The Gradual Illumination of the Mind [Evolution]

Scientific American ^ | February 2002 issue | Michael Shermer

[Kevin Curry]

Richard Dawkins concluded that "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

The only reason Dawkins can even make such an assertion and make it intelligible is because human beings have the capacity to discern and create design, and to fit it to a clear purpose. They also understand and employ concepts of good and evil, pity and cruelty. To be logically consistent Dawkins would have to deny the existence of such things in human experience. Dawkins is a highly educated, well-written, blind fool.

[Quila]

Evolution is the only scientific theory which has as its goal to confound a particular religion.

No, it completely ignores religion. If you consider it to have a goal to confound religion, then it is not one specific religion that it confounds, but hundreds or possibly thousands that have origins stories based on ancient tribal explanations for what we see around us.

[Quila]

When an evolutionist looks at a 747 he tries to explain it in terms of a causal chain of physical events (which he can if he is detailed enough). However he misses the true explaination for the existence of the 747 which is the minds of the engineer and machinists who created it.

Intentionally or not, you've just written something very profound that should always be at the forefront of these arguments.

Evolution can only teach by what physical process -- HOW -- we got here. It is science and only science, and therefore only answers the less important half of the big question. The other half, which evolution can't even touch, is WHY are we here, what purpose do we have. This is the job of religion.

Unfortunately, Creation Science tries to cross the line and also explain how, and does a quite pitiful job of it. Religion's useful place in explaining the physical world went away a long time ago, when we realized lightning and storms were not God's wrath, and that rain was not coming down through openings in the firmament.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"When an evolutionist looks at a 747 he tries to explain it in terms of a causal chain of physical events (which he can if he is detailed enough). However he misses the true explaination for the existence of the 747 which is the minds of the engineer and machinists who created it."

Heh heh. Ever see the original "Connections" TV series, which beautifully illustrated the evolution of invention from the battle of Hastings in 1066 (first use of stirrups in battle) to the first landing on the moon in 1968? To ignore that science and invention evolve through human generations via teaching, learning, trial, and error is to put them into the category of magic and superstition.

[PatrickHenry]

Bump.

[Quila]

There are other scientists who look at the same universe and see a wealth of information pointing to a vast intellect designing the universe for the support of life.

This is not necessarily inconsistent with evolution. Evolution cannot account for the possibility of a "guiding hand" behind the scenes making evolution happen. Evolution is inconsistent with Biblical literalism and inerrancy.

The parameters for this are so narrow, that the odds of this happening on earth are next to impossible, even with billions of years of blind chance working.

Odds only matter if in the beginning you set the end result to be the current state. Odds have nothing to do with it when the end state is unknown. According to evolution, we are just as likely to have our current world as we would be to have any other.

In other words, what are the chances you will be doing something, anything, in the late afternoon tomorrow? 100%. What are the chances you'll be doing a specific thing? Then odds then could possibly be calculated.

[Quila]

Enyart is simply looking for one piece of evidence that proves evolution occurred.

This sounds like Kent Hovind's bogus $250,000 reward for "proving" evolution.

[Quila]

This fellow Shermer likens evolution denial to holocaust denial, and says it is the work of religious fundamentalists. One over the top statement like this blows his credibility.

Yes, this guy is definitely one you don't want trying to defend evolution well. Zorobabel caught another of his screw-ups. Evolution only has logic going for it, and when its proponents make mistakes in that area, it hurts a lot.

[Dumb_Ox]

In one of the most existentially penetrating statements ever made by a scientist, Richard Dawkins concluded that "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

"Most Existentially penetrating?" Try most Nihilistic. Shermer has the logical incompetence to say, in effect, "Oh yes, Nihilism in neo-Darwinian dress is perfectly compatible with all religion except for those icky fundamentalists, whose popularity is regrettable." (Challenge Dawkins, and of course you are an icky fundamentalist.) Not to mention that, if the Universe is blind and pitifully indifferent, and we are the products of said blind and pitiably insouciant Universe, then why are we humans truth-loving and truth-seeing organisms? Why are we not in the image of our "creator"? One who accepts Dawkins' initial fantasies truly risks ending in indifferentist subjectivism, for his sophomoric attempts at metaphysical gravitas end in irrationalism: just look at his memetic theory of knowledge, where science itself is but a matter of copying other people. No doubt I shall soon be shouted down by those screeching "Hail, High Priest of neo-Darwinian Fundamentalism and Most Hieratic Hierophant of Memes!" (But I must admit: The First Church of Memetic-Scientific Irrationalism has a nice ring to it.)

Moreover, Shermer caricatures the ID movement; at least one of its proponents, Michael Behe, is not a young-earth Creationist. Even more, if ID is in fact a valid method of investigation, then it is silent on the matter of a given entity's creator. ID could support Francis Crick's speculation about intelligent extraterrestrial DNA "seeders" just as easily as basic monotheistic creation tenents.

