Talk:Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview (Talk.Origins)
Format
I'm still debating about how to reformat these titles. It will be a lot of work to get these changed over and I want to be sure.
I'm voting for having the originating site in Parenthesis, but maybe it should be after the title/subject.
- (Talk.Origins) Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview
- Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview (Talk.Origins)
- Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview (Talk.Origins response)
A good start, Charles.
But do we really need to have (Talk Origins quotes in blue) ahead of every quote? Surely once at the beginning of the article is enough?
Also, instead of Return to: Index to Creationist Claims, wouldn't it be more appropriate to have a "See also" section with the link?
Philip J. Rayment 15:29, 24 Oct 2004 (GMT)
Validity of arguments
None of the criticisms of the evolutionary worldview given here cannot be equally well applied to the Judaic/Christian worldview.
Example of what you mean, Roy?
Maybe this:
If the resurrection were true, then describing it would not be immoral. However, just as we have seen in the real world, at best, this "description" has provided a convincing justification for the grossest immorality you can imagine in human history, including slavery and genocides and religious wars and the holocaust. Roy
- I don't agree. The key point is "a convincing justification". God/Jesus/the Bible/etc. are use to justify all sorts of things, but are those justifications convincing? I would argue that they are not. Philip J. Rayment 22:24, 1 Dec 2004 (GMT)
- But the justifications based on evolution are not convincing either. Roy 18:54, 16 Feb 2005 (GMT)
- I disagree. However, I don't have the time to explain myself completely, so my comments will be necessarily brief and, probably, unconvincing to you.
- Evolution teaches us that the fittest survive, by eliminating the lesser fit. That provides pretty good justification for Hitler's attempts to eliminate what he saw as the lesser fit. He was merely doing what evolution does anyway, and in evolution it is not just a bad side-effect, but a key factor in how evolution works.
- The Bible provides plenty of examples of doing good, of helping other people, etc. In context, any "bad" things in the Bible that might be used for justification of immorality are clearly at odds with the overall teaching. What "good things" does evolution propose that provide a context to say that the "bad" things are not examples? (Sorry if that is not clear enough.)
- Perhaps you might like to pick a Bible passage that could be used as justification for immorality that we can use as a case study, to see if it really can justify it, and to compare to evolution?
- Philip J. Rayment 01:52, 17 Feb 2005 (GMT)
- I disagree. However, I don't have the time to explain myself completely, so my comments will be necessarily brief and, probably, unconvincing to you.
Evolution does not teach that the fittest survive by eliminating the less fit. It teaches that the fittest leave more descendants by being better at reproducing than the less fit. Evolution certainly does not include the idea that groups should attempt to directly eliminate other groups elsewhere who they consider inferior, and it certainly doesn't say they should do so to the extent of limiting their own reproductive success (Hitler died childless, and may have driven one of his nieces to suicide). Further, Hitler wasn't doing 'what evolution does anyway', since natural selection doesn't attempt to wipe out continental-wide populations in one generation, and certainly doesn't use the religion of an organism's grandparents as a basis for survival.
Evolution describes what is, not what should be. It doesn't include any message on behaviour except possibly to look after your kids. In some cases this favours social or even inter-species altruism, in others it doesn't.
If you really want to examine a Biblical passage, try Numbers 31.
Roy 17:48, 21 Feb 2005 (GMT)
- I'll concede that I didn't explain it very well. Natural selection is the elimination of the less fit in favour of the "fitter". This doesn't require that one group (the "fitter") set about eliminating another group (the "less fit"), but the effect is the same—the fitter survive and the less fit are eliminated. And this is essential to evolution. If this doesn't happen, there is no evolution. Sure, Hitler's methods and criteria were different, but the principle of the elimination of the less fit is what evolution requires, and that is what Hitler was trying to emulate.
- That Hitler failed to do that properly (as in his own lack of success at reproduction) is irrelevant to the point.
- <<Evolution describes what is, not what should be.>>
- Then where does "what should be" come from? The Biblical view is that "what should be" comes primarily from God. But if you eliminate God, where else do you get meaning from? Either from our own desires ("if it feels good, do it", or similar), or from what is. A consequence of evolution is that some creatures are expendable—if they weren't we wouldn't be here. Another obvious consequence of evolution is that we are intrinsically no "better" than animals, merely more highly evolved. So in effect evolution does give us messages that influence our behaviour. One message therefore would be that we have a better chance of surviving if (a) we eliminate our competition for resources, and/or (b) remove the inferior genes from our gene pool. Hitler's atrocities are an extreme form of eugenics, and prior to Hitler giving them a bad name, eugenics was a popular idea not just in Germany, but in the United States as well. It often took a more benign form, of forced sterilisation or similar, but it was all still based on the same principle of eliminating the less fit; just that sterilisation would take a bit longer.
- Re Numbers 31, have a read of What about God’s cruelty against the Midianites?.
