The moral implications of evolution, and their discontents.

LOLWhy to God?Why not attribute it to other people? Huh?Nonsense. What you do is compare some other set of morals to whatever the current accepted set of morals are.The TOE doesn't enter anywhere.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

Hi, Nem. Like what? We try to explain everything in the natural world through the actions of the laws of physics, too. Why do the planets orbit the sun? Because of the laws of physics. Why do hurricanes form in the Atlantic and move toward North America? Because of the laws of physics.Are the laws of physics promoting its own ethics and its own philosophy? I think you need to say a little more to explain what you mean here.-In a subsequent post you write: Sure, evolution would explain why we have feelings we describe as morality and ethics. But it doesn't, in itself, explain which things should be categorized as "moral" and which things should be categorized as "immoral". That is completely due to social convention and individual conscience, which can and does change from one society to another and from one person to another within each society.So the theory of evolution does not promote any particular moral code or set of moral dictates.I'll repeat it againg, here is a short description of the theory of evolution:

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The theory of evolution simply states the following:

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(1) The individuals in a population vary in the physical characteristics.

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(2) These differences in physical characteristics are hereditary.

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(3) Some individuals in the population will produce many offspring, some will produce few offspring, and some will produce none at all.

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(4) This difference in reproductive success is often determined by the inheritable physical characteristics.

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(5) Therefore, as a conclusion, the next generation will have more individuals with the characteristics associated with reproductive success, and few individuals with the characteristics associated with fewer individuals.

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(6) Eventually, provided there is no source of the less productive characteristics, the entire population will consist of individuals having only the successful characteristics, and none of the others.

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This phenomenon is called natural selection. As far as I know, with few exceptions, no one really disputes the existence of natural selection.

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The theory of evolution postulates another statement:

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(7) New variations of physical characteristics will appear in a population, and these new variations will often be hereditary.

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This, too, is an observation. This, too, is a fact. Under our current understanding in the heredity of physical characteristics, we call these new variations genetic mutations.

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Finally, the theory of evolution makes one more statement:

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(8) All known species are the result of the modification of populations of organisms by processes (1) through (7) over a long period of time, starting with a single ancestral population.

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Now you may dispute whether some of these statements are accurate descriptions of reality, but they do not, either together or in isolation, promote any particular code of ethics.Like all scientific laws and theories, the theory of evolution is amoral. But science is amoral. No one tries to draw moral implications from the law of gravity, nor does anyone try to draw moral implications from the laws of thermodynamics. Simple descriptions of reality simply do not promote any code of morality, except inasmuch as they may contradict certain facts upon which one would prefer to base one's morality.If your morality is, in some way, dependent on a literal reading of Genesis, then, yes, the theory of evolution does have implications -- namely, it implies that your morality is based on beliefs that are not true. If your morality is, in some way, dependent on feathers appearing on theropod dinosaurs before powered flight evolved from them, then, I guess, evolution has some implications here, too, in that one cannot dismiss the moral code until one has examined it more closely.Maybe this conversation would move forward if you were to provide a more concrete example of a philosophical point or a moral tenet that is promoted by evolution?

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If it's truly good and powerful, it deserves to engender a thousand misunderstandings. -- Ben Ratcliffe

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Even if that is so, it all ultimately comes back to nature, does it not? You can't escape that part unless you start attributing intent to God. That seems more than self-evident.

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Okay, fair enough. Not necessarily God. But not to humans. Jar, you can't use a moral to explain why morals exist. I'm sure can guess why that is. Therefore evolution, or more explicitly, naturalism, has to ultimately rely on natural phenomena to explain anything.What difference is there from that than saying Goddidit?

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

We can demonstrate the existence and the causal particulars of natural phenomena.

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Why not humans? I didn't. I said that different people in different eras and milieus create different sets of morals. Morals exist as a social construct to minimize intergroup violence.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

Yes, and likewise, believing in God will still give you these answers as well. The problem is the deeper question of why it is. It only boils down to two simple choices. Either it was intentional or not.Two entire belief systems are based around this, right? So how can you say that there isn't a general philosophy at the core of naturalism? It seems that much is inescapable.

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The singular answer I receive back from those of an atheistic persuasion is that we evolved feelings of altruism, empathy, etc for a survival-of-the-fittest reason.

