Evolution’s Religion Revealed

_{Cornelius Hunter

June 23, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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Did you know evolution is a religious theory? If this seems strange then read on. In this post I will explain one way that evolution is contingent on religious reasoning. Such reasoning is a constant thread running through the evolution genre, but it can be subtle. If you are familiar with the evolution literature you may have noticed this underlying theme, but exactly how does it work?

Enter evolutionist and philosopher Elliott Sober. In his new paper, Sober continues his work in analyzing the arguments for evolution. He has done much work which is particularly helpful in showing (i) the premises built into the arguments and (ii) the relative strengths of the different arguments evolutionists use. And strong arguments are needed for evolution, as Sober writes:

Continue reading here.

Comments

Echidna.Levy, ------"It cuts to the heart of his argument. His “immaterial minds and immaterial wills” sound exactly like the classic description of ghosts to me and I want to understand where StephenB draws the line with is “immaterial minds”. If “immaterial minds” can only exist in a material brain (i.e. he does not believe in ghosts) then that’s some coincidence." An immaterial mind doesn't necessitate ghosts. And so what if he did believe in ghosts? Would that be absurd to you? I believe in ghosts, am I absurd? You would be begging the question if you said yes, for you reject them, and immaterial minds, philosophically, not empirically. And this is the crux of the question, and it simply will not due to say that you've come to the conclusion of the question at hand.Clive Hayden_{June 25, 2009
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Echidna.Levy ------"Tell me, do you think your “designed evolution” is beautiful then? What about Ampulex Compressa? The wasp that gives roaches brain surgery? Is that beautiful to you?" On the grounds of undesigned evolution, do you the Ampulex Compressa is beautiful? Do you sympathize with Myers in praising the beauty of the Ampulex Compressa as a result of evolution? Is the notion of beauty itself ever in flux given that it is also a product of evolution?Clive Hayden_{June 25, 2009
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Clive, I believe it's relevant because StephenB has made claim after claim after claim along these lines
The idea that we have immaterial minds and immaterial wills that allow us to live a self-directed life-style is a far more plausible world view than the notion that we are nothing more than clanging molecules, that our existence is meaningless, and that we have no inherent dignity.
It cuts to the heart of his argument. His "immaterial minds and immaterial wills" sound exactly like the classic description of ghosts to me and I want to understand where StephenB draws the line with is "immaterial minds". If "immaterial minds" can only exist in a material brain (i.e. he does not believe in ghosts) then that's some coincidence. I have asked him this on several threads but he has not responsed, hence my reptition of it here.Echidna.Levy_{June 25, 2009
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Echidna.Levy, ------"StephenB, do you believe in ghosts?" Why is this question relevant?Clive Hayden_{June 25, 2009
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StephenB
How can anyone think undesigned evolution is beautiful except through worship?
You might think a sunset is beautiful but do your worship it? A rainbow? Your statement is illogical. Tell me, do you think your "designed evolution" is beautiful then? What about Ampulex Compressa? The wasp that gives roaches brain surgery? Is that beautiful to you? StephenB, do you believe in ghosts?Echidna.Levy_{June 25, 2009
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StephenB, LOL---I'm glad I missed that youtube video. On the other hand, I think lots of things which are undesigned are beautiful---I do a little rockhounding and the plume agate, obsidian, etc that I find are very beautiful. Some of the amethyst crystals in my collection are spectacular. And of course, by no means do I worship these rocks!herb_{June 25, 2009
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Materialists don’t simply argue that they may be correct
Indeed they do not. They provide evidence.
they do so to the point that the rules of rationality within science must therefore be re-written to arbitrarily exclude all inferences to agency in natural causes.
It's not that the rules have been re-written it's just that the current "rules" provide results. Don't forget for the past several thousand years your side has had it all. Everybody was a theist. You had your chance. Now look what has happened in the last 100 years alone - you have a computer! And in any case, there are many countries around the world where this is not true. Turkey for example has a strong belief in theism. Are the scientists there also oppressed by "the materalists?" If not, why no ID positive research going on?
