TCSMy experience with Wikipedia is that editors will censor criticism of Darwinism or even historical facts which tend to put Darwinism in a bad light. For example, mentioning Darwin here was censored:
Dawidowicz’ allegations and positions are criticized and not accepted by most historians however. For example, in “Studying the Jew” Alan Steinweis notes that, “Old-fashioned antisemitism, Hitler argued, was insufficient, and would lead only to progroms, which contribute little to a permanent solution. This is why, Hitler maintained, it was important to promote ‘an antisemitism of reason,’ one that acknowledged the racial basis of Jewry.”[13] Interviews with Nazis by other historians show that the Nazis thought that their views were rooted in biology, not historical prejudices. For example, “S. became a missionary for this biomedical vision… As for anti-Semitic attitudes and actions, he insisted that “the racial question… [and] resentment of the Jewish race… had nothing to do with medieval anti-Semitism…” That is, it was all a matter of scientific biology and of community.”[14] As another stated, “Our whole cultural life for decades has been more or less under the influence of biological thinking, as it was begun particularly around the middle of the last century, by the teachings of Darwin…”
The way that the original article was written Medieval anti-Semitism was to blame for the Holocaust (despite what the Nazis themselves said) and Medieval anti-Semitism was largely the fault of Martin Luther. Even after some corrections Martin Luther still receives more attention in the entry than Darwin does yet it is a historical fact that the Nazis said that their beliefs had more to do with Darwin and science than Martin Luther and religion.
Their entry on Intelligent Design demonstrates the same type of distortions combined with the omission of important facts. To read their first paragraph on Intelligent Design one would think that all one needs to known about ID is that a group of American creationists invented the concept in the late 1900s for purely political reasons. Or some such nonsense.
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Intelligent Design, Creationism, Evolution, and Theology 
Certainly some Nazis did, yes, and other Nazis thought their beliefs had more to do with Atlantis and the occult. And there were also Nazis who entertained the most curious notions about ballistics and about the effective use of tanks in warfare. What of it?
The point, obviously, is that the fact that the Nazis claimed to have been influenced by a certain theory has no bearing on the validity of the theory itself. Some of them accepted occult beliefs about Atlantis and about reincarnation — others accepted Newton’s classical mechanics — the validity of those theories neither stands nor falls with Nazism.
Moreover, it is clear to any one who is not terminally confused that the biological theory which the Nazis accepted is not the same as the theory which is accepted by the majority of biologists today, for the simple fact that the modern synthesis is based on population genetics, and population genetics shows why eugenics cannot succeed.
That would be a good reason to read past the first paragraph, then, since the rest of the article clearly dispels that conception, and clearly mentions the origins of the concept of intelligent design in ancient Greece.
Actually, there’s a rather interesting book out now called Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity by David Sedley. Sedley reconstructs the history of these debates among the Pre-Socratic philosophers (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus) and the influence of these philosophers on Plato and Aristotle. I don’t know if he also discusses Epicurus, Lucretius, and Cicero, though certainly they are also highly germane to the topic!
I think you missed the point here Carl. The criticism was of the obvious editorial allegience toward Darwinism on the part of the Wikipedia powers that be. Not on Darwinism or even Nazism itself.
I guess I can see that. OK.
The point, obviously, is that the fact that the Nazis claimed to have been influenced by a certain theory has no bearing on the validity of the theory itself.
If it is irrelevant one would think that the editors at Wikipedia would allow an accurate history of what the Nazis themselves said to be published and so on.
They do not do so because Darwinism is not just another scientific theory rooted in empirical evidence. It has typically been rooted more in a philosophy of naturalism and a mythological view of Progress than empirical evidence. Naturalism causes a false view of humanity to this day because we must supposedly be blind to sentience and intelligence at the insistence of its proponents but a false “biological” view of humanity generally caused Nazism. To the extent that Darwinism is linked with philosophic naturalism it is linked with Nazism.
You mention the occult in your diversions but the occult/hidden was, in fact, often hidden in order to avoid conflicts with the Christianity that they intended to destroy. The public language of Nazism was rooted in the science of their day and the simple fact is that Darwin and others in the eugenic movement provided the language and false view of mankind as “nothing but” an animal to the Nazis.
“No decent person wants to live in a society that works according to Darwinian laws. . . . A Darwinian society would be a fascist state.” –Dawkins in the Austrian newspaper, Die Presse (July 30, 2005)
If one is to say that Darwinism does not apply to man (as the evidence clearly shows) or “should” not apply to man (as in Nazism) then that disagreement certainly does “have a bearing on the theory itself.” In fact, the notion that it does not apply to man in some way may indicate that it does not apply to other organisms as well.