- Philip J. Rayment 02:08, 22 Feb 2005 (GMT)
Philip, the Eugenics examples don't back up your argument very well. 19th century eugenics was based more on racism, and the influence from evolution was mainly from a misunderstanding of evolution. There's no evidence that Hitler was particularly influenced by evolution, only by an oversimplified understanding of heredity. And inheritance is what Creationists like to call "microevolution", and accept the overwhelming evidence for it. Eugenics wasn't particularly influenced by the idea of common descent or "macroevolution", and in terms of macroevolution Hitler's views varied throughout his life, and were probably somewhere around "evolutionary creationism" or OEC. So in the example of Hitler and eugenics what you are saying is that microevolution was the influence for an immoral world view, not macroevolution, yet you accept microevolution (at least, I think I remember you saying that on Wikipedia).
Additionally, Eugenics, which was never particularly supported by the scientific community, is thoroughly rejected by scientists, most of whom not only believe it to be immoral, but recognise that its foundations in science aren't very deep, and that it fails to recognise the interaction that goes into development of a living thing. So the example of an immoral world view you give is rejected by the vast majority of atheists and "evolutionist" Christians.
Finally, I always find it sad that people think morals can't exist without religion. Not because I know it to be blatantly absurd and wrong, but because it suggests that those people would believe that things I think are clearly immoral (e.g. anything that causes psychological or physical harm to another human), would be perfectly OK if they were, hypothetically, encouraged by their deity or holy book. Intelligent beings should be able to approach ethics rationally and it should be clear to theists and non-theists why fascism was immoral, it should not require a deity to command that it is immoral (I know this last paragraph will have no effect on those with a theistic world view, but it's always worth trying). Steinsky 21:44, 11 Apr 2005 (GMT)
I would not say that morals depend on religion -- we have seen far too many examples of those who do the most immoral things in the name of religion (the Inquisition, Al Qaeda, etc). I should rather say that what most people recognise as good (or moral) reflects God's character, which he has imprinted on us as part of making us in his image. This is what makes our conscience. When anyone acts according to it, he is acting morally since to that extent he is reflecting the character of God. It is not that whatever God says is moral becomes moral, but rather that his unchangeable goodness sets the pattern of morality. However, since we are all corrupted, we can corrupt our consciences [1 Tim 4:2] and a false religious system can be very effective in inducing such corruption. For that reason, we need to rely on the bible to tell us what is good, since we know that our own consciences cannot be fully trusted. Since evolution undermines belief in the bible, it also removes the check that should let us know whether our conscience is corrupted. Thus, we now have widespread adultery and sexual corruption, which are actually approved by the humanist establishment, and the mass of the population are more and more prone to random violence. This, though disapproved by the elite, is the practical outcome of their undermining the authority of scripture. Oelphick 16:47, 9 June 2006 (CDT)
Incidently, going back to the article (previously I was commenting mainly on the talkpage having just skimmed the article), you mention that Darwin's Origin is subtitled "the preservation of favoured races". A number of points. Firstly, "races" in this sense only means interbreeding and semi-isolated groups. Darwin used the word "races" because that's what any Victorian gentleman--theist, atheist, lord, merchant or Archbishop of Canterbury--would have used, it's an example of Victorian racism, not "evolutionist" racism. Secondly, group selection--the selection of one "race" over another--has not been recognised as a mechanism of evolution since the Williams Revolution of the mid-20th century. Though sometimes one group will die out and other survive, it is either as a result of individual selection within isolated populations over time, followed by displacement, or just bad luck, e.g. a localised natural disaster. So the subtitle of Darwin's book is no more evidence that "evolutionists" are racist, than the observation that creationist Christians shipped black slaves to the US is evidence that creationists are racist: both were from a bygone age when racism was widespread, and old paradigms have since been revised as we've learnt more (and the claim still hasn't magically started being evidence against evolution, by the way, still just an unhelpfull distraction). Steinsky 22:07, 11 Apr 2005 (GMT)
incorrect analogy
Gravity pulls things down. Therefore, down is natural. Airplanes are violations of nature and must be eliminated. Standing upright is immoral and counter gravity. Pushing people off cliffs is good!
I was reading the evowiki and found this in their response to the creationist claim that neo-darwinism is the main cause for nazism, marxism, etc..
following the laws of gravity does nothing to help us as a species, but killing off the weak supposedly helps nature give us species that are more fit. In the creation model, this would not be the case since we believe natural selection to be what the litteral meaning of the word implies, a selection of DNA. It is not beneficial in the creation model, while it is in the evolutionnary model.
I didn't post this in the evowiki because I wanted to make sure with you guys that what I said was correct.
-- RichardT 02:18, 30 November 2006
Response
Found a response to this on YouTube, for those who are interested. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY6qFVanp58 Shinydarkrai94 11:30, 30 May 2011 (PDT)