At the same time they ignore the evidence against them, and they belittle anyone who suggests that materialism may not be true after all.
That's because ID proponents refuse to publish in the peer reviewed literature. That's where the debate is. That's where you provide the evidence. For example, Atom made a claim recently that Nature and Science refuse papers submitted for publication simply on the basis that they support ID. When asked for some proof of that he simply ignored the question. You got a single example of a ID supporting paper that was rejected from such a journal soley on the grounds that it supported ID? Books? Fine for the layman, but you can't make your scientific case with them to other scientists. Why should they bother to read work that has not been vetted? There are too many cranks out there for people to read every book claiming things that are simply too complex to condense into a suitable paper.
Sure have. ID is about detecting the artifacts of design. And I am more than willing to debate the evidence right here right now. It’s your call.
Can you name two biological entities, one which was designed and one which was not and explain how you came to that determination?Echidna.Levy_{June 25, 2009
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---Cornelius Hunter: "They openly express their beliefs, and the beliefs mandate evolution, one way or another. Evolutionists use the term “fundamentalist” to describe someone who has such strong religious beliefs." I once listed to a youTube discussion between PZMyers and Abbie Smith. Both went on and on about how "beautiful" evolution is, yet both believe that it was undesigned. How can anyone think undesigned evolution is beautiful except through worship?StephenB_{June 25, 2009
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Levy, Your misunderstanding of ID is evident in the content of your post, and your willful misrepresentation of it is explicit in your tone. Your suggestion that there is some sort of equivalence in the claims of materialism and ID is ridiculous. Materialists don’t simply argue that they may be correct; instead they demand that they’ve been proven correct, and they do so to the point that the rules of rationality within science must therefore be re-written to arbitrarily exclude all inferences to agency in natural causes. At the same time they ignore the evidence against them, and they belittle anyone who suggests that materialism may not be true after all.
Have you demonstrated anything whatsoever about this “designer” of yours?
Sure have. ID is about detecting the artifacts of design. And I am more than willing to debate the evidence right here right now. It’s your call.Upright BiPed_{June 25, 2009
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William
The problem is that evolutionists have never shown that such a series of steps can be done even once, much less twice, relying on law and chance to accomplish it.
Have you demonstrated anything whatsoever about this "designer" of yours? No? Glass house/stones much?Echidna.Levy_{June 25, 2009
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One thing I've been pondering is the following: We all know classical ID simply proposes the existence of an Intelligent Designer, Who may or may not be a God. I just reread the Ken Millar quote concerning the 10 elephant-like species on Cornelius' original blog post, and it appears he is referring to an unknown Designer, not a God in particular. So is Millar still making religious claims?herb_{June 25, 2009
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Excuse me for interjecting but I would like to observe if the world were perfect God would not have to die on a cross? Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science. William Dembski We started a fire in consenting to evil. God permits this fire to rage. He grants this permission not so that he can be a big hero when he rescues us but so that we can rightly understand the human condition and thus come to our senses. In rescuing us by suffering on the Cross, God does end up being a hero. But that is not the point of his suffering. The point is to fix a broken relationship between God and humanity. http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf Colossians 1:15-16 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:bornagain77_{June 25, 2009
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Cornelius: "IOW, an atheist can say that if an all-powerful god created the world, then the world would have these properties." Correct, Cornelius, but Myers was talking about an all-powerful god who is pulling the strings of history in to our benefit, not an all powerful god who is doing nothing specific. The implied results (a perfect world for humans) are in the description of the god (all powerful string-puller for human benefit). It is not a religious opinion to point out the obvious problem with that particular god, which doesn't fit observations if the world is not perfect for us. There's little point in quoting from Myers if you don't understand what he's saying. To clarify with a more obvious example, if a theist were to propose the existence of an all powerful god who was pulling the strings of history in favour of the Dodo, someone describing the belief as ridiculous would not be expressing a religious opinion, but an observation based one. Got it?iconofid_{June 25, 2009
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iconofid (85): At this point I can see I won't be able to explain this to you. For the sake of others, let me point out (what I would think should be obvious) that religious beliefs can be held hypothetically. IOW, an atheist can say that if an all-powerful god created the world, then the world would have these properties. I don't happen to believe such a god exists, but I do believe that if such a god did exist and did create the world, then the world would have these properties. The fact that the atheist does not believe that such a god exists does not remove the religious belief about the god. Myers' belief that an all-powerful creator would not likely create this world is a religious claim, not a scientific observation, regardless of what his ultimate beliefs are. Nor does the fact that {none/one/some/all} other {theists/baptists/libertarians/Spaniards} share this belief change the fact that it is a religious belief. It is astonishing that evolutionists think this is a scientific observation. In fact, the scientific observations are the properties of the world. The claim that an all-powerful creator would create such a world is a religious claim. Evolutionists are in denial about this. The religious claims of evolutionists are interesting, but their denial is really interesting. CannuckianYankee (84):
Question: Is the basis for this belief that “a God would not create the world as it is” stemming from a previous Christian heresy in your view?
