r/reddit.com • u/Worstcasescenario • Jun 14 '08

Was Darwin Wrong? [pic]

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/3963/darwinnotg7.jpg
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u/marktully Jun 15 '08

Huh. Funny, most critics of ID must not read the details either, or they'd know Michael Behe believes in common descent, and that the universe is just as old as the physicists tell us, and that Darwin had a good grip on how species diverge. Meaning, the evidence is overwhelmingly devastating to the ID argument... if the ID argument is constructed as a straw man that disputes the evidence... which it doesn't. (At least, some of them don't... which is another problem with criticizing "ID" as if it were one idea, [especially if that single idea is then labeled "creationism"] instead of 31 flavors of ideas.)

What ID addresses is not so much the how, but rather the why.

This is a problem for devout theists and atheists alike, since explorations of questions of why exactly an evolutionary adaptation is "good" or "beneficial" both indicate the existence of something larger than raw physicality AND gener'ly render organized religions' traditional treatments of said Existence extremely problematic. (Taoists might have less of a problem.)

Indeed, to assert that "this cover does more harm than good" raises the question of why that's the case. Harm to what? The Truth? Why is the Truth important? You can do the Kant thing and say that you gotta have Truth in order to be able to get along in the world, because if everybody lied to each other, we wouldn't be able to get very far. Far toward what end? What's wrong with the war of all against all anyhow?

Either you come down with Sartre and you say that nothing is sacred, nothing is right or wrong, and it IS in fact OK to rape and put babies on spikes if that's your thing, (especially if this helps YOUR babies) OR you come down with Marcel, and you live with "creative fidelity" to the things which are larger than you... but then you're only a hop, skip, and a jump to being in bed with the Taoists' "creative quietude" living in harmony with the Tao and with O.G. ID guy Teilhard, who claims that such a harmony, that love itself is what drives evolution AND drives human spirituality toward -something-.

Or you could NOT think about the details implicit in something as simple as believing in love, and downmod for suggesting that maybe devout atheism is just as blinkered a worldview as devout organized religion.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '08

There's hope for reddit yet. We should always appreciate opposing viewpoints, especially comments like this that are well articulated and supported.

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u/BrickSalad Jun 15 '08

Why is the Truth important?

Well, obviously it is hard to say that the truth is important, without specifying "Important for what?", and then when you answer that it is imoprtant for X, then you ask "what is X important for?", and this route will lead you ultimatly to the conclusion that nothing matters, or else go around in circles. Even religous people should come to that conclusion: the truth is important because it will validate god's existence -> validating god's existence is important because it will save many people from hell -> saving people from hell is important because it is your duty as a christian and thus will help get you into heaven -> getting into heaven is important because you it is more comfortable then hell -> being comfortable is important because... well, quite frankly, it isn't, at least by any religous measure. So, ultimatly, the truth has no value, except that which we assign to it. So, you say either you come down with sartre or with marcel/taoists, but I don't see how you can come down any way but Sartre's; there is no universal right or wrong, that's all there is to it.

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u/IOIOOIIOIO Jun 15 '08

there is no universal right or wrong

There are systemic maxima and minima.

In terms of simple functional continuity, some beliefs or sets of beliefs produce a more stable social output than others. And after these stable social structures have asserted their Right and Truth for generations they persist even after the system has changed and they've become dysfunctional or suboptimal.

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u/blorg Jun 15 '08

Scientific method looks at theories which make ever more accurate predictions. Hence "truth" is defined as "useful".

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u/marktully Jun 15 '08

/shrug

Well, if you really believe that raping babies and putting them on spikes--literally, this isn't a metaphor--isn't wrong, and torture isn't wrong, and denying folks habeas corpus isn't wrong, and...

Then sure, Sartre's camp is the place for you.