[…] Darwinism and Wikipedia By mynym It’s interesting that Martin Luther still receives more attention in the entry than Darwin does given that the Nazis themselves said that their beliefs had more to do with Darwin than Martin Luther. Their entry on Intelligent Design … Intelligent Design and More – http://www.intelldesign.com/ […]
You’ve said this before, Mynym, but to be quite frank, I find the form in which you’ve expressed your thoughts to be so confusing that I don’t quite know how to respond appropriately. So I shall throw caution, and concern for appropriateness, to the winds and simply dive in. In particular, I want to focus on this:
It seems to me that the thought here is that “naturalism” (whatever that is, and I very much doubt that anyone really knows) requires that “sentience and intelligence” are not really properties. (What it is that “naturalism” construes them to be is not made clear.) In what follows, let me classify “sentience” and “intelligence” as terms that refer to psychological properties — so the question here turns on whether “naturalism” requires that we deny the existence of psychological properties. (And so some other explanation must be made of the terms that purportedly refer to them.)
Firstly, there’s simply no argument made whatsoever for the thought that “naturalism” excludes “sentience and intelligence” from being real properties. Thus, since no argument has been offered, I see no reason to accept this as true.
Secondly, whether or not this is true has no bearing on the validity of contemporary evolutionary theory. CET does entail that there is no difference of “kind” between humans and other organisms — let’s call this “the continuity thesis” — but the continuity thesis does not entail that sentience and intelligence are not real properties. Or, to make more criticism more clear: even if the continuity thesis does entail that psychological properties are not real, that argument has not been made — it has simply been assumed to have been made.
Any takers?
It seems to me that the thought here is that “naturalism” (whatever that is, and I very much doubt that anyone really knows) requires that “sentience and intelligence” are not really properties.
I doubt that anyone really knows what naturalism is as well so it’s interesting that science is often said to be based on methodological “naturalism.” What do you suppose that people mean by that?
At any rate, the form of naturalism which Darwinian reasoning is based on has always been said to exclude intelligent design.
(What it is that “naturalism” construes them to be is not made clear.)
Darwinists typically construe intelligent agency and design as illusions which science must methodically reduce to blind mechanisms or natural processes like natural selection, all “appearances” or evidence to the contrary not withstanding.
Firstly, there’s simply no argument made whatsoever for the thought that “naturalism” excludes “sentience and intelligence” from being real properties. Thus, since no argument has been offered, I see no reason to accept this as true.
Those Darwinists who seek explanations which apparently seem “natural” to them (Typically they associate natural with whatever seems gradual to them.) have made many arguments* in order to exclude the possible causal impact of sentience and intelligence from science. So it seems that if Darwinism rooted in naturalism gradually becomes the only public or scientific view which people respect then the view of man as “nothing but” an animal will most likely emerge again. Fortunately the majority of the public does not believe in Darwinism despite numerous attempts to attribute the respectability and credibility of science to it. That’s why I like the satiric focus of this blog, it undermines the respectability that some seek.
*E.g.
Of course choice cannot be “mindless” just as genes are not “selfish” and so on. I suppose that one cannot expect much from someone who wrote about the “point of view” of trees in the paragraph preceding this one. I’ll consider the point of view of trees when a tree tells me what it is.
Another example:
I find it very interesting that Carl finds Mynym’s comment confusing, according to his statement,
and yet I have had the same opinion of Carl’s comments many times.
I didn’t have any problem understanding Mynym’s comment! Perhaps we’re not on the same page or planet, for that matter?;-)
I suspect that this is the case for two reasons. Firstly, I’m a trained academic philosopher, and so I make distinctions and connections that could be obscure to people without my degree of training. Secondly, I’m not working within the framework of “either theism or atheism/naturalism,” so you might not have a framework on the basis of which you can interpret my (admittedly, fragmentary and incomplete) thoughts.
This sentence seems to be the confusing one: Naturalism causes a false view of humanity to this day because we must supposedly be blind to sentience and intelligence at the insistence of its proponents but a false “biological” view of humanity generally caused Nazism.
It would probably be better to say:
Nazism was based on a false “biological” view of humanity but the philosophic naturalism which typifies Darwinism to this day is still causing the same false view of humanity and our place in Nature. The correlation between Nazism and Darwinism may be muted by the memory of Nazism combined with the fact that few Americans take Darwinism seriously while many reject the Darwinian creation myth totally. But among those who do take it seriously proto-Nazi sentiments seem to emerge naturally.
Agreed! It’s also, as we all should know, sometimes difficult to communicate effectively in this form.
Like everyone else here, the term “methodological naturalism” is often bandied about, but I find it very puzzling, to say the least.