Well no, but of course exploring that question would take us off in another direction.Cornelius Hunter_{June 25, 2009
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Sorry, wrong thread.William J. Murray_{June 25, 2009
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The problem is that evolutionists have never shown that such a series of steps can be done even once, much less twice, relying on law and chance to accomplish it. Evolutionists like Iconofid assert that such changes are evidence of convergent or parallel evolution without even having demonstrated that natural evolutionary forces are sufficient to generate even one such lineage, much less two. How can they be "evidence" of a duplicate of a process that has never even been demonstrated possible in the first place?William J. Murray_{June 25, 2009
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iconofid:
you need to provide a description of the religious belief that you claim is being used by all evolutionists
If understand correctly, iconfid is looking for a statement such as "all life descended from single-celled organisms" (just thinking of anything) which is accepted by evolutionists in general and isn't perceived as a rhetorical argument. I think that would be useful.ScottAndrews_{June 25, 2009
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Here's an interesting quote from the NYT article I linked in #80. "Richard Dawkins had a history of spirited arguments with Gould, with whom he disagreed about almost everything related to the timing and focus of evolution. But he reserved some of his most venomous words for nonoverlapping magisteria. 'Gould carried the art of bending over backward to positively supine lengths,' he wrote in 'The God Delusion.' 'Why shouldn’t we comment on God, as scientists? . . . A universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?'" And right after that there's this gem: "The separation, other critics said, left untapped the potential richness of letting one worldview inform the other. 'Even if Gould was right that there were two domains, what religion does and what science does,' says Daniel Dennett (who, despite his neo-atheist label, is not as bluntly antireligious as Dawkins and Harris are), 'that doesn’t mean science can’t study what religion does. It just means science can’t do what religion does.' The idea that religion can be studied as a natural phenomenon might seem to require an atheistic philosophy as a starting point. Not necessarily. Even some neo-atheists aren’t entirely opposed to religion. Sam Harris practices Buddhist-inspired meditation. Daniel Dennett holds an annual Christmas sing-along, complete with hymns and carols that are not only harmonically lush but explicitly pious." Both quotes are from page 10 of the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?pagewanted=10 The very last page of this article made me blink, as I think it will most others here. I won't quote any of it here, because there's just too much of it that is very relevant to this discussion. Let me just give you a hint here: the article covers some Darwinian explanations for religious belief, and ends as close as it can get to the idea that religious belief is so prevelant among us because perhaps; there is a God - although the author does not ultimately commit to that notion. He seems to stay firmly inline with the Darwinists - not surprising for the NYT. The denial of the obvious is so overwhelming in this article that you almost anticipate a contrary conclusion, but sadly, while it almost hits the nail on the Darwinian assumptions, it simply ends in a faith-confirmation of the Darwinian religion. Interesting read though - I found a wealth of useful material here.CannuckianYankee_{June 25, 2009
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"So, let’s have it." I wouldn't hold your breath waiting.Gaz_{June 25, 2009
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Cornelius Hunter: One of fascinating aspects of evolutionary thought is its denial. The constant religious claims followed by the constant stream of denials is fascinating. Here we have Myers saying this: We’re pretty certain that if there were an all-powerful being pulling the strings and shaping history for the benefit of human beings, the universe would look rather different than it does. I've already pointed out that Meyer's is talking about a type of god that some theists believe in, and expressing his opinion that observations of the universe do not fit a god of that particular description. From what scientific experiment did that finding about all-powerful beings come? None. It comes from direct observation that the universe is not ideal for our benefit therefore presenting evidence against that particular invention of theists, not other gods Remember, that particular god is supposed to be both omnipotent and pulling the strings of history for our benefit. It is not an argument against all gods, because that god is not the god of deists, for example, or of genesis literalists who explain all imperfections and evil by the "fall", or of many other theists. That is unequivocally, unambiguously, a religious claim (it is amazing we even have to