Yes, this is an article that desperately needs to be written.
Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design
- Thread starter Laura
- Start date
Yes, this is an article that desperately needs to be written.
I add them as soon as I find them.
Anyone can post them in this thread and I will add them to the list.
Just offering up a tip of the hat, Mandatory Intellectomy. That was a fantastic read summarizing such a large subject. However, the nuts and bolts of it all clearly point in the direction you were taking it, and any new readers were provided with an excellent window in which to look at it through.
Super job!
I've just finished reading and I've got to say I'm floored. Just fantastic. I shall re-read this article once a week for the foreseeable future until it's emblazoned on my mind. I will be able to face anyone with facts on this confusing subject and I may even quote Laura's comment at the end of the article. Goodness, if this information is disseminated to a few dozen people, who truly grasp the implications, then butterfly wings have got to do their thing and maybe embolden some more scientists to come forward and add weight,.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bravo Mandatory Intellectomy. I appreciate your effort to extend the funeral procession on Darwinian theory. Your knowledge on this topic is no longer potential power. You have demonstrated the result of 99% dedication and 1% perspiration. You have struck Gold!
I also have to thank and congratulate you, Mandatory Intellectomy. That was such a great, well-written article. Pleasure to read....
Ocean
The Living Force
I'm definitely up for it.
For sure, Laura! Count on me too
I second that. It was brilliant! Congratulations Mandatory Intellectomy
Yes, good idea. Here are some thoughts:
I'd like to start with a little personal account on how Darwinist thinking crept into my life. Not only materialism/the denial of anything higher to aspire to, even if it's "just" basic ethical standards, but also the view that Darwinian dog-eat-dog is in itself the ultimate goal, something to aspire to! In my experience, that's really how it works.
I would then cover some of Stove's points in Darwinian Fairytales, such as the dilemma that Darwinism obviously doesn't seem to add up with the human experience, and how people have tried the Hard Men/Soft Men way out of this (see this post for a summary). Also, how perverse and toxic the denial of genuine altruism is in Darwinian thinking, i.e. selfish genes nonsense etc.
It's also crucial for people to understand that Social Darwinism, Eugenicism etc. was present in Darwinism from the very beginning, and that Hitler and his mad predecessors weren't "misusing" Darwinism, but applying it. The case of the communists is interesting as well, though a bit more complicated - they embraced Darwinism on the one hand, but on the other hand used it as the enemy that needs to be overcome (again committing the Hard Men fallacy, but the other way around: either Darwinism is true and then there's no way to escape it, or it isn't, but then Materialism is in trouble...). In any event, communism is a materialist doctrine if there ever was one. In that regard, the question you mentioned whether moral behavior is possible without "religion" (or rather the recognition of something higher, some natural law or whatever) is very relevant.
I also would like to tie all this to Jordan Peterson's ideal of the "meek man", i.e. the strong man who knows how to control himself. Because as I see it, if you believe in Darwinism, you kind of have 2 options: either you embrace the whole dog-eat-dog scenario and actively participate in dog-eat-dogging, or, if you feel that this can't be right, you "tune out" and become a weakling - and as a weakling, as JP always says, you can be as destructive as the ruthless dog-eat-dogger.
In many ways, Peterson's "strong guy who keeps his sword sheathed" is the antidote and opposite of the Darwinian man. It's the married guy who's in great shape and has his act together, and yet doesn't cheat on his wife even though he could. It's the man who dresses well and has a strong character, yet he uses his status for good instead of gaining personal advantage. It's the guy who has developed such strength that he could easily bully most people into submission, and yet he doesn't, but is prepared to sacrifice his good standing and very survival to help others etc. It's precisely the kind of man that shouldn't exist according to Darwinian thinking, and whose nature and goals are incomprehensible in a Darwinian/materialist framework.
At the end of the day, Darwinism implies two imperatives:
- sleep around as much as you can
- never sacrifice personal safety for anything (i.e. survival)
And since Darwinism claims that all the marvels of life arose out of these two principles, these are the Darwinian "God". So no wonder then that they become moral imperatives in the Darwinian world, even though most Darwinians would protest that. This is another point that's worth unpacking a bit more I think.
Anyway, these are the ideas I came up with so far.
Just a quick thought on the above. When people argue for the value of religion - including JBP but also others - their critics seem to think those people are arguing for the idea that explicit religious beliefs are necessary in order to act morally. That is, if you don't believe in God, you can't possibly act morally - or variations on that idea. But that's not the point that people like JBP are making. There are plenty of atheists and agnostics who are good people, live morally - often to a degree that seems greater than many believers. But that's not the point. The point is whether or not something like religion is necessary to rationally justify the existence of morality in the first place. Whether or not people explicitly believe this is the case or not is a separate matter. For example, you don't need to be aware of the fact that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen in order to make practical use of water. You can even deny the fact - and still be refreshed by a glass of the stuff. In a similar way, you can deny all aspects of religion and still act morally, even if some of those aspects of religion are necessary in order to account for the reality of those morals, their ability to influence human behavior, and your ability to somehow perceive or grasp those morals.
