Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False

[tonyrey]

*It is reasonable to look for answers to questions of the type that science has answered successfully but to look for scientific answers to **everything ***

For those who sincerely believe there is an entirely natural explanation for abiogenesis it is reasonable to look for it. If I were a scientist, Brad, I would do research into a subject which is more likely to benefit the planet and its inhabitants because I’m convinced life cannot be explained solely in terms of physico-chemical reactions - notably the urge to survive and each individual’s developmental plasticity.

 

[markeverett49]

Well if a species was going to reach this point, then someone had to be first. You could say we’re a different ‘kind’ of animal to homo australopithicus, and they were a different ‘kind’ to early hominids and they were a different ‘kind’ to earlier primates but they’re all a difference in degree…

Interesting take. I think the Darwinian response would be that we reached this point by chance; no species was destined to reach it. (As a side note, one reason Darwin avoided the term “evolution” for so long—I believe it first appears in the sixth edition of his “Origin of Species”—is that “evolution” had a then-current meaning that Darwin rejected: namely, that e-volution is the unfurling of in-volution and he did not believe in in-volution.)

 

[markeverett49]

Philosopher Edward Feser responds to the review of Nagel’s book that appeared in “The Nation.”

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/10/nagel-and-his-critics-part-ii.html#more

 

[markeverett49]

Another review of Nagel’s book. The author disagrees with Nagel about a couple important things but in a way the facilitates further discussion rather than ending it.

bostonreview.net/BR37.6/elliott_sober_thomas_nagel_mind_cosmos.php

 

[markeverett49]

This review, from a journal devoted to libertarian economics, focuses on but one aspect of Nagel’s argument: that moral realism is true.

mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=390

(Moral realists hold that at least some moral claims are actually true.)

 

[grannymh]

You need to be aware that at each step in evolution, one generation could always reproduce with the earlier one. But if you jump a few tens of thousand generations, that might not be true. So you could say that an earlier ancestor was a different kind, but it would be on a direct family line – therefore a difference in degree.

This may be an older vocabulary…
Humans, from the very beginning of their history, are different in kind from all other species before and after. This is due to the human spiritual faculties of intellect and [free] will.

Any materialist conceptions of non-human nature can be either true or false because non-human nature per se is normally in the material/physical domain. It is only when studying the nature of the human person that one finds the peerless species.