse. They don’t have a way of easily reviewing the material of the individual whom you are responding to, thinking that there might be absence of important information.
ReggieM, shame on you. You left out text of my conversation which now distorts the truth of what I intentionally was trying to convey to Barbarian. You took snippets of my message, resulting in a quote-mining.
And you took what I said and reinterpreted it to wiggle yourself into a ball of yarn!ReggieM, you’ve distorted again the truth of my original message which has resulted in a ball rolling that you’ve fabricated. You used me which is not nice. Furthermore ReggieM, you did what I kindly asked Barbarian to consider correcting which you failed to do as I requested in my orignal message 303 to Barbarian
ReggieM, I’d really appreciate you setting an example and extend me the courtesy of telling me who you are talking to in msg. 312, 314, and 317? !!
R
reggieM
Guest
I just meant to affirm and support what you said. That’s all.
But I apologize if it seemed like I was using you. I will do my best to avoid that in the future, and I appreciate your concern about this also.
T
The_Barbarian
Guest
Being a humble scientist, I’m satisfied that the null hypothesis is confirmed when the assertion cannot be supported by evidence. Of course, that’s always open to new evidence.
Darwin’s theory has no moral implications, any more than plate tectonics has implications.
In the Origin of Species, I see no such assertion. His other theories might have such a departure from scientific thinking. Which of those do you think say so?
Perhaps we could clear this up, if you cited specific ideas from his papers.
Again, I see no place in his theory wherein Darwin equates fitness with goodness.
I haven’t read where he said that. Do you have a source?
Not to mention being completely wrong. Scientists don’t equate survival with good; they equate survival with survival. Hence, “fitness” does not equate to virtue, nor does failure equate to moral failure.
I have no idea how Freud slipped in here.
I
itinerant1
Guest
I
itinerant1
Guest
Do you know that the word “barbarian” has an interesting origin? The ancient Greeks referred to races other than themselves as 'barbaroi", because when they talked, their speech sounded like dogs barking, as in “bar, bar”.
I pretty much disagree with everything you stated. You seem to be side stepping the real issues here. Note that I originally highlighted the fact that my discussion pertains to the Descent of Man. The Origin of Species is not relevant here, which explains why you can’t see what I am talking about in that book. Freud is relevant here as an external example of a variation on Darwinian thinking.
Apparently, you did not offer any text to support your take on of the Descent of Man, because you are not even addresssing that book. So, for starters, I will make a reference to a particular statement made by Darwin in the Descent regarding the mind of man differing only in degree from that of higher animals. The quote is found in my original post, with an attending reference.
Now, explain in detail what you think Darwin means by this statement. Also, if you are able, explain the relationship of Darwin’s characterization of the human mind to his particular theory of phylogentic continuity.
The issues stated above, which I already pointed out in my previous post, are directly related to and bear heavily upon the question of moral relativism in Darwinian thinking.
S
steveandersen
Guest
I think you are reading far too much into this.
Darwin was observing natural occurrences
Not delving into the origins of morals
Are you suggesting that one thing can’t come form another just because it has to has all it component parts & basic nature at the start?
That isolated populations will have increased genetic variance form each other
that is what evolution states
No more, no less
Nonsense
It has just reinforced that we are from the earth and are all brothers and sisters.
Darwin was not a philosopher
saying whether man is moral or not is a matter for biology
Science is not normative.
It is not supposed to say what is good or bad just what is.
yes, but what does that have to do with biology?
from a biological point of view it is
it is not sciniece’s place to comment beyond that
nonsense
what part of the modern synthiesis states all human action sare determined?
evolution by its very nature implies change to unforseen circumstances
BTW Drawin is kinda out of date.
Recent work in behavioral evolution strongly indicates that altruistic and other social behaviors were selected for (which is kinda obvious since we have them and they must have come from somewhere)
How do you know that that is not how God created man’s moral nature?
Evolution is not normative
It doesn’t assign value judgments
It just describes what can be observed
A biologist can only comment on biology. That doesn’t mean that is all there is, it just means that is all they can talk about within their province and scope.
If you want meaning talk to the chaplain
but physical processes are the province of natural sciences
All biology can talk about is biology
Don’t fault it for that
T
The_Barbarian
Guest
It’s a fairly common mention in English, at least. The etymology is not quite what you think. It doesn’t refer to dogs, but to the syncopated nature of some languages to the ancient Greek ear. A cognate is the Sanskrit “barbaras” (stammering).