For one thing, I’m inclined to think that the very concept of “nature” has its origins in a specific ontological framework that took shape in the 17th and 18th centuries. Within this framework, there are three fundamental constituents: Nature, Humanity (or “Man,” to make clear the patriarchal aspects of this scheme), and God. I do not think that the meaning of any of these terms is fully intelligible without its relations to the other two — not the modern sense, anyway.
To my comprehension, there has been only one philosopher — Nietzsche — who fully appreciated that the terms “nature” and “humanity” are meaningless without the concept of “God,” and who then drew the conclusion that without a concept of “God,” the other two concepts also had to be rejected.
So instead of talking about “naturalism” — whether “methodological” or “metaphysical” or whatever — I prefer to talk about different kinds of explanation, each of which operates within a distinct “logical space.” At present I consider there to be three main kinds of explanation which I find important — but this distinction is provisional, because I might have missed out on an important distinction (or several!) —
1) rational explanations: explanations of someone’s behavior on account of the reasons which may be given for or against it.
2) intentional explanations: explanations of something’s behavior on account of the intentions and motives it has — e.g. why a vulture circles over a particular area is not something to be explained in terms of the vulture’s reasons — for it is not a rational being — but in terms of its perception of some tasty carcass in the area.
3) physico-chemical explanations: explanations of some occurrence on account of the laws of physics and chemistry.
I am not convinced that (2) is fine-grained enough — I might need to create some further distinctions here, and I am not yet sure if what I’m calling intentional explanations are the same as functional explanations, which are widespread in biology.
intentional explanations: explanations of something’s behavior on account of the intentions and motives it has — e.g. why a vulture circles over a particular area is not something to be explained in terms of the vulture’s reasons — for it is not a rational being — but in terms of its perception of some tasty carcass in the area.
It seems to me that sentience is linked to reason. I would agree that most animals besides man have a limited form of reason or sentience so the “reason” that they do something may be very crude and perceptual as opposed to conceptual reasoning but it is still a form of reason.
I tend to agree with Aristotle that the main distinction between humans and animals that can be known based on experience and observation is that man is a rational animal capable of conceptual reasoning, etc. We can know this by general revelation but I would add that we can know by divine revelation that man was ultimately created by God, so mentally retarded people do not lose their humanity and so on. In any case, the view that man is “nothing but” an animal which is typical Nature based pagan view and also typical to Darwinism is wrong.
Anyway, can one of your explanations be reduced to another?
I have a very strong suspicion, to be quite frank, that part of your rejection of the picture of humanity as “nothing but an animal” stems from your picture of what an animal is, what rights it has, how it ought to be treated, etc.
I think it is indispensable to recognize that the wrongness of the Holocaust does not consist in the wrongness of treating human beings as animals, but in the wrongness of treating human beings as we (modern, industrialized Western societies) treat animals.
The other side of the question concerns how much of a difference rationality makes. Humans and perhaps a few other species are rational animals — the question is whether this makes us different in kind from all the other kinds of animals — e.g. flying animals, swimming animals, burrowing animals, nest-building animals, etc.
Anyway, can one of your explanations be reduced to another?
No — not as I understand the concept of reduction.
I have a very strong suspicion, to be quite frank, that part of your rejection of the picture of humanity as “nothing but an animal” stems from your picture of what an animal is, what rights it has, how it ought to be treated, etc.
Our picture of humanity is based on our worldview, it is a question of worldview. But it’s likely that any “civilized” worldview will tend toward upholding a distinction between humans and other animals. Civilized people tend to surround the things that most closely link us with animals with ritual and ceremonies upholding the distinction, whether it is sex and marriage or simple things like wearing clothes and going to the bathroom in private. What is considered sane and rational behavior also happens to be sanitary and civilized.
In contrast to this type of view which was specified by the Jews but also seems to be typical to civilized people in general declining civilizations tend to pervert and undermine such distinctions. For example, the Nazis advanced the first anti-vivisection laws and nudism was common in the Weimar Republic.
I think it is indispensable to recognize that the wrongness of the Holocaust does not consist in the wrongness of treating human beings as animals, but in the wrongness of treating human beings as we (modern, industrialized Western societies) treat animals.
Animal sacrifice is part of the Jewish mythos which Christians believe that the Lamb of God fulfilled. Given that view animal sacrifice is a form of wrong that represents God’s redemption. The first person to reject animal sacrifice was also the first murderer of human beings. It’s curious that the PETA types seem to want to return to Eden in nudism and vegetarianism. The same patterns showed up in the Nazi movement that would supposedly overcome the alienation brought by the Jews and return to the Blood and the Soil, a natural/national harmony in gardening the land and so on. The blood shed based on such mental patterns “calls from the ground.”
In contrast to the “Jewish influence” the Darwinian worldview actually does not contain any view of “wrongness” in the way that we treat other animals anyway. It seems that proponents of such a worldview often insist that it does only because Darwinism has more to do with paganism than science.