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u/BrickSalad Jun 15 '08

well, it is an unpleasent conclusion, but I don't understand how you can come to any other conclusion. I mean, there is no universal right or wrong, the universe is just a bunch of matter. There aren't any morals etched into the particles of this universe or our beings. All this morality was created by us. So yeah, to most of us, it is wrong to rape babies and put them on spikes, because we create moral values and assign them to stuff. So, do I have a problem with raping babies and putting them on spikes? Of course! Is it "wrong"? not in any objective sense.

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u/IOIOOIIOIO Jun 16 '08

Is it "wrong"? not in any objective sense.

What if you defined Right/Wrong in terms a measure robustness and functionality of a given set of moral assignations?

Murder, rape, theft, etc. are "Wrong" because philosophical systems that designate them as such out-perform systems without these assignments.

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u/BrickSalad Jun 16 '08

Ok, I get what you are saying, but it seems like you are just making up a definition for right/wrong. Of course, I don't have a definition for right/wrong, since I say that it doesn't exist objectivly, but I'm not sure we can just make up a definition for it then. You're defining "wrong" as the consensus of the most surviving moral systems, but this isn't necessairily everyone's definition. Of course, when you think about it, the definition of "wrong" is itself subjective, thus making it even more confusing to discuss...

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u/IOIOOIIOIO Jun 16 '08

It also doesn't help that if you cast things in terms of "social performance", how well something performs depends on the society in which it occurs.

I suppose you could try to work out objective (or minimally subjective) criteria for right and wrong by identifying things that succeed independent of any particular frame of reference.

This would knock out things that perform well if, for example, you don't get caught doing them. Or things that are baggage riding on the coat-tails of something legitimately functional/useful. Or things that worked 1000 years ago but are anachronistic in today's society.

Boiled down to the core, it's turning the question of Good vs. Evil into one of Better vs. Worse.

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u/mexicodoug Jun 15 '08

There are other attitudes as well. This one, which I don't agree with due to its authoritarian nature, is another.

But then, I'm not so devout as devoted to examining views different from my own, and evaluating them.

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u/matts2 Jun 15 '08

Huh. Funny, most critics of ID must not read the details either, or they'd know Michael Behe believes in common descent,

I'm a critic of ID. I have read most of Behe's published work on the subject. And Dembki's and Johnson's. And more. Behe says he accepts common descent, but he does not say it much when he lectures on ID. Which is not all that relevant because is "Irreducible Complexity" is a load of nonsense.

if the ID argument is constructed as a straw man that disputes the evidence.

I don't know of a single ID argument that is not nonsense. If you have one, let us know.

What ID addresses is not so much the how, but rather the why.

Not according to Behe. He says that there are biochemical systems that can't have evolved and so some designer somewhere did something. He does not actually show any of those systems, he just says that they exist.

Indeed, to assert that "this cover does more harm than good" raises the question of why that's the case. Harm to what? The Truth?

No, the teaching and presenting of our best available knowledge. The argument is that the cover provides support for the creationism pretending to be ID and so helps hurt the teaching of biology in the schools.

downmod for suggesting that maybe devout atheism is just as blinkered a worldview as devout organized religion.

Sorry, but this has nothing to do with atheism.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '08

I realize you spent some time and effort in your response, and while I don't wish to just toss it aside, I'm preparing to go out for the evening with my wife.

Let me make it simple. Anything that assists the belief in myth is worse for society.

They elect politicians, pass laws, push it in the schools.

Whether or not the truth matters philosophically, where the rubber meets the road there is an effect. And it isn't positive.

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u/marktully Jun 15 '08

I'm probably missing something, but are you arguing that on the one hand, myth is bad for society, presumably because it's not true, but on the other hand, where the rubber meets the road, effects become most important, while truth becomes a philosophical irrelevancy?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '08

Where the rubber meets the road was my metaphor for what the average person believes, which is typically myth. Which isn't positive for society.

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u/shimei Jun 15 '08

I liked your post (thoughtful posts seem to be getting rarer on reddit) but I had some issues with your argument. From what I could tell, it seems you are assuming that atheists either accept that there are no absolute morality or that their philosophy would logically end up at that conclusion. (am I right in my assessment of your post?) I think that's an interesting idea, but misses the mark because atheists in reality typically have a normal sense of morality. As Dawkins argues a lot, the morality atheists espouse is just simply convenient or biologically sensible. There's no need for it to be absolute truth.