Someone like Sam Harris is an example of a guy who argues for being moral without religion. Peterson argues that such an argument can't possibly succeed - even Harris is implicitly living a religion, even if he verbally denies it. You need religious, metaphysical ideas in order to justify morality, and to make it possible in the first place.
The advantage of a worldview that is truer than Darwinism is that it will give you a greater understanding of why all this is the case. It will make your worldview more coherent. Your actions will be more in line with your beliefs. And it will provide the framework by which to judge behaviors that were previously left unrecognized and unquestioned. You might realize that there are things you could be doing better that you couldn't even notice beforehand.
Plus, for every individual who can act relatively morally without a worldview that rationally justifies morality and moral behavior, there will be others who cannot. Darwinism may not necessarily lead to moral degeneracy, but it will be sufficient to do so in many cases. It will provide the justification for behaving in ways that are contrary to the moral order of the world.
To use an analogy: a good navigator can do a lot with a mediocre map. Others will become hopelessly lost. But a good map can't hurt.
Here's another one that's good:
But what if Darwin was wrong? -- Sott.net
Darwinian evolution is a brilliant and beautiful scientific theory. Once it was a daring guess. Today it is basic to the credo that defines the modern worldview. Accepting the theory as settled truth -no more subject to debate than the earth...
www.sott.net
And great job Mandatory Intellectomy! It summed up the central themes from various books very nicely, and fun to read!
Interesting info here about new-found (in sewage in India!) viruses that allegedly 'hoard' DNA when they infect a life form and then pass on those genes when they infect the next.
www.rt.com
It's possible there are yet-to-be-discovered problems with the idea that this process could to lead to new lifeforms, but interesting nonetheless.
Giant viruses that could hold keys to evolution mystery found in Indian water
Over 20 new giant viruses have been discovered in sewage and pre-filtered water in Mumbai, India. They are able to hoard and pass on new genes when hopping from one host to another, a 5-year study claims.
It's possible there are yet-to-be-discovered problems with the idea that this process could to lead to new lifeforms, but interesting nonetheless.
Mandatory Intellectomy
Jedi Master
I'm not sure about that. Some ideologies are certainly more conducive to morality than others, but for me, the question of whether something is moral, good, or right, always revolved around the question:
If everyone did this, would the society as a whole work well?
And you can see right there that stealing, killing, and hurting others won't make things work. Basically it's the notion that if you don't want certain things to happen to you, you shouldn't do them to others, because for the society to function well, the "goodness" has to be reciprocal. That's, imo, a solid basis for morality without requiring anything religious. You just need some understanding and ability to abandon a completely egocentric view and see things from others' perspective.
Of course religion is likely to lead to moral behaviour when it tells you "thou shalt not ..." ...do bad things, but then, if you do something because of a belief and not proper understanding, it has, imo, less value than when you really understand the "why" of it. Many Christians could be said to be moral because they don't want to "go to hell". But that's not real morality. That's just fear of consequences. Whereas if you understand that something's bad because you see that it hurts others and would hurt you if done to you, then you really "get it". Either a certain behaviour creates harmony on a larger scale, or it creates chaos.
So as far as I can see, morality can be understood by fairly simple logic, if you abandon selfishness/egocentrism. It's mostly about the willingness to see the perspective of others than yourself, and I don't think it requires anything religious. I've basically learned it from all the times when something bad was done to me. And you learn that if you do bad things to others, it always comes back to you, so it doesn't work.
Of course there's also the point that some ideologies are likely to lead to this kind of understanding and some are not. If Darwinism tells you everything is about survival and there's no meaning in anything, why should you look at things from someone else's perspective.
Either way, if you follow any kind of ideology or religion, you don't necessarily understand anything, so I think the key is somewhere else. The morality needs to come from the inside, not from some outside instructions.
BlackCartouche
Jedi Master
Darwinism really is a dumbass belief-system. If they were to follow through their own 'logic' to its definitive ends, then they would have to conclude, given enough 'time', like over zillions of gazillions of years, a species would eventually evolve to become SO advanced in everyway possible and beyond imaginable that, for all intents and purposes - at least from our perspective - would ultimately have to result in an omniscient omnipotent omnipresent creator-like being. DUH.
Its a bit like the Darwinist children rebelling against their Creationist parents, only to then leave home and come to have their own rebellious children and discovering they are their Creationist parents.
Darwinism meets irreducible complexity: An accident waiting to happen!
And yeh, Mandatory Intellectomy...
Its a bit like the Darwinist children rebelling against their Creationist parents, only to then leave home and come to have their own rebellious children and discovering they are their Creationist parents.
I got another one...
Darwinism meets irreducible complexity: An accident waiting to happen!
And yeh, Mandatory Intellectomy...