Note that pagans seem naturally drawn to attack the same things time and again:
Ironically pagan proponents of “animal rights” want us to have a sensitivity towards animals that has little or no justification given a Darwinian worldview.
You do not seem to care about worldviews or place yourself above them and that’s fine with me. However, a philosophical worldview is typically irrelevant.
Karl Kraus on the topic:
“When someone has behaved like an animal, he says: ‘I’m only human!’ But when he is treated like an animal he says: ‘I’m human too!'”
(Half-Truths and One-and-A-Half-Truths :108)
😉
Mynym, I fear that you and I are talking very much at cross purposes — we are not merely disagreeing about the same thing, but we really want to talk about very different things. I want to talk about factory farming, you want to talk about Kosher slaughtering. Perhaps we might be able to re-frame the dialogue along common lines, but I’m not certain of being able to do so successfully.
I want to talk about factory farming, you want to talk about Kosher slaughtering.
They’re the same issues having to do with man’s relationship to and treatment of animals.
Of course the Nazis did not think about the fact that on the one hand they were eliminating the people and tradition in which animal sacrifice was deeply symbolic while on the other they were proposing anti-vivisection laws but the two are linked. Note that the word “sacrifice” is standard terminology for researchers while researchers tend to be attacked by those who believe in some form of Nature based paganism.
Perhaps it would be best to simply cite history:
Contrasted with:
A common pattern to your arguments seems to be “if we do not assume that, then this” no matter how absurd or irrelevant it may be to deny “common sense.” It’s irrelevant given that if people do generally have patterns of “common senses” rooted in the nature of sentience itself then the way it impacts the world will be the same even if “common sense” can be denied philosophically.* It would be absurd to deny if a rational view of the evidence is that common senses are correct.
*I.e. if there are patterns of “common senses” that are generally typical to people then the imaginary “what if” worlds of philosophers do not matter that much when it comes to trying to find out what has or will happen in the real world. There is a lot of evidence that people have a pattern of common sense with respect to the relationship between man and other animals. It seems to be why obscene words are what they are and note that they tend to be universal.
You said:
I think it is indispensable to recognize that the wrongness of the Holocaust does not consist in the wrongness of treating human beings as animals, but in the wrongness of treating human beings as we (modern, industrialized Western societies) treat animals.
If you’re going to argue that there’s something wrong with the way that modern, industrialized Western societies treat animals I’d like to know why. What is your reasoning?
In contrast, when I argue that there’s something wrong with the way that societies rooted in Nature based paganism treat humans it seems to me that it may be that all one need do is provide an accurate record of it and let self-evident truths that are evident in the Self work themselves out. Ironically, those who argue that there is something “wrong” with the way that Western man treats other animals will probably have to make the same type of appeal even when they deny the Western view of Natural Law that is not based on the laws of nature.
It’s amazing to remember this! Many years ago, when I was denying God, I was more sympathetic to the plight of animals than I was to human suffering. That changed after my beliefs changed, not that I’m a fan of cruelty to animals, but my priorities have been changed by my belief! This whole being concerned with animals while people are being tortured and murdered is, in my estimation, a symptom of the “depraved mind” spoken of in Romans 1.
“Common senses?” Nah, that’s just for us inbred believers in God;-)
I am not interested in remaining fettered and caged by the constraints of what the vast majority idolize as “common sense.” My commitment is to furthering human powers of imagination, creativity, thought, and freedom, and I do this by inquiring into the customary relations between concepts and by creating new relations between concepts — and in so doing so, exploring new perspectives from which to see the world. Perhaps there is some perspective which is “absolute,” which is “the Truth” — and perhaps there is not!
I am not sure if “nature-based paganism” is the best way to which to approach Nazism — though I do not doubt that the revival of ‘paganism’ and the occult was central to some members of the inner circle, not to mention Hitler himself. For it is just as important to emphasize how thoroughly “modern” Nazism was, in its glorification of industry and technology, the fetish of efficiency, the sheer scale of the bureaucracy which was necessary in order to implement the “Final Solution” and at the same time fight the war on two fronts.
The problem with factory farming is that it destroys the souls of the animals. I am not unaware that I am introducing a number of controversial assumptions here! In particular, what I am hoping to do eventually is work out in more detail the following claims:
1) There is no good reason to deny that many animals have minds.
2) There is no good distinction to be drawn between “mind” and “soul.”
3) There is a difference of degree, but not a difference of kind, between animal minds and human minds.
4) Human beings are rational animals, but it cannot be determined a priori whether humans are the only rational animals on the planet.
5) Souls can be destroyed.
6) It is an evil thing to destroy a soul.
7) Factory farming is industrialized soul-destruction of animals on a massive scale.
