evolutionary outcomes

[cyberlizard]

isn't it the case that if evolutionary philosophy is carried through to its logical outcome, rape and pillage become perfectly acceptable as a means to an end to further the dissemination of an individuals genetic code.

any opinions?


Steve

 

[Mallon]

Evolution isn't a philosophy. It's a science.
Evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive.

 

[Chesterton]

isn't it the case that if evolutionary philosophy is carried through to its logical outcome, rape and pillage become perfectly acceptable as a means to an end to further the dissemination of an individuals genetic code.

any opinions?

Steve

Absolutely. And rape and pillage are only two of many means. Murder, theft, adultery, lying, betrayal, slavery, political tyranny, all could be efficacious in furthering the dissemination of an individual's genetic code. "Hate thy neighbor" would be the rule, right?

 

[ThankGodforGod]

Absolutely. And rape and pillage are only two of many means. Murder, theft, adultery, lying, betrayal, slavery, political tyranny, all could be efficacious in furthering the dissemination of an individual's genetic code. "Hate thy neighbor" would be the rule, right?

That all depends on if the philosophy of gravity allows it. You are talking non-sense, evolution is science, not philosophy.

 

[Chesterton]

Evolution isn't a philosophy. It's a science.
Evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Just because you don't derive a philosophy from the TOE doesn't mean that no one else does.

 

[Mallon]

Just because you don't derive a philosophy from the TOE doesn't mean that no one else does.

But deriving a philosophy from the theory of evolution makes about as much sense as deriving one from gravity or from electrons.
What would a philosophy of evolution look like? You appear to pick on the ugly side of evolution, but the same process has led to great mutualisms. How do we account for that in a philosophy of evolution?

 

[metherion]

isn't it the case that if evolutionary philosophy is carried through to its logical outcome, rape and pillage become perfectly acceptable as a means to an end to further the dissemination of an individuals genetic code.

While what Mallon and ThankGodForGod have said is true about evolution not leading to a philosophy, let me humor this.

Okay, we have this 'evolutionary philosophy'. So consider this: Human are social animals. Like many other social animals (examples including lions in their prides, cattle in their herds, wolves in their packs, and so on), there are huge benefits derived from being in the group. And the group has certain rules, a pecking order inside of it if you will. Order in which people get to eat, who gets to mate with whom, and so on. And since if the group dies, all individuals within the group which include any offspring an individual may have, the groups survival is paramount. And violating the rules usually gets one ostracized or killed on the spot.

So let us now apply that to humans, 'evolutionarily'. I can't think of a better word since the whole idea of trying to derive philosophy from evolution is utterly bizarre, nonsensical, and smacks of the naturalistic fallacy, I'll stick with it. So, 'evolutionarily', a human who rapes, adulterates, (depending on the group) or fornicates has violated the order of the group and may very well be ostracized, and (s)he will get no more chance to propagate before the wolves eat him. Or he gets sent to prison. Whatever. Similarly, if he violates property rules of the group (theft, pillaging, etc), or kills others (thus directly endangering the group by reducing its numbers), he will similarly be ostracized, and lose any further chance to reproduce. So his best chance to get laid and have offspring is... FOLLOWING THE RULES. Ta-da.

So even IF you try and derive philosophy from evolution (an all around bad idea, similar to deriving it from gravity, as has been pointed out, which I do not support, condone, and sincerely doubt most other people would as well), it still doesn't seem to go the horrible way most anti-evolutionists portray it to be.

Metherion

 

[laconicstudent]

Absolutely. And rape and pillage are only two of many means. Murder, theft, adultery, lying, betrayal, slavery, political tyranny, all could be efficacious in furthering the dissemination of an individual's genetic code. "Hate thy neighbor" would be the rule, right?

No. Formation of social groups is biologically advantageous. You may have noticed that the most successful animals form groups: Humans, wolves, dogs, cats, turtles, fish, crows, locusts, cetaceans, all other primates just to name a handful

 

[philadiddle]

isn't it the case that if evolutionary philosophy is carried through to its logical outcome, rape and pillage become perfectly acceptable as a means to an end to further the dissemination of an individuals genetic code.

any opinions?


Steve

Who do you know who accepts evolution and has developed this kind of philosophy because of it? It seems to me that only Christian apologists have this perspective about ethics and evolution. The argument is an appeal to emotion; evolution "would" lead to something bad therefore it is not true. The logic doesn't follow and it doesn't even seem to matter that nobody derives this kind of unethical worldview based on evolution, it only seems to matter that apologists can dream it up.

 

[cyberlizard]

That all depends on if the philosophy of gravity allows it. You are talking non-sense, evolution is science, not philosophy.

evolution is not science. it is statistics. it makes attempts at interpreting data, and drawing conclusions, however, unlike a true science, it is not repeatable due to genetic mutations, and it is not reproducable in the laboratory. Therefore although it can guess at what would happen in a given scenario, it cannot confirm it. QED: evolution is not science.