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But its completely immaterial to the greater question. For instance, if we were to ask why humans enjoy music, a simple, quick, and true answer would be, because we like it. Well, yes, but does it just stop there? Is there not something deeper at play in all of that, whether you ascribe to theistic or atheistic beliefs?At the heart of atheism is naturalism, because there are no other explanations by its very definition. So any atheist has to find, as a basic criteria, compelling natural reasons why he does what he does. Any existential, metaphysical, or spiritual questions are automatically ruled out a priori.What he is left with is nature alone. And even saying that things like morals transmit through sociology is only begging the question. Sociology only makes sense, to a naturalist, in the realm of nature itself.So if a man does something, it is ultimately attributed to chemical reactions in the brain driving him towards a function. He, like his insect brothers and feline sisters, are creatures of instinct.In a more appreciable way, people like Dawkins thrive on the philosophy of science. There life's work is completely invested in this basic philosophy.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

Well, except when it won't. If you maintain that God steers hurricanes according to His will, then determining where Atlantic hurricanes will land will have nothing to do (for you) with Coriolis force and high-pressure systems (because why would God care about those things) and everything to do with who was sinful, or who wasn't, or who was gay and who wasn't, or whatever you all think God cares so much about these days.And so you'll make predictions that turn out to be wrong, because hurricanes as a rule don't home in on sin. Starting with "God steers hurricanes" you'll never arrive at an accurate predictive model of where hurricanes are going to go, because you can't reduce their behavior to anything God is purported to be concerned with. But we don't all like it.And we have to like something, don't we? Why would we evolve a mechanism to "like" things, if the only things we liked were completely unobtainable? Obviously, organisms that need some things and are harmed by other things develop a feedback system where they prefer the things they need and avoid the things that harm them. SO obviously we're built to like certain things. And since music is a human creation, why would musicians make music if they didn't like it?I dunno, I don't see music as a big problem. At the heart of atheism is "you can use your senses and intelligence to arrive at conclusions about what things probably exist and what things don't." Is that naturalism? I don't know, I'm asking. If you think you've said something meaningful that makes sense, allow me to correct your misapprehension.

Is the O.P. about the ToE, or about philosophical naturalism?Which part of the ToE says that a God did not create the universe?Can't your God be intelligent enough to create a universe in which things like abiogenesis and evolution would happen?

All the versions that point to random undirected mutation as the mechanism for evolution -there is no other version - God is excluded a priori from the ToE. Well yes, God made life where there was no life and he built variation into the genome in order that all the things created could diversify and thus survive hard times.That'll be abiogenesis and microevolution or variation.However, there's no reason or evidence to make us believe that the entire creation process had to start at one-celled organisms or simpler and carry on pretty much on its own.Can't your God be intelligent enough to have created all the kinds (kind of like works of art) and put them on the earth as described in Genesis? Who's limiting God here?

Well because people tend to use evolution as a base for their racist tendencies - as if some people groups are not so 'evolved' Like when people used to shoot aboriginees to send their skulls to natural history museums as missing links.Like when Hitler justified his actions with his hit list which labelled Jews as 'close to pure ape' and blacks as 'mostly ape' (and of course next on the elimination list.) No. I know that's its just the amount of melanin pigment in the skin that varies.But nonetheless refer to my first point above. No not actually, even Hitler would have let me live.I find evolution tough to swallow because the evidence is underwhelming and all the classic icons of evolution are misrepresented -everything scientific that goes against the evolutionary conclusions are left out in the textbooks -it's called 'deception by omission'.

The universe, I said! Not life or the individual species directly. An interventionist God is excluded from the ToE. Your God may be excluded, but not all possible Gods. The ToE, being a scientific theory, can only include mechanisms for which there is evidence, like mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. If evidence comes up for additional mechanisms, then they can be added. (That's what happened with genetic drift). There's no evidence to those who wear the blinkers of superstition. For those of us with our feet in reality, there's evidence, but we should discuss that on one of the "evidence" threads, not a morality one. I don't have a God. The genesis God is far from intelligent. If this universe was created, I think its extremely unlikely that its creator is a racist who particularly favours one middle-eastern tribe. I think the "chosen tribe" invented that God.Speaking of racists, this thread's about about whether the ToE has moral implications. My view is that scientific theories attempt to explain observed phenomena, but they don't tell us how to behave at all.Philosophies are something else. If you're like most of the creationists on EvC, you probably have trouble distinguishing between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism.Here's a Christian who knows very well that evolution has happened on this planet on a grand scale. But this is scientist of real class, not an Answers in Genesis type fantasist.John Polkinghorne - WikipediaEdited by bluegenes, : typo

Hi Beretta,
It is true that the ToE has been misinterpreted and misused by undesirables, such as the racists and fascists you mention. Living in SA, I'm sure that attempts to describe black people as "un-evolved" are nothing new to you.
The point is that nothing in ToE suggests that any ethnic group is superior or inferior to any other. That's just race hate dressed up as science. In fact genetic studies have done more to emphasize our similarities than our differences.
Just because unscrupulous scum have attempted to use misrepresented versions of evolution to justify heinous acts, it does not mean that evolution is somehow tainted.
That Hitler spoke of ToE means nothing. He also encouraged his associates to quit smoking. Does that mean that quitting smoking is morally tainted? This is just reductio ad Hitlerum.