8) The death-camps of the Holocaust were evil because they applied the technology of soul-destruction developed for animals to human beings. (Though the Nazis were not the first to use concentration camps; the Nazi camps are best thought of as the culmination of a trajectory that includes U.S. treatment of the Native Americans and British treatment of Africans.)
9) It is worse evil to destroy a human soul than to destroy an animal soul.
I should add that I take (1)-(4) to be consistent with — well, not with “Darwinism” — but with some versions of contemporary evolutionary theory and contemporary cognitive science.
If it helps at all, you may take notice that I’m working off the following influences:
Mind in Life, Reinventing the Sacred, The Phenomenon of Life, The Open: Man and Animal, The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of the Mind and How to Reconcile Them . . . and many, many others!
Carl, what exactly is your definition of “soul” ?
And more to the point, what does it mean to “destroy a soul”?
That changed after my beliefs changed, not that I’m a fan of cruelty to animals…
Exactly, in the Christian tradition the suffering of animals was never looked on with indifference, it is actually an element deep within Christianity that is symbolic but also literal in Jewish tradition and in reality. To look on the slaughter of animals with indifference is to be ignorant of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Of course the vast majority are ignorant, desensitized and “Know not what they do.” But note the historical Christian attitude which emerged among those who focused on Christian* doctrine:
*Obviously many people who self-define as Christians are actually ignorant of Christian doctrines, symbolism, history, etc.
I am not interested in remaining fettered and caged by the constraints of what the vast majority idolize as “common sense.”
Common sense is not what it is because it is commonly expressed and typically admitted to and practiced by the vast majority. Indeed the vast majority is not “fettered and caged” by the type of common sense that separates man from other animals, instead they often revel in their supposedly creative yet very herd-like rebellion against it. Most are really just running with the Herd. Common sense is commonly suppressed and uncommonly expressed, although it can be expressed by individuals in very creative ways.
The irony is that common senses having to do with the true version of things are actually necessary for those who desire their perversion. Stated in Christian language sin (or missing the mark) cannot exist without the Law which defines it. Even educated people often have a marginal or legalistic knowledge of Jewish tradition and never focus on its transcendent meaning. Its transcendent meaning had to do with basic natural categories:
Legal scholars have noted that given the modern rejection of male and female as basic natural categories and the normalization of homophilia (the subversion of male and female) there is little basis to “discriminate” against necrophilia (life and death), pedophilia (child and adult), zoophilia (human and animal) or any form of sexual disorientation. The denial of common senses is basically just a matter of how far one wants to take a rebellion against civilization/language and recognition of basic natural categories.
My commitment is to furthering human powers of imagination…
Yes, it seems that many of your arguments are structured to draw people to imagine things. Something along the lines of: “If we do not make assumptions which pretty much everyone makes then in that imaginary world my views make sense.” while occasionally your own common sense seems to get in the way. Etc. At any rate, I’m more interested in what is true of the real world, history or empirical evidence.
You conclude: ….and in so doing so, exploring new perspectives from which to see the world.
Again, that’s fine. But it seems to me that for imaginary perspectives to be relevant we have to find ways of putting them to the test against the real world.
I said this: “…it is actually an element deep within Christianity that is symbolic but also literal in Jewish tradition and in reality.”
But actually the symbolism of it is taken to be literal in both Christian and Jewish tradition, as the Christian view is that the Word became flesh.
Carl,
There is no “eternal” soul, in the way we use it. The bible states that God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed His life into Adam, and Adam then became a living soul. When Adam’s physical body died, God took back His life and Adam was no longer a living soul. God gives life, thoughts (mind) and all else, not the word, “soul:”
A “difference of degree,” I would hope it would be more than a mere “degree.” And it is!
How can you empirically know this? You believe this only because you don’t believe in God and creation. For you to admit that there is a huge degree of difference between human and animal minds would contradict your whole world view, so you hold, in faith, to your statement above. If what you say is true, and animals were here millions of years before man, then why didn’t they establish order and civilization?
Carl, I love animals and I hate cruelty, but you’re either not explaining yourself very well, or, in this area, you are deluded.
Your list of influences aren’t much help, since they are the opinions of men and women, who, I would imagine, deny God and creation!
**************************************************************
Follow up to my comment on the soul. Soul simply means being and nothing more! I believe that we’ll have eternal life after the end of the ages, but our living soul (being) now will die, and we will be raised up new, as Paul states in 1 Corinthian 15.
It’s desensitization, which leads to dehumanization: been there, thought that! When we upset the natural balance that God created, then we lose our “common sense,” our God given ability to be rational. Then, we are capable of almost anything: we are like the animals who respond according to their nature! But God gave man something better, which many of us have rejected: “…so God gave them over (let them go their own way) to a depraved mind.”
