Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Evolution is antithetical to racism
JavaMan
Member (Idle past 2318 days)
Posts: 475
From: York, England
Joined: 08-05-2005


Message 15 of 238 (422756)
09-18-2007 8:01 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by jar
09-17-2007 7:37 PM


Re: Arguing just for the sake of arguing here...
I've got to defend Doddy's position here. He's not arguing for racism, or arguing against species-ism. He's just pointing out something that you and anglagard should be well aware of:
A scientific theory doesn't give us a guide to ethics.
It tells us what is the case, not what we ought to do. If the theory of evolution told us that there were quite distinct differences between the human races (rather than the opposite), would that justify us in being racist? I hope not. I hope that we would make our ethical judgement based on other factors, and still argue against racism. So how can it provide a guide in the opposite direction?
We are constantly telling creationists here that the ToE doesn't say anything about the existence of God or how we should behave (i.e. accepting the ToE doesn't mean you have to be an atheist or a nihilist), so how can it suddenly have ethical meaning when we want to defend a favourite ethical belief?

'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by jar, posted 09-17-2007 7:37 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-18-2007 10:04 AM JavaMan has not replied
 Message 19 by Chiroptera, posted 09-18-2007 10:15 AM JavaMan has not replied
 Message 21 by jar, posted 09-18-2007 10:46 AM JavaMan has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024