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Mutate and Survive

For "people" substitute "racist people" and you're correct. As you pointed out in an earlier post, they'll also use the Bible (and any other straw that they can clutch at to delude themselves that their group is in some way innately superior). However, that wouldn't make it harder for any group of humans to accept biological truths, which actually tell us that we're a very homogeneous species compared to others. And have you ever read Hitler's Bible based speeches? There's loads!!!! Evolutionary theory will tell you that Homo Sapiens is Homo Sapiens.Hitler comes out with the type of comments on biology that we hear from creationists. "A fox will always be a fox" for example. Have you listed these "scientific" things on the appropriate threads?

I believe you have been warned a lot about this. You will, in the appropriate thread, supply details of the deception or you will shut up.There is plenty of opportunity here to express your concerns and show why you believe that there is deception going on. You have a free reign. However, there is a cost to this: you are expected to actually suppy the reasoning behind your statements.If you continue to make these kind of statements without supplying support we can only conclude that you have not such support. If you have no support then continuing to make this accusations is lying. You will be suspended if you continue.Edited by NosyNed, : fix grammerEdited by AdminNosy, : fix author

Hi, Nem. I guess I don't understand your point here. We aren't discussing naturalism. We are discussing whether or not the theory of evolution itself promotes any particular philosophy; in particular, we are discussing whether the theory of evolution promotes any particular moral code.The point I was trying to make here is that we explain the motion of the planets solely through the laws of physics. Do you agree that scientists can calculate the motions of the planets without reference to God? If so, does that remove God from the laws of celestial mechanics?The formation and motion of hurricanes can be explained solely through the laws of physics. Do you agree that scientists can estimate the strength and path of a tropical storm or hurricane without reference to God? If so, does that remove God from the laws of thermodynamics as applied to weather systems?If you feel that it is appropriate for an astronomer to calculate the future path of a planet without referencing God, and that it is appropriate for a meteorologist to estimate the strength and path of a hurricane without reference to God, why is it inappropriate for a biologist to explain a feature in an organism and its evolutionary history without reference to God?Weather systems are chaotic systems, and so there is a limit to the accuracy of the predictions of meteorologists; as a result, theists find room to squeeze in the hand of God in the formation and movement of a particular hurricane. Likewise, there is limited knowledge about the structure of the earth's crust, and the strains and movements are also chaotic, so there is a limit to the accuracy of the predictions of geologists concerning earthquakes; as a result, theists find room to squeeze in the hand of God in the timing and severity of particular earthquakes.In the same way, the exact evolutionary path of any particular population of organisms cannot be precisely predicted, even in retrospect, because of the limits to our knowledge of exact specifications of the ecosystem and exact mutations; therefore, there seems to be room for the hand of God to be involved in the exact evolutionary history of any particular lineage (especially the one that led to humans).The point of this series of posts was to counter Beretta's assertian that evolution removes God from the history of species. I am merely pointing out that the theory of evolution is no different from any other theory. The laws of celestial mechanics don't preclude the existence of God, and just as the laws of thermodynamics don't preclude (in the mind of theists) the role of God in hurricanes; the theory of evolution is entirely analogous. If celestial mechanics does not, by itself, preclude the existence of God, then neither does natural selection. If the role of thermodynamics in the behavior of hurricanes does not preclude a role for God, then neither does evolution in shaping the history of a population of organisms.-The rest of your post is also opaque to me. The question is whether any particular moral code is a direct logical consequence of the theory of evolution.For example, some people have claimed that an evolutionist must, as a logical result of the "tenets" of evolution, support eugenics. Some people have claimed that an evolutionist must, as a result of her belief in evolution, engage in purely selfish behavior. This thread was started because Beretta made the claim that an evolutionist, as a consequence of her acceptance of evolution as a fact of nature, be a racist.The first part of this post (the nonsense about hurricanes, planets, and so forth) was a response that as a logical consequence of the acceptance of evolution, the evolutionist must believe that God has no role in the formation of the species.If you have some comment on whether any particular morality or philosophy is a consequence of the belief in the accuracy of evolution as a description of the history of life on earth, then by all means lets discuss that.

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If it's truly good and powerful, it deserves to engender a thousand misunderstandings. -- Ben Ratcliffe