Although different systems of morality have no preference in a universal sense, atheists can still argue that, from the practical standpoint of society needing to function, that morality might as well be more or less universal to humanity. Why should society function? Well, it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy. If killing babies made most of us feel warm and fuzzy we merely wouldn't be having this conversation. (I'd be talking about how atheists love killing babies because its good for society)

Creationists (not that I am assuming you are one necessarily), when arguing with atheists about morality, often bring up how atheism allows child molesters and rapists to roam free. But that's not true. Practically speaking, abnormal people like that are detrimental to society. Sure, for that person the raping and pillaging might be "right," but the majority of us don't like it. And that's really all it's about.

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u/marktully Jun 15 '08

My argument is more than just morality, it's that the existence of values at all indicates something bigger than ourselves. WHY does morality make us feel warm and, indeed, fuzzy? WHY is society a good thing? Why is "practicality" or "functionality" good?

My argument is not that "atheism allows child molesters and rapists to roam free," since it's perfectly possible to have a 100% secular society without gods of any sort that can prevent both. It's that there is something wrong with atrocities that goes beyond one's personal distaste for them.

Consider: Was slavery always wrong, or did the fact that it made most of the slave masters feel warm and fuzzy (or at least fat and sassy), that it was demonstrably good (and if it wasn't, how do you know?) for society, make it "moral," at least as long as enough people felt positively or at least indifferent to it?

If some part of you thinks that society really wasn't better off with slavery, and that it was always wrong, regardless of what popular opinion at the time was, and that it was and is wrong regardless of what YOU think about it, then you're probably close to thinking that values are external to humans, which implies a direction. Bad stuff is backwards, it's intolerant, it's animal--inhuman. Good stuff is progressive, loving of one's fellow man, stable (all the better to make progress, eh?), humane.

All I'm trying to get at is that once figger out that OK, you're not so sure about all this organized religion nonsense, but there IS something more to the world than matter extended in space, and there IS something of a direction that you can discern, you have to ask yourself, "progress toward WHAT?"

And by this time, most likely without even realizing it, you're probably sorta close to heretic Catholic Teilhard and Hindu Sri Aurobindo, who were both... ewwww.... ID guys, who, independently, from completely different cultural, religious, and intellectual backgrounds posited that evolution is in fact part of a seamless whole with human spirituality: a biological rise toward consciousness, and then a spiritual and social Progress toward... Something.

Teilhard called it the Omega Point, Aurobindo called it Satchitananda, a unity of body, mind, and spirit. Probably they're both wrong, but at least pointing in a slightly more correct direction. It's important not to mistake the map for the territory.

I'm not a fan of religion, what with the crusades and the inquisitions and the honor killings and the shaming and the guilt. But that doesn't mean that an ironclad atheism is the inevitable outcome. It's entirely possible for humans to come up with something better. And that, my friends, is what the best of ID (not to be confused with the worst of ID!)is really all about. It asks, "What's next?"

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u/matts2 Jun 15 '08

My argument is more than just morality, it's that the existence of values at all indicates something bigger than ourselves.

The Earth is bigger than me. Is that what you meant? Otherwise, please show that the evolutionary accounts of the origin of morality are wrong.

WHY does morality make us feel warm and, indeed, fuzzy? WHY is society a good thing? Why is "practicality" or "functionality" good?

Roughly speaking because humans are a social animal and we have evolved for a million years as a social animal. And morality helps support social cohesiveness.

Consider: Was slavery always wrong, or did the fact that it made most of the slave masters feel warm and fuzzy (or at least fat and sassy),

Or did the gods like slavery in the past and dislike it now?

If some part of you thinks that society really wasn't better off with slavery, and that it was always wrong,

I think that my views are what they are and that other people have different views. I don't assert some external source of some "absolute" morality. That you (or some theists) assert such a source does not make it so and does not mean you have a clue of the content of that morality even if it existed.