‘Breath of life’ is essentially what we refer to as ‘spirit’. In other words, we are flesh taken from the ground and spirit given from God. Those things together are the ‘soul’.
There is lots of debate as to exactly what ‘mind’ is. My feeling is that it encompasses both flesh and spirit. So is spirit simply mindless energy? Or does it retain components of ‘mind’ or ‘self’ when separated from the body at death? I do know from direct personal experience that ‘mind’ or ‘consciousess’ is not confined by time or space – but I was not physically dead when I had those experiences!
Consider that if the dead “know nothing”, then they are also unaware of the passage of time. So in that case, you die and then your next conscious moment is at the resurrection, where the corruptible has now become the incorruptibe (flesh), and ‘self’ is restored.
Anyway, this is all in the realm of theology, so I’m not sure how meaningful it really is.
I suppose a few comments are in order . . .
Firstly, yes, you’re right DB to suggest that the opinions of men and woman I mentioned above are those of people who deny God and Creation — as you understand those notions. But I did not mention them in order to convince anyone here that what I am saying is true. I do not believe that it is within my powers to convince anyone here of that. Our world-views are simply too different. My purpose in being a commenter on this blog is rather to convince others here that one can hold a naturalistic world-view without being a danger to society, an incipient Nazi, or have insufficient respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Secondly, I don’t deny that the differences between human mind and (most) animals minds are significant indeed — as I’ve indicated in my discussions with Mynym here, I am quite happy to accept the Aristotelian tradition with regards humans as “rational animals.” (And I accept ‘rational’ here in something of an Aristotelian, and something of a Kantian, sense — more on that later.) All I mean to deny is that these differences are best thought of as differences in kind.
I’m assuming, as a general principle, that small changes at one level of organization can have massive repercussions at other levels of organization. (By general principle, I mean that this principle governs the behaviors of quarks and quasars, and everything in between.) So it is no objection to my view that minor genetic changes can result in significant changes in brain size, and that significant changes in brain size can result in massive changes in culture, technology, gender roles, ecological niches, etc. The trick, of course, is to figure out the details — which genetic changes, how those genetic changes affected brain growth, etc.
I don’t know if the entire story will be worked out to the complete satisfaction of all — in fact, I rather doubt it! — so there will always be room for reasonable skepticism on many points. But I do think that what we do currently know about the genetic regulation of brain development is pretty impressive, and we’re likely to know much, much more as research continues.
Thirdly — and this is more on the level of ethics — it does not follow from the continuity thesis that we ought to treat human beings as we presently treat animals. So I do not see dehumanization as following from the continuity thesis as you do. The continuity thesis, as I understand it, implies that we are not justified in treating the other animals as we presently do. It is not matter of dragging humans ‘down’ but a matter of lifting animals ‘up.’
I don’t see how it is degrading to human beings, or to the capacity of reason which is, or might be, unique to human beings, to see the matter this way. Or, perhaps put otherwise: if one had a world-view which was premised upon the fundamental dichotomy between human beings and other animals, then yes, I can see how the continuity thesis would be regarded as degrading and dehumanizing. But I simply do not share in that world-view, so the continuity thesis does not pose, to my way of thinking, any threat of dehumanization, or to desensitization to human suffering.
I should add, perhaps, that I do not deny at all that there is dehumanization at a massive scale in present-day society, or that desensitization to human (and animal) suffering is rampant. I do not deny that at all! I simply do not think that naturalism in general, or the continuity thesis in particular, is either a cause or a symptom of said dehumanization (and “de-animalization”).
Okay, you’ve convinced us a long time ago….now what? I don’t think you’ll find any of the commenters here having a desire to lock up all the naturalists because of their danger to society.
Now I’m in it because I find philosophical conversations enjoyable!
Well, that makes more sense. 😉
I simply do not think that naturalism in general, or the continuity thesis in particular, is either a cause or a symptom of said dehumanization (and “de-animalization”).
Naturalism is generally a word empty of content or meaning and on your own account you doubt that anyone knows what it means so it’s not apparent what you mean by it or exactly what you think you are defending.
At any rate, history shows that those who reject our current status as being created in the image of God with animals being sacrificed for us always bring man down to the level of an animal and not the other way around. Like Marxists who treat Christian charity as a given while denying Christianity many “animal rights” activists take essential Christian doctrines and portray themselves as proponents of the same “heaven on earth” as advocates of re-establishing the nudism, vegetarianism, natural harmony and so on of an Edenic paradise. So where is the heaven on earth of the Marxists or the Eden of the environmentalists? They seem to exist in an imaginary world. In the real world those who pervert Christian doctrines by denying their foundation and fulfillment in the Christ* cause death and destruction because they divorce Christian doctrines from the moderating perspective of their foundation and context.