Steve

 

[laconicstudent]

evolution is not science. it is statistics. it makes attempts at interpreting data, and drawing conclusions,

You have done a great job of defining what a scientific theory is.

however, unlike a true science, it is not repeatable due to genetic mutations, and it is not reproducable in the laboratory.

Have you every heard of Lenski? Google "Lenski Long Term E. coli experiment". Evolution can clearly be observed in a laboratory setting. Lenski's work is really quite fascinating, as a matter of fact.

Therefore although it can guess at what would happen in a given scenario, it cannot confirm it. QED: evolution is not science.

No, Evolution is a theory, just like gravity.. Doesn't mean it isn't science.


I'm confused, what are you supposedly accomplishing by debating the semantics of what is science? If Evolutionary Theory isn't science, that does nothing to support ID or Creationism, I honestly don't understand why people bother with this tactic. Its pointless.


Steve[/quote]

 

[gluadys]

isn't it the case that if evolutionary philosophy is carried through to its logical outcome, rape and pillage become perfectly acceptable as a means to an end to further the dissemination of an individuals genetic code.

any opinions?


Steve

Darwin disagreed. You might read Descent of Man, especially Chapters 4, 5 & 7 where he discusses possible ways in which human moral sensibilities might have a root in social instincts.

Or Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene which analyses how "selfish" genes support altruistic behaviour, especially in social groups.

A lesser known work is Evolution by Association by Jan Sapp which stresses how cooperation plays as important a role as competition in evolution.

evolution is not science. it is statistics. it makes attempts at interpreting data, and drawing conclusions, however, unlike a true science, it is not repeatable due to genetic mutations, and it is not reproducable in the laboratory. Therefore although it can guess at what would happen in a given scenario, it cannot confirm it. QED: evolution is not science.

If any of this were true no one would be making a profit in genetic engineering.

 

[Mallon]

evolution is not science. it is statistics. it makes attempts at interpreting data, and drawing conclusions, however, unlike a true science, it is not repeatable due to genetic mutations, and it is not reproducable in the laboratory. Therefore although it can guess at what would happen in a given scenario, it cannot confirm it. QED: evolution is not science.


Steve

I agree that the history of evolution is not reproducible, but that alone doesn't exclude evolution from being science. In fact, nothing in history is strictly reproducible, so by your definition, nothing is science. But your definition of science is wrong.
Evolution is science because it can be used to derive hypotheses and make predictions that can be tested against genetics, biogeography, the fossil record, etc. And that's what science is: hypothesis testing.

 

[Chesterton]

Some of you have answered about what animals do, but I assumed the OP was about humans. Murder and pillage are concepts which don't apply to animals. (Well maybe pillage could, I don't know. But not murder.)

But deriving a philosophy from the theory of evolution makes about as much sense as deriving one from gravity or from electrons.
What would a philosophy of evolution look like? You appear to pick on the ugly side of evolution, but the same process has led to great mutualisms. How do we account for that in a philosophy of evolution?

Yes I'm picking on the ugly side, but only because it's there.

As to the philosophical aspect of evolution, it is pervasive. Dawkins said: "My original purpose in advocating memes, indeed, was to counter the impression that the gene was the only Darwinian game in town..." The TOE is way bigger than biology. Here's an interesting magazine article "We All Live In Darwin's World". I don't know if there's a single field of human thought to which Darwin isn't applied by someone, be it cosmology, literary and art history, psychiatry, etc. Pretty much anything and everything.

Just as physicists would like to find a Unified Theory of Everything, there are people who see Darwinism as a Unified Philosophy of Everything.

 

[Mallon]

Just as physicists would like to find a Unified Theory of Everything, there are people who see Darwinism as a Unified Philosophy of Everything.

Yes, and it's wrong. As an evolutionary scientist, it's frustrating to see people push such a philosophy, only to have my fellow Christians react strongly against the science of evolution in turn, as though the science and philosophy are inextricably tied together.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Some of you have answered about what animals do, but I assumed the OP was about humans. Murder and pillage are concepts which don't apply to animals. (Well maybe pillage could, I don't know. But not murder.)



Yes I'm picking on the ugly side, but only because it's there.

As to the philosophical aspect of evolution, it is pervasive. Dawkins said: "My original purpose in advocating memes, indeed, was to counter the impression that the gene was the only Darwinian game in town..." The TOE is way bigger than biology. Here's an interesting magazine article "We All Live In Darwin's World". I don't know if there's a single field of human thought to which Darwin isn't applied by someone, be it cosmology, literary and art history, psychiatry, etc. Pretty much anything and everything.

Just as physicists would like to find a Unified Theory of Everything, there are people who see Darwinism as a Unified Philosophy of Everything.