spell this out!). No, not coming from an atheist. It could be coming from a religious person who is debating the character of god, and arguing against the "all powerful being pulling the strings and shaping history for human benefit" concept in favour of another, but even that's debatable, because the actual argument is based on observation. It has been around for centuries, and not surprisingly is still a popular belief today. And yet, here is the response: (icon) "he’s not being religious in any conventional sense of the word" (Cornelius) Amazing. What is it about “all-powerful being” that people don’t understand. Why do they think they can make religious pronouncements and then hide behind science? You could, perhaps, consider the difference between making observations about a particular religious belief, and religious pronouncements. A clear example of a religious pronouncement: "The world was created by an omnipotent being who guides its history for human benefit". A clear example of an observation about that pronouncement that requires no religious belief: "The world cannot be described as perfect for human beings, which is evidence against a god who is both omnipotent and desires it to be so." That observation is not an argument against other gods, nor an argument against unknown designers of life, just against one particular god that some theists claim to believe in. It certainly does not positively support evolutionary theory, obviously. (Cornelius) Then we have this: (icon) "What you seem to be pretending to yourself is that people think evolutionary theory is a strong scientific theory because of their interpretations of what your god should or shouldn’t be." Pretending? I’m pretending that evolutionists have religious beliefs?? My god? Amazing. "Pretending" can mean pretending to yourself. You're the expert on confirmation bias and denial, things you're happy to claim exist in others. Religious people who are also evolutionists have religious beliefs (obviously) and non-religious people who are also evolutionists do not have religious beliefs. You seem to be claiming that being an "evolutionist" requires some specific belief, which means that all evolutionists must a religious belief in common that you can describe. So, tell me what religious belief I have in common with a Japanese Buddhist evolutionist and a Chinese evolutionist who practises no religion, and a Catholic evolutionist, and a Jewish evolutionist. (Icon) "Actually, it’s because of the evidence." Actually, it is not because of the evidence. If that were the case, then evolutionists would not be claiming it is a fact and then providing religious arguments to prove their case. I think, at this stage, you need to provide a description of the religious belief that you claim is being used by all evolutionists. A quote from an anti-theist attacking one specific god is certainly not that. So, let's have it.iconofid_{June 25, 2009
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Dr. Hunter, I've read all of your links in #55. Excuse my ignorance, as I'm not accostomed to this particular argument for why Darwinism is religious - that a God would not create the world as it is. I've of course heard of this before, I just have not thought it out to any extent. I'm more accostomed to the argument that Darwinism requires faith (which I guess stems from this), and therefore is religious. Question: Is the basis for this belief that "a God would not create the world as it is" stemming from a previous Christian heresy in your view? I've been reading about Marcion and how he rejected the Old Testament God (The "Demiurge") because he saw him as a cruel, genocidal deity, who created a cruel and hostile world. Marcion saw the demiurge as a lower deity from the benevolent God of the New Testament. I know that Marcionism pretty much died out in the 4th Century, and his ideas are primarily found in the writings of Tertullian. However, his idea of a lesser creation seems to be similar to what led up to Darwinism. Also, I find a connection to his views of the Old Testament God and some of the arguments against God's existence coming from the "new atheists;" - the cruel genocidal god, for example.CannuckianYankee_{June 25, 2009
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UPB, Yes, I know, but I was sort of rambling. Sorry, I get that from my Dad (JK). :) The point I was making was in relation to Psychotherapy, which you mentioned. Connections to parental influences is often used as an excuse for chosen bad behavior. Perhaps I didn't make that clear.CannuckianYankee_{June 25, 2009
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Yankee, My post was far more narrow than your reply, and there is nothing in your reply I take particular issue with - with one minor exception. The psychological observation I was speaking of has nothing whatesoever to do with determinism as I understand it.Upright BiPed_{June 24, 2009
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BVZ (78):
Can you give examples of religios concepts that evolution relies on? I think thats what it boils down to. You claim evolution relies on religios ideas, can you give me an example of such a religios idea?