*(The Lamb that was sacrificed as an animal, the clothing, the Word at the root of language and therefore civilization, the One who claims that every act of charity is done in his name/identity, etc. Note that most charitable acts are an inversion of Darwinism.)
Mynym, have you never taken any time to seriously study any religion or philosophy other than Judaism and Christianity? I ask because I can think of dozens of counter-examples to your hasty over-generalizations above.
Also, you assert that Darwinism is the inverse of charitable acts. This would make sense only if (a) the individual organism is the target of selection and (b) selection works by competition. But both are these assumptions are highly contested among evolutionary scientists. So: how did you decide who is right? Which arguments and data convinced you?
Have you Carl, or are you just asking? I’m certain one of the dichotomies of the Darwinists that you laid out convinces you, but why? What is the data?
Carl wrote,
I’m only speaking for myself here! “…seriously study…” Why? From what I can tell of most agnostics and atheists, they seem to be totally confused about Judaism and, in particular, Christianity. Of course, according to the Word of God, it is only those who have the Spirit of God who can discern what the Spirit is saying, so just reading the bible and taking religion courses won’t, alone, get it done.
I don’t need to have great knowledge of any confusion or lie to know that it is confusion or lies. There is a discernment beyond which carnal man can understand!
Mynym suggested, though did not state, that any religion/philosophy which fails to properly to heed the distinction between humanity and nature will lead to the dehumanization of the former. To support this claim, he(?) mentioned Communism and Nazism. These are not bad examples to support the point, but in response, it should be enough to point out counter-examples such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. That’s why I asked if Mynym was actually familiar with any religions outside of Judaism and Christianity.
The fact that DB didn’t seem to understand that there are any alternatives to Christianity, Judaism, and agnosticism further suggests that there is a bias here which is both geographical and historical: geographically, non-Western religions/philosophies are ignored; historically, non-Judeo-Christian religious philosophies within the West are also ignored — such as Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism.
(Not to mention the neglect of Islam, and that Judaism is treated as little more than a prelude to Christianity.)
If you’ve chosen to be a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, certainly you’ll get no argument from me. But you will get an argument from me if you insist that there is no viable alternative to what you’ve chosen — where “viable” means offering adequate conceptual support for human rights, equality, respect for the rule of law, limits on the exercise of human authority, etc.
I don’t know much about the debates about the units of selection. I know that Dawkins made a big ruckus when he suggested that selection acts on individual genes rather than on individual organisms. And Gould has argued that there is selection at the level of species, or even higher. I haven’t followed these debates closely and can’t speak to them much more than that.
But I will say this: it seems highly plausible to me to think of social animals, such as primates, carnivores, and cetaceans, as having a way of life in which competition is between groups rather than between individuals within a group. So there is nothing in this picture of things which stands in the way of seeing social rules as something that binds together members of a functioning group.
And I think it may explain why it is so difficult for us to act morally towards members of different groups — whether people elsewhere around the world, or members of different species. But then again, I don’t think anything prevents us from expanding the scope of the moral community, either, through imagination and empathy.
Does this answer your question, Country Shrink?
You seem to be making a caricature of ‘dehumanization’. It doesn’t necessarily have to be as extreme as sending humans to slaughterhouses.
Sure there are viable options in that regard. The debate stems from addressing the foundations upon which those worldviews sit (and we know you’d rather discuss hypothetical interpolations and extrapolations based on those foundations, rather than the foundations themselves, which is fine if that’s your passion). But this only goes to point out the vanity of philosophical and theological exegesis, because it’s very easy to lose site of real, lived life, while identifying it in terms “isms”. Epiphanhies are not borne in “isms”. Meaning must be “lived” after all. That’s what God is ultimately looking at I believe. He loves the Darwinist as much as the theologian.
Christians can learn a lot by examining the Jewish worldview, and especially the rabbinic literature. One critcism of Christians I have is that they tend to get lost in an overly-spiritualized worldview. There is no better way to ‘ground’ Christian faith than having a good understanding of how the Jews interpret their own scripture!
Of course there are other choices, Carl, but if you think I’m going to say they’re as viable (according to your definition) as God and His truth, then you’ll just have to “argue.”
My beliefs are not a hobby or strictly an intellectual pursuit. My beliefs are my life, without them I would have no reason to continue! So, I can’t bend to your demand that I claim that there are “viable” alternatives!
Now intellectually tear me apart;-)
Carl, you asked me a question on one of my articles, and I answered. I’m just wondering if you forgot, and I’m also curious about your response?
I wouldn’t put it quite that way. I would say that I’ve come to think, based on somevarious philosophical arguments that I’ve considered, that there are serious difficulties with trying to evaluate world-views in terms of “foundations.”
On the other hand, I also understand — at least, I think I do! — why this language is important for you. That is, I understand the interconnections between the concept of foundations and the concept of absolute truth.