The theory of evolution has implications in other fields such as computer science (genetic aglorithms), or in philosophy of the mind (usually used to support materialism), for example. Neither of those examples have anything to do with morality, and neither do any of your examples. All rely on evolutionary theory to provide an explanation for the way things are. The only way that evolution is possibly related to morality is being an explanation for why human morality arose the way it did. Nothing more, nothing less.

The idea that "evolutionary philosophy" that gets carried to its "logical end" is something created by creationist organizations trying to tarnish the character of evolutionary theory (of which there is none; it's just a description of the mechanism of how life changes), and tie it into repulsive things. By creating a link between moral evils and something that has nothing to do with morality, people will begin to associate evolution with moral evils and say "that's bad." It is nothing more than yet another fallacious tactic to discredit evolutionary theory.

It is true that in history there were people who tried to justify racism or eugenics via evolutionary theory. But, we know that those people would've used whatever means necessary to justify their beliefs, and if evolutionary theory wasn't around, they would've used something else. Again, they misapply a scientific theory and derive it into something moral when in reality it has nothing to do with morality.

 

[Chesterton]

Yes, and it's wrong. As an evolutionary scientist, it's frustrating to see people push such a philosophy, only to have my fellow Christians react strongly against the science of evolution in turn, as though the science and philosophy are inextricably tied together.

I understand, but it works both ways. Atheists reactly strongly in favor of the science as though the science and a philosophy were linked.

I'm reminded of the famous tagline of a 1970's horror movie. "Keep telling yourself...it's only a movie...it's only a movie." Both sides should keep telling themselves "it's only a science...it's only a science".

 

[Chesterton]

The theory of evolution has implications in other fields such as computer science (genetic aglorithms), or in philosophy of the mind (usually used to support materialism), for example. Neither of those examples have anything to do with morality, and neither do any of your examples. All rely on evolutionary theory to provide an explanation for the way things are. The only way that evolution is possibly related to morality is being an explanation for why human morality arose the way it did. Nothing more, nothing less.

But being an explanation for why human morality rose, and being a definition of what morality is, are the exact same things to the atheist. If you don't believe me, go start a debate with some atheist on CF. You can carry it out for 100 pages and they will always insist that morality is natural and utilitarian, which is utterly different from our idea that morality is rooted in the nature of God.

The idea that "evolutionary philosophy" that gets carried to its "logical end" is something created by creationist organizations trying to tarnish the character of evolutionary theory (of which there is none; it's just a description of the mechanism of how life changes), and tie it into repulsive things.

I'm sure you're right in some cases, but the same idea is created by atheist philosophy to try and tarnish the character of God. "Life is competitive, parasitic, wasteful and brutal. Is that what your God is like?"

 

[Dark_Lite]

But being an explanation for why human morality rose, and being a definition of what morality is, are the exact same things to the atheist.

Not so. That may be the case for some atheists, but not all. It is possible to atheistically describe an absolute morality without referencing evolutionary theory.

I'm sure you're right in some cases, but the same idea is created by atheist philosophy to try and tarnish the character of God. "Life is competitive, parasitic, wasteful and brutal. Is that what your God is like?"

Don't think I've ever heard that comparison. It generally tends to be "we have sufficient explanation as to why life arose without needing a deity, therefore, there is no deity." The only atheists I've seen that use comparisons closer to what you are describing are the ones who agree with YECists that it is absolutely necessary that the Earth be 6,000 years old and Genesis completely literal in order for Christianity to make sense. The only problem, of course, is that they disagree with YECism and thus conclude that Christianity doesn't make sense. Of course, both those types of atheists ("militant atheists") and YECists tend towards the same logical fallacy of "Christianity doesn't make sense unless Genesis is completely literal." It is easily demonstrable that such is not true.

 

[pgp_protector]

isn't it the case that if evolutionary philosophy is carried through to its logical outcome, rape and pillage become perfectly acceptable as a means to an end to further the dissemination of an individuals genetic code.

any opinions?


Steve

Sounds like the OT.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.

Numbers 31:7-18

7 They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho. [a]

13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. 16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.


Judges 21:10-24

10 So the assembly sent twelve thousand fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children. 11 "This is what you are to do," they said. "Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin." 12 They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan.

13 Then the whole assembly sent an offer of peace to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon. 14 So the Benjamites returned at that time and were given the women of Jabesh Gilead who had been spared. But there were not enough for all of them.

15 The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. 16 And the elders of the assembly said, "With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left? 17 The Benjamite survivors must have heirs," they said, "so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. 18 We can't give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: 'Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a Benjamite.' 19 But look, there is the annual festival of the LORD in Shiloh, to the north of Bethel, and east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and to the south of Lebonah."

20 So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, "Go and hide in the vineyards 21 and watch. When the girls of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, then rush from the vineyards and each of you seize a wife from the girls of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin. 22 When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Do us a kindness by helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war, and you are innocent, since you did not give your daughters to them.' "

23 So that is what the Benjamites did. While the girls were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and settled in them.

24 At that time the Israelites left that place and went home to their tribes and clans, each to his own inheritance.