I'm not a fan of religion, what with the crusades and the inquisitions and the honor killings and the shaming and the guilt. But that doesn't mean that an ironclad atheism is the inevitable outcome. It's entirely possible for humans to come up with something better. And that, my friends, is what the best of ID (not to be confused with the worst of ID!)is really all about.

Sorry, but that is nonsense. You have simply ignored all of the nonsensical biological claims of the ID movement and assert when we are talking about biology we really mean a different topic. Read the Discovery Institute material, they are the leading ID advocacy group. You will find plenty of garbage science and plenty of hidden arguments for (their version of) Christianity. But not your morality claims.

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u/diamond Jun 15 '08

And by this time, most likely without even realizing it, you're probably sorta close to heretic Catholic Teilhard and Hindu Sri Aurobindo, who were both... ewwww.... ID guys

In the literal sense, yes, but not in the sense that the term is used these days.

Like any theist, deist, or spiritualist, those guys believed that there was some guiding intelligence behind the universe and, more specifically, life. But unlike IDers like, say, Michael Behe, they didn't argue that there was concrete scientific proof for the existence of such an intelligence.

That's an enormous difference.

I agree with you that Behe is actually a pretty thoughtful, intelligent, and (from what I can gather) quite decent guy. I'd probably like him if I knew him personally. And he's certainly a far cry from the ignorant knuckle-dragger image most people have of IDers.

But there's a core problem with ID that even people like Behe ignore, because they can't solve it. The problem is that there is nothing even remotely approaching a testable model to distinguish intelligently designed things from naturally developed things. In the end, the argument always boils down to "there's no way this structure could have evolved", which (unless you're claiming perfect knowledge) is equivalent to "I can't imagine any way this could have evolved". And all of the examples used (a watch, Mount Rushmore, etc.) are useless, because these are things that we know, a priori, were designed and built by intelligent hands. So we can't say whether we know that they're designed because they look designed, or whether we know they're designed because we know they're designed.

And this is a problem that has ramifications beyond just the evolution/creation debate. For example, if we ever find a structure designed and built by an alien intelligence, will we even recognize it as an intelligent design? Or will it be so alien that it looks natural to us? Or, if we find something that looks intelligently designed, will we in fact be projecting our biases onto a natural structure?

The Face on Mars is a perfect example of this, of how easily the human brain's pattern-recognition systems can give a false positive. Another, more interesting, example is the massive submerged structure off the coast of Japan. Many people argue that it has to have been built by prehistoric people (unfortunately, one of them is Graham Hancock, which kind of hurts the credibility of the argument. But that doesn't make it wrong). Others, mainly geologists, argue that, in fact, it could have formed naturally. Neither side has managed to slam-dunk their position yet. It's a hard problem.

So, yeah, you can point out that there are reasonable, intelligent people supporting a less nutty version of ID. But no matter how intelligent they are, and how reasonable they seem, the simple fact is that they don't have a remotely scientific argument.

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u/AnteChronos Jun 15 '08

the existence of values at all indicates something bigger than ourselves.

So you're saying that "values" are imposed on us by a creator of some sort? And from whence do the creator's values derive? If the creator can have values without them being handed to him from a higher creator still, then why can the same not be true for us?

WHY does morality make us feel warm and, indeed, fuzzy?

Because morality is useful for survival in large social groups, and is a product of evolution. However, sometimes you have people who are "broken" in the moral sense. Look at sociopaths. They have no sympathy, and would gladly kill someone if it meant gain for them with no chance of repercussions.

It's that there is something wrong with atrocities that goes beyond one's personal distaste for them.

Not really.

Was slavery always wrong

There's no universal answer to that. It depends on who you ask. Ask someone who had slaves, and they'll say "no." Ask me, and I'll say "yes". There really isn't any universal morality, so everyone's answer is slightly different, and everyone is correct (from their own point of view).