See Post 55 (Or Origin).Cornelius Hunter_{June 24, 2009
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html Here's an interesting 11 page article from the New York Times: "Darwin's God," about anthropoligists studying religion from a Darwinian perspective. I couldn't help noticing as I started reading this article, the assumption that viewing religion from a Darwinian perspective is rational, while religion itself is not. Hmm.CannuckianYankee_{June 24, 2009
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"Can you give examples of religios concepts that evolution relies on?" Thanks, BVZ. I was about to ask the very same question. I think I have an idea - one would be belief in a deity who is not present, but who acted in the past, then allowed evolution to take care of the rest. So we have an initial creation, but without intentional design. It's essentially the same as theistic evolution.CannuckianYankee_{June 24, 2009
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Can you give examples of religios concepts that evolution relies on? I think thats what it boils down to. You claim evolution relies on religios ideas, can you give me an example of such a religios idea?BVZ_{June 24, 2009
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Dr. Hunter, "Sober does not explore the religious penetration into science. He focuses more on the structure and power of the arguments." Ah, yes. That makes sense. I didn't sense that he was making an analysis of Darwin's religious views per se; but he seems to have set it up such that by his analysis, you can percieve the religious assumptions coming from Darwin. I earlier stated that Darwin was a theist. Perhaps he was more of a desit (as others have pointed out); which was a very common religious philosophy at the time. I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of Darwin's theory. Were there evolutionist elements in Jefferson's philosophy?CannuckianYankee_{June 24, 2009
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"More often than not, if that person then finds themselves later in life sitting across from a therapist or close friend, these unresolved (and often hidden) attachments come to light." Interesting. I think that attachments to parental influence in psychotherapy, while valid, is often overblown. You mentioned in an earlier paragraph that a child can end up either following in thier parent's footsteps characteriologically, or going in the opposite direction. Despite all the studies that could be done in this area, and I imagine that there probably are many, although I'm no aware of any specific ones; I think a lot of this is based on determinism. Now some aspects of determinism might seem logically valid, and to an extent they are, but I have some misgivings based on my own experience. I think determinism tends to overlook the fact that we are social "animals," and that our choices are not entirely influenced by nurture of course, but neither by our genes, but by choice, based on attraction and other influential factors. What I mean by attraction is that some things are more alluring to us than others, and often we make choices based on gaining what is most alluring. But "choice" is the big word here. Determinism relegates choice to something in our biological makeup, rather than something outside; at least if you look at it from it's logical premise. I think it's of course a combination of our biological makeup and other factors. Now here is something interesting when it comes to Darwinism, because much of what we experience in our culture regarding Darwinism is the influence of "social Darwinism," whereby our collective choices are aimed at the survival of the species. I can't help but see a contradiction between the arguments for determinism and the arguments for social Darwinism, when they seem to come out of the same assumptions: namely, that our choices are determined, and free will is illusory. If that were an actuality, then how could cultures determine the moral pathways that lead towards the survival of the species? Anyway you look at it, we must have an element or degree of choice made freely in order to make moral choices, which collectively made, affect the larger culture. We are not simply acting on what is instinctive or what is "survival friendly." In deed, at times we are capable of acting on pure altruism, which the Darwinists seem to reject. I mentioned in an earlier post (and I thank you for your compliment on my posts - I too have enjoyed yours) ... anyway, in an earlier post about Darwinian paradoxical tactics I mentioned the folowing: Paradoxical tactics are intended to force the other side or the intended target