Being a Celt, I’m proud of it. Galacians, were among the first Christians, um? But there’s a second, more interesting part of it;
I was on a board where there was a particularly angry atheist. He told me I had no idea how “barbaric” a religion Christianity is. So I told him, he could call me “the barbarian.” He wasn’t amused, but the other atheists were, and that’s how I got the name.
I occasionally go by “Yehren.” (I’m a sexagenarian and an amateur, but enthusiastic sinologist)
Perhaps, because I actually was trained as a scientist, you find my views on science to be wrong.
So, you can’t cite instances from The Descent of Man, because…?
Not any Darwinian I ever met. That one seems completely at odds with reality.
I’m suggesting that you cite things in the book that support your argument. I am pleased that you aknowledge that it’s not part of evolutionary theory.
Don’t seem to see it. Could you cite the post number for me?
I
itinerant1
Guest
You keep referring to what biology is about, what scientists say, what biologists do, that Darwin is sort of out of date, and so on, ad nauseum. I already know all of this. And I also know that it has no real relevance to certain things Darwin actually said in the Descent of Man, things which have had a significant influence on subsequent history and theories of evolution.
Certainly any reputable historian of ideas cannot address Darwin’s influence on western civilization if he chooses to ignore what Darwin actually said, or projects his own ideas back in time onto Darwin.
For some reason, you have side-stepped the issue again with unrelated remarks. Conveniently, you refused to address the text from the Descent that I thought would be a good one for you to elaborate on to show your understanding of Darwin’s ideas.
The bottom line is that if any one says Darwin was just “observing natural occurrences” and “not delving into the origin of morals”, it clearly demonstrates that he has never studied the Descent of Man.
It is disappointing to see anyone attempt to give authoritative interpretations of a book they have never read. The genuine scientific approach would be to first collect the evidence from amongst the pages before rendering any kind of judgement.
Sorry, but I would rather discuss The Descent of Man with someone who has either read the book, or, who would like to know what that book says.
Cheerio!
I
itinerant1
Guest
:doh2: I my rush I did not clarify in my response which comments pertain to steveandersen and which pertain to barbarian. I guess I addressed you two as one and the same person because you sound so much alike that I can’t tell the difference. Now, I’m outta here!
R
reggieM
Guest
Itinerant – I’ve appreciated your excellent posts and many insights on this topic.
R
reggieM
Guest
Responses offered in haste sometimes have an undesired effect.
R
reggieM
Guest
… a decade after Woese’s declaration about the three domains, W. F. Doolittle (Professor, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Microbial Genomics) threw his own hat into the ring. Based on work at his molecular biology laboratory in Nova Scotia, he declared in 1999 and 2000 that an “uprooting of the tree of life” may be necessary because there was so much lateral transfer” at the very dawn of life, a process that undermined the very idea of a cornmon ancestor. By the time of the Tree of Life conference, even an orthodox Darwinian like E. O. Wilson was speaking of the “still tangled and problematic trunk of bacteria and archaea.”
In his presentation, Doolittle stated, “My view does challenge Darwin in a couple of ways.” It threw into doubt a first ancestor, on one hand, and undercut the idea that gene mutation is the only cause of new evolutionary forms, on the other. “The mechanism of adaptation may be borrowing genes rather than making your own genes better.”
“Lateral gene transfer could be so massive that there is no gene that would track organismal history all the way back to the beginning,” Doolittle said, chatting before his formal presentation at the conference. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to talk about the last common ancestor.” He prefers concepts such as “a common ancestral population,” which still means life was invented only once, but the universal genetic code came out of a promiscuous collection of early DNA precursors: “A community evolves, and eventually that community gets all the properties a modern cell has. But there was never a single cell to which we can trace it all.”
“If for some personal reason you believed in God, a God who intervenes in the world, then I guess there is plenty of place for him to intervene because we simply have not proven very much about what happened in the totality of life’s history.”
In his presentation, Doolittle stated, “My view does challenge Darwin in a couple of ways.” It threw into doubt a first ancestor, on one hand, and undercut the idea that gene mutation is the only cause of new evolutionary forms, on the other. “The mechanism of adaptation may be borrowing genes rather than making your own genes better.”
“Lateral gene transfer could be so massive that there is no gene that would track organismal history all the way back to the beginning,” Doolittle said, chatting before his formal presentation at the conference. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to talk about the last common ancestor.” He prefers concepts such as “a common ancestral population,” which still means life was invented only once, but the universal genetic code came out of a promiscuous collection of early DNA precursors: “A community evolves, and eventually that community gets all the properties a modern cell has. But there was never a single cell to which we can trace it all.”