I agree entirely.
True, it doesn’t have to be that extreme. Though I am willing to make use of the concept in order to express my criticisms of what I see around me everyday.
Mynym said:
Yes, you’re right. At any event the traditional concept of “nature” is intelligible in relation to the concept of “God” and of “humanity” — so if I were to call myself a naturalist, I would need to articulate what concept of nature I’m appealing to.
Mynym suggested, though did not state, that any religion/philosophy which fails to properly to heed the distinction between humanity and nature will lead to the dehumanization of the former. To support this claim, he(?) mentioned Communism and Nazism.
Those are the most relevant to Americans given that they are generally the political manifestations of Nature based religions or philosophies of Christian apostates. So if history is any measure if Americans increasingly adhere to philosophic naturalism and so on then similar patterns will emerge.
These are not bad examples to support the point, but in response, it should be enough to point out counter-examples such as Hinduism…
Hinduism may not be a counter-example because it is rooted in spiritual monism and it breaks down the distinction between human and animal. In fact the spiritual monism typical to it is similar to some notions of common descent given that both tend to be based on a mythological view of the biological unity of mankind with all things, although there are different schools of thought in Hinduism and Darwinism as well.
At any rate, the examples that are the most relevant to Americans are Communism and Nazism because they came about in cultures originally shaped by Christianity that degenerated into Nature based philosophies or religions. The rest is interesting to talk about but it’s not as relevant.
That’s why I asked if Mynym was actually familiar with any religions outside of Judaism and Christianity.
There are different schools of thought in all religions but the same patterns having to do with immanence and transcendence and the distinction between human and animal and so on that I’ve mentioned here seem to have a general application.
To answer your question I generally haven’t studied any religious texts extensively and that seems to me to be the only way to say something about religion specifically, although there may be other ways to study it. It seems to me that you would need to cite religious texts and so on but in the case of Hinduism the blurring of the basic natural categories like human and animal actually seems apparent and the results are generally quite poor.
Instead of pointing to Buddhists who essentially try to meditate on and believe nothing here’s an interesting question, what civilization has believed that the distinction between human and animal is not really that distinct and risen to new heights of technology, civility, etc.? It seems that the main distinction between humans and animals is language, language is linked to civilization (rule of law, right makes might, etc.) while dehumanization is linked to the absence of civilization (might makes right, etc.).
The most extreme examples are what we call genocides based on a biological view of mankind whether represented in Nazi propaganda portraying Jews as rats or what happened at the end of civilization in Rwanda:
You might point out that Hindus believe that cockroaches may be the reincarnation of the minds of people so someone could have argued for human rights through animal rights* in some way. That’s possible but it has little relevance to what actually happens at the end of Christian civilizations or the end of civilization in the West.
*The same arguments may be necessary in America, given that unborn animals have more rights under the law than unborn humans one could try to argue for human rights through “animal rights.” Unfortunately anything which passes through a Nature based pagan inversion of reason never seems to turn out quite right.
…so if I were to call myself a naturalist, I would need to articulate what concept of nature I’m appealing to.
So given what you have said you are here to defend something which has not yet been specified. This is a general pattern typical to Darwinism as well. You mention the debates about species selection vs. gene vs. organism and so on. That’s because the “theory of evolution” is hypothetical goo which generally has not even been specified. To the extent that it has been specified it has generally been falsified.
On the topic of selection:
Most charitable acts are an inversion of Darwinism to the extent that it is specified. To the extent that Darwinism is turned back into the hypothetical goo which typifies the “theory of evolution” from which it arose it remains largely imaginary. For instance, Gould generally imagines that evolution happened in such a way that hardly any evidence is left that it actually happened. Imagine that!
I’m only speaking for myself here! “…seriously study…” Why?
They are actually reading and writing from the same type of general revelation that you are and it’s important to do away with mental illusions rooted in language. But you’re right, it’s not as if everyone should study everything.
I love it!
I was, as I think you know, trying to make a point on that comment. I am not against any believer studying other religions (including Darwinism), or, for that matter, anything else. I have myself, but at some point, as you hinted at the end of your comment, we have to come to a decision and stand by it.
I might read a thousand texts about every religion, but unless I live in and experience that religion (for a great amount of time), in faith, my head is merely filled, for the most part, and beyond use in proselytizing, with useless information about it.
I believe God calls us to make a decision and stand in faith. Beyond a point, studying what I already know, according to my mind and faith, to be false is a waste of my time. Again, I am speaking for myself here!
You mean about the difference between organisms and programs? I haven’t forgotten entirely, but it’s on the back-burner, compared other things I’m working on.
Nope, it was on my site and about my offending you with my greeting. Never mind, it’s not that important.