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User talk:Philip J. Rayment/Evolution (view source)
Revision as of 22:19, October 2, 2008
, 22:19, October 2, 2008a counter-essay
[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:44, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:44, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
== My response to your essay ==
I'm glad you wrote this. It provides a good platform on which to discuss evolution and also sets out your views in a clear way conducive to debate, so thanks. I'm going to go through it bit by bit.
First of all:
{{QuoteBox|The argument is often made that evolution just is; it has no meaning, or, to put it another way, it is not prescriptive. Therefore evolution could not, for example, be said to be a racist idea.
We really have two questions here:
* It is proper to use the "facts" of evolution (or any idea for that matter) to derive meaning, purpose, or justification for actions?
* If it is proper, are any particular given claims the correct or incorrect meanings, purposes, or justifications?}}
I really do not think those two questions can be derived from that first couple of sentences. The question it would be reasonable to derive is this:
* Can the "facts" of evolution (or any theory; 'idea' if you insist) make political, moral, or social statements (and the like) inherently?
The answer to this question is 'no'. Gravity does not tell us falling is good, thermodynamics does not insist that it would be immoral for heat to pass from a hotter object to a cooler one, and evolution does not deride or condemn species that are less fit.
With regard to your two questions, they seem to me to be a bit vaguely phrased, but specifics are added in the following sections so I'll deal with them as they arise.
<blockquote>
"'''Is it proper to derive meaning?'''"
</blockquote>
You provide a number of examples of people deriving 'meaning' from evolution. No problems there; in fact, it put me in mind of another [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pa34orcwwA example] of someone drawing meaning from facts. Obviously, people can and do use evolution to support their views. I don't really think anyone has argued that it ''cannot'' be used in that way; rather people have been arguing that it ''should'' not, or not in the way that it has been anyway.
Your examples demonstrate how broad 'drawing meaning' is. I would be willing to bet that I could 'draw meaning' from quite literally anything whatsoever. The question of how appropriate my inference would be is (as you rightly distinguish) completely seperate, but honestly, overall this first section seems a little pointless.
<blockquote>
"'''Are particular meanings proper to derive? '''"
</blockquote>
As a general question my answer is a resounding 'perhaps'. I might be wrong about what you would consider constituted a derived meaning, but it seems to me any derived meaning would be, to one extent or another, a personal viewpoint. Take Carl Sagan's observation on the insignificance of the earth in the universe. This seems to me to be a reasonable statement, but insignificance is relative and ultimately up to anyone to decide for themselves. Another example. Scientific statement: the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Derived meaning: That is an extremely long time. Most people might agree with that, so you could say it was a 'proper' meaning, but it isn't 'true' in the same way the original statement is either true or false.
However, I could state more strongly that some meanings are (clearly) not proper to derive. If I looked at cellular structure and thought it meant I should become a travel agent, this would be illogical and an inappropriate way to think about cells and jobs.
<blockquote>
"'''Moral values in general'''"
</blockquote>
I pretty much agree with this, although I find the last two paragraphs to be a little strange.
{{QuoteBox|So at the very least, even if evolution doesn't provide justification for given acts, neither does it provide any objection to those acts.}}
Replace the word 'evolution' there with 'chemistry' or 'astronomy' and the sentence remains correct. It would even be correct if you stuck a noun like 'a table' into it. Scientific theories have no obligation to contain moral precepts.
{{QuoteBox|If a person murders and claims that it was the Christian thing to do, the person is clearly acting inconsistently with the belief he claims to follow, as the Bible considers murder to be wrong. But if a person murders and claims that it was the '''geologically''' correct thing to do, the person is not acting inconsistently with the belief at all, as '''geology''' provides no objection to murder.}}
<blockquote>
"'''Racism'''"
</blockquote>
You still have yet to provide any foundation whatever for the statement "evolution is a racist idea". Even if it caused many people to become racists, this would not make evolution a racist idea. Evolution cannot be racist any more than paleontology can be socialist. Scientists observe phenomena, form hypotheses, and then subject the hypthoses to rigorous tests to attempt to determine how valid they are. There is no room in this method for a subjective judgement about racial superiority or anything of the sort.
Your section on consequences doesn't add anything significant to your argument.
<blockquote>
"'''Conclusion'''"
</blockquote>
Even taking everything in your essay as valid, it certainly does not demonstrate that evolution has terrible social consequences. All that you can demonstrate is that a consequence of evolutionary theory is that racists used the theory to support their ideas. Show me a case of someone studying evolution and then becoming a racist based on that.
You'll note that Stephen Jay Gould, very importantly, does not say evolutionary theory resulted in more racism. He says it resulted in more 'biological arguments for racism' - this is entirely different and also completely sensible. Racists started to use more biological justification for their beliefs; but did more people become racist? I don't believe so, and you have offered no evidence that they did.
My own conclusions on this essay can be summed up as follows:
'''1)''' Your argument does not really address the matter raised in your opening paragraph (the prescriptive or descriptive nature of evolution).
'''2)''' Like all scientific theories, evolution is descriptive and offers no social or moral judgements, and you make no arguments to the contrary.
'''3)''' And although it is a secondary matter, you do not provide an argument that evolution has caused people to become racist; merely that racists use evolutionary rationale.
I hope I have not blathered too much, and I look forward a great deal to hearing your thoughts.[[User:Sam99foster|Sam99foster]] 18:19, 2 October 2008 (EDT)