Bad arguments matched with political advocacy like those shown here do Scientific American no good, and they only serve to further undermine my trust in the scientific establishment. Shermer's forays into education advocacy are exactly what one would expect from a member of the Governmental-Educational Complex, whose only apparent purpose is to strangle intelligent thought among our youth.

[Age of Reason]

, truth in science is not determined democratically. It does not matter what percentage of the public believes a theory. It must stand or fall on the evidence

Incorrect.

Theory is determined culturally.

Theory does not stand or fall on "evidence."

Rather, the culture that believes in a theory will stand or fall if belief in that theory increases or decreases that culture's ability to survive.

[Quila]

Darwin was a failed Divinity student.

When logical arguments against another's point fail, always go ad hominem.

[Age of Reason]

LOL.

And Mendel was a monk.

[Dumb_Ox]

Michael Shermer [the author] is founding publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and author of The Borderlands of Science.

Whoa, I just caught this. His column is even under the "Skeptic" section--did SA add that back during its "Popular Science" makeover? The scientific method is pragmatic, not ontological; tacking on people in the "Worldview business" imprudently obscures this.

[Quila]

Not to mention that, if the Universe is blind and pitifully indifferent, and we are the products of said blind and pitiably insouciant Universe, then why are we humans truth-loving and truth-seeing organisms?

As I earlier complained of religious people such as Kent Hovind pitifully trying to use religious text to explain scientific phenomena, here you've shown an example in the other direction. Dawkins is a scientist, not a philosopher, and he should stick to his science. He seems to be trying to make science address the WHY question, and he doesn't do well.

[Zorobabel]

The "odds" I was refering to, were the odds that all the extremely narrow parameters necessary for life of any kind, to have fallen into place merely by chance at the beginning of the universe are so long as to be in the catagory of an impossibility. In other words, the initial cosmological "event," big bang or whatever, and the subsequent shakeout and ordering of space, time, and matter, which could have happened in a myriad of other ways as to allow for an existent universe without life, and the fact that it did, makes for impossible odds against. The odds of my doing something tommorow are not 100%, because I could die anytime before then. And the universe could have arranged itself in so many more ways, so as to not support any life at all, yet it did. Right from the very beginnng.

[tpaine]

"Richard Dawkins concluded that "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

--- if the Universe is blind and pitifully indifferent, and we are the products of said blind and pitiably insouciant Universe, then why are we humans truth-loving and truth-seeing organisms?

Because we die if we don't establish true ideas from false ideology?

IE - We have learned, through the scientific method, to cure many ills, -- instead of listening to a medicine mans munbo-jumbo.

Now that is a blind, pitiless, indifferent truth. -- Right?

[Dumb_Ox]

Evolution can only teach by what physical process -- HOW -- we got here.

First, to state the obvious, evolution can't teach, only teachers can. One can exaggerate the evolutionary biologist's capacity to tell us "HOW" we got here. Are histories of human immigration--in many ways a physical process--within the competence of evolutionary theory? And if one only means that it can tell us how we inherited our particular genes, I suspect we are mistaking the theoretical construct for observation. (The observable science, of course, being the field of genetics.) But to ignore that point, it seems historical geneaology has far surer methods of proof than related attempts at extending its fields back into prehistorical times.

In comprehending how an endeavour like natural history proceeds, my greatest difficulty came not from reading scientific-sounding idiots like Dawkins, or his highly creative opponents, but rather from my own thought experiment:

Pretend a massive event like World War II extended over a million years.
Now reconstruct it using the physical evidence.
Oh, and there are no written records whatsoever. Have a nice day.

The task is staggering, and I suspect it would take another million years to recreate even an approximation of it. Not that nobody should try such a reconstruction, but it seems that both the sheer quantity of required information, and the presence of insurmountable information gaps--"knowledge bottlenecks" if you will--precludes natural history, and thus evolutionary theory, from being anything other than a highly, highly speculative endeavor.

[Dumb_Ox]

Because we die if we don't establish true ideas from false ideology?

But according to Dawkins, death is neither good nor bad.

[beckett]

Shermer lies continuously in the piece, published, natch, in the ultra-liberal Scientific American. My question is: Why is an article from the ultra-liberal SA being posted on a conservative website?

Shermer is an incompetent philosopher who confuses realism with nihilism.

[Dumb_Ox]

Dawkins is a scientist, not a philosopher, and he should stick to his science. He seems to be trying to make science address the WHY question, and he doesn't do well.

Well one of my questions can be turned into a "How," in fact it probably should have been. HOW is it that we products of an [allegedly] blind, indifferent universe can see the truth about it? This question certainly can use the work of the physical sciences, like neurobiology, but its own sphere is epistemology proper.

One of the axioms of science being a variant of epistemological realism, it is quite humorous to see folk like Dawkins inadvertently destroying it in the name of Science. I just wish he'd do it in private, and save the rest of us a lot of trouble.