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Fuel the Enlightenment

Michael Ruse on Darwinism

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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adambl Avatar
adambl
Posts: 31
Posted: 03.13.09, 12:41 PM
Very true. Religion has never been the cause of any conflict, only an excuse.
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MeMyself+I4life Avatar
MeMyself+I4life
Posts: 8
Posted: 03.14.09, 08:22 AM
As Ruse is supposed to be a philosopher, It is with jaw dropping awe that he does NOT realize that the debate concerns Metaphysics and does not have cultural/social underpinnings.

When Hillary walks out in a suit, Crationists aren't worried about crossdressing and role reversal. They're worried that she thinks she is the opitome of evolutionary humanity, that she's the latest and therefore the greatest version of humankind. By evolutionary definition, she must be better, more adapted and smarter than any forefather. Dismiss the unintelligent, unadaptive past! The consumerist culture just "naturally" has to agree.

The metaphysical baggage that accompanies the concept of "evolution" is staggering.
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Robert Holmes Avatar
Robert Holmes
Posts: 4
Posted: 03.15.09, 08:14 PM
"By evolutionary definition, she must be better, more adapted and smarter than any forefather."
Wrong! Evolution doesn't invoke concepts like "better" or "superior" and doesn't at all apply to the immediate past but the distant past. Hillary is certainly different than humans 100,000 years ago, but to answer whether or not she is "better" begs the question, "better for/at what?"
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MeMyself+I4life Avatar
MeMyself+I4life
Posts: 8
Posted: 03.16.09, 05:51 PM
" "Wrong! Evolution doesn't invoke concepts like "better" or "superior" "

No, I'm not wrong.
Do you really believe that "evolution" ONLY pertains to the BIOLOGICAL? I know some philosophers who would take you to task.

As to your," doesn't at all apply to the immediate past but the distant past"
Microevolution pertains to the immediate past and NOT the distant past.

Is the present form of the human race better adapted to the current environment conditions compared to a homo sapien from 100KYO?
It better be or Neo-Darwinism has nothing to say at all.

Therein lies the metaphysical baggage from evolution's presuppositions..
Not begging the question.
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HerodotusWept Avatar
HerodotusWept
Posts: 8
Posted: 05.29.09, 11:48 PM
Sorry boss, but Mr. Holmes is 100% correct here.

One of the great misconceptions about evolutionary theory is that it is somehow "directional" or has a "purpose," i.e. that evolution creates something "better" than what came before. "Better for what?" is exactly right. Evolution is a random event with "direction" only being provided by environmental factors and nothing else. So a bird that makes its living cracking open hard shelled nuts would have a heavy beak for this purpose, in this niche. Another bird (who perhaps could have evolved from the nut-breaking ancestor) could have moved further inland and began exploiting insects that have bored into trees, developing a long, skinny beak for this purpose. So which is "better?" Well, the nut-breaker would be "weaker" if they had to survive on insects hiding in tree trunks, but then the skinny-beaked bird would suck at trying to crack a nut. It doesn't matter which evolved more recently, only which survives to produce offspring.

Sorry, but attempting to call something outside of biology "evolution" for anything other than analogy is questionable at best. I don't care what a philosopher says about it. The two just don't equate past the most superficial of levels. You want to say an idea "evolved," fine, but don't think that your DNA is changing because you had a thought. Your simply changing your mind due to new information, you are not changing the environment just by thinking about it. If you could, well, I think we would all know about it by now!
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ajstavely711 Avatar
ajstavely711
Posts: 21
Posted: 08.17.09, 06:44 AM
"...metaphysical baggage from evolution's presuppositions" LOL!

It appears MeMyself+I4life is extremely confused about many things when it comes to the Theory of Evolution.
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joanieohio Avatar
joanieohio
Posts: 2
Posted: 10.15.09, 04:56 PM
May I suggest Walter Veith's "The Genes of Genesis" as a counterpoint.
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Kirk Blankenship Avatar
Kirk Blankenship
Posts: 3
Posted: 10.22.09, 10:18 PM
"FORA.TV... The world is thinking." This is what I believe to be a good and appropriate line concerning this site. But when I see people being mocked rather than engaged or plugged for more information, it makes me lose a little faith in the 'thinking' part of some of the fora.tv community. ajstavely, how could you possibly understand from the sound-byte info that MeMyself+I4Life provided that he is confused about evolution? His statements are quite valid in themselves. To mock the idea that evolutionary theory carries no presuppositional baggage is simply uncharitable at best or naive ignorance at worst (I will assume the former). The debate over the social implications of evolution will never progress until one can engage a disagreeable viewpoint charitably. Otherwise, all anyone will ever hear is "Darwin of the Galapagos is great!"
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Kirk Blankenship Avatar
Kirk Blankenship
Posts: 3
Posted: 10.22.09, 10:38 PM
The thing that seems to be most disturbing is the moral gravity that seems to be given to men like Michael Ruse. He is obviously a brilliant man in his field of expertise, but when offering answers to social questions he becomes a moral philosopher... an expert of which he is not. But those listening to him most likely roll his authority as an evolutionary biologist(EB) over into his authority as a moral philosopher when he speaks to moral/social issues. EB, as an earlier post said, doesn't speak of good or bad/better or worse... only what is. But any freshman philosophy student can tell you that it is fallacious to move from "is" to "ought". So Ruse and other EBs can speak to what they think is the case and be counted an authority, but they can't speak to one's duty or suggest an ought for cultural direction. For one thing isn't better or worse for a culture from an EB standpoint. It just is.
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