to either "shut up," or produce, with the expectation that they will not produce. They in-fact require the other side to make a choice, without acutally expecting the desired choice to be made. When I illustrated this by a practice that is employed where I work (in behavioral health) involving patients who threaten dangerous behavior for a secondary gain, the paradoxical "intervention" is to say "go ahead and do the harmful behavior." This intervention works for a very important reason: These people have keenly figured out a game they can play with current understandings about free will and determinism. They understand that their behavior is not determined by anything apart from their own choice, but they also see that others believe that they truly have no choice. We call them "Borderline Personality Disorders," but I doubt if there is really any kind of a true disorder going on apart from perhaps a sort of intentionally prolonged PTSD. If you worked with them you would know what I mean. The reality is, what they are essentially doing is playing the game of having a pseudo-mental illness because of the secondary gain - attention from nurses and hospitals, pampering, not having to work on the real issues of life, while remaining hospitalized for their "safety." Now don't get me wrong, it's not that they don't require hospitalization at this crucial juncture, because they do; but it is not because they have a valid and verified mental illness that can be treated (in fact most phsycho-pharmacological interventions do not work on Borderlines). They need hospitalization because of the dangerous behavior they exhibit by their own choice - and the mental health system placates to the behavior by not recognizing the chosen game that is going on. And this is precisely why the paradoxical intervention works; We challenge them to actually do what they say they are going to do, because they don't expect it. What they expect is sympathy, and counseling to the effect that it's not their fault because of their "mental illness." (i.e., the voices or the flashbacks are making them do harmful things - when in fact they don't exhibit the common signs that a person who is hearing voices or having "flashbacks" would exhibit). You see where free-will comes in here. Of course, we work in a controlled environment, and so we can take measures to protect them and others if they end up following through with their threats of harming themselves or others. Darwinian social and phsycho-social determinism is what I view as the deep social-historical cause of this kind of behavior. I'm not saying that they haven't experienced traumatic events in their lives - most of them have, and we are sensitive to this fact. But the common practice among therapists is to feed into the behavior by assuming a deterministic cause, without factoring in choice in the matter. This is why "Borderline Personality Disordered" adults rarely get better. It's not that the disorder is so ingrained that nothing can affect it. It seems to be that our current Phsychology is based more on determinism and less on free choice. But I mentioned in a post from a few weeks ago that this is changing in mental health practice as evidenced by the "Recovery Model." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_model The Recovery Model essentially supports a choice-based framework for mental health practice. As such, MH patients are encouraged and supported in making their own choices for recovery, rather than depending on the system. In other words, we continually train and encourage mental health patients to make the choices necessary to recover from their debilitating symptoms. So the trend now is away from expensive and ineffective institutionalization, and towards setting up a community framework of support outside of the institution. This will be a tremendous help for the characteriologically based disorders in particular; because it gets these people out of the constraints and dependency of the institution, and requires them to make real choices. But I think there is another application here: We have to get away form social Darwinism in order for this approach to be truly effective.CannuckianYankee_{June 24, 2009
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Cornelius,
The answers are that evolution is not well supported by the evidence, and that this is inconsequential because strictly naturalistic explanations have been religiously mandated for centuries (long before Darwin).
As usual, excellent points. Just don't get drawn into that thread on the origin of methodological naturalism! :Dherb_{June 24, 2009
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