“If for some personal reason you believed in God, a God who intervenes in the world, then I guess there is plenty of place for him to intervene because we simply have not proven very much about what happened in the totality of life’s history.”
T
The_Barbarian
Guest
Whether or not lateral gene transfer was a significant contribution to evolution, we can agree that it was and is a huge form of evolutionary change in bacteria.
The “nylon” bug, that first had the mutation to digest nylon oligomer, quickly shared that mutation with a host of other species of bacteria.
Likewise, it appears that bacteria also swap things like antibiotic resistance, so that a mutation in one can quickly spread to other groups.
Something Darwin never considered. But then he never considered genetics, either. Since Margulis, this has also been part of modern evolutionary theory. The only disagreement is on how much of it is going on, and whether or not it’s a significant source of variation in eukaryotes as well as bacteria.
However, the fact that DNA and biochemical surveys show nested hierarchies (which occur only in common descent) still puts us in the same place.
The “nylon” bug, that first had the mutation to digest nylon oligomer, quickly shared that mutation with a host of other species of bacteria.
Likewise, it appears that bacteria also swap things like antibiotic resistance, so that a mutation in one can quickly spread to other groups.
Something Darwin never considered. But then he never considered genetics, either. Since Margulis, this has also been part of modern evolutionary theory. The only disagreement is on how much of it is going on, and whether or not it’s a significant source of variation in eukaryotes as well as bacteria.
However, the fact that DNA and biochemical surveys show nested hierarchies (which occur only in common descent) still puts us in the same place.
S
steveandersen
Guest
sorry, but since the title of this thread is “evolution and ignorance”
I’m not sure what an out-of-date book has to do with the topic.
Biology is not a religion with The Descent of Man as some sort infalable scripture.
I would rather discuss evolution with someone who has explored more modern sources.
S
steveandersen
Guest
well “great minds…” and all that
A
anthony022071
Guest
H
hecd2
Guest
I find it delightfully ironic that you accuse me of loading the question. This all began in your post in your post 537 of this thread where you quoted Kevin Henke as follows (my stress):
You then went on to claim:
So you are the one that introduced the word **facts **(presumably because you imagined it would, in your words, load the question in your favour) to replace Henke’s word. Henke did not use the word “facts” because he did not mean “facts”. So you are hoist by your own petard. You are unable to show a single thing that was agreed by biological science as a fact ten years ago that has since been refuted.
Here is fact for you. It is a fact that biologists have reached and held an overwhelming consensus for the last 130 years that evolution did occur and and that it explains the diversity of species.
It is also true that in those 130 years biologists, through hypothesis, observation and experiment, have arrived at a greater understanding of the processes and mechanisms of evolution, and during that progress many hypotheses have been put forward that have subsequently been disproven. That does not mean that everything is thrown up in the air and we start over every time, but that our understanding is refined, and that answers to one set of questions raises new questions. This process also applies to geology, and Steno’s principles, which are, after all, 370 years old, and pre-date by more than 100 years the emerging understanding reached by Christian geologists in the late 18th century that the earth is very old, are obviously subject to some change. Nevertheless Steno provided a remarkably good foundation for later geologists.
Your contempt for this scientific processis obvious, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is, by a huge margin, the best way we know to get an understanding of the world. Scientists know and accept that their hypotheses are subject to revision, but that sure beats the arrogance of those who think that questions of natural science can be settled by reference to scripture, revelation or authority, and it results in a human venture which leads to an increasingly accurate and sophisticated understanding of the world.
Well since this began by you manipulating the Henke quote to claim that facts change, I think you should stop whining and either show us that something that biologists claimed as a **fact **ten years ago has since been refuted or retract. To help you, I will give you some examples of things that are facts.That’s a pretty good attempt at manipulating the discussion!
It is a fact that speciation has been observed in the laboratory
It is a fact that the same sort of randomness that pertains in evolution, also pertains in the creation of each individual human being, through random sorting in recombination and disjunction, and sperm selection.
It is a fact that ring species exist
It is a fact that humans and chimpanzees share a large number of ancestral repeats such as transposons in syntenic locations
So we are waiting for something that was agreed by professional biologists to be a fact in 1998 that is now refuted.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
H
hecd2
Guest
The evidence that we can observe is limited by our five senses (with actual and as yet unimagined instrumental extensions). That is all the evidence we will ever have.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
- Status