Theistic Evolution

t_w said:

Ok, but then I could just add that humans are in contact with very, very few living things. 'To rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the air, etc.' seems to be a statement from God that ignores the reality that humans arena of life is completely different and unrelated to that of most birds and fish. God's act of encouraging us to rule over all animals, even if they are animals currently living, is an irrational encouragement for the above reasons and surely not one to be expected of an omniscient being.

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It's difficult arguing about something I really don't believe in t_w...but I'm doin my best, hehehe.

But I don't see how it is irrational since man would have no real concept at the time of the animals that lived before him.

t_w said:

I don't see a fallacy at all. Every aspect of human beings has evolved, or is as a result of our evolution. I don't see why a sense of morality is any different.
Now, would a society that had laws etc. be more successful? Would a set of individuals that had a set of morals be more successful? The answer is clearly yes. They would be less likely to starve, less likely to kill each other and in general more stable and ordered as a society. This is a logical conslusion? I see no non sequitor from my premises to my conclusion.


P1: Every aspect of us is as a result, direct or indirect, of our evolution. A TE would accept this, as if we had never evolved form bacteria Jesus wouldn't have existed. And of course, a bacteria can't have a morality or free will or any of the attributes Christians say humans have.
P2: Morality is an aspect of us as a species, in that most human societies have some form of morality or some set of laws and some ideas of right and wrong.
C1: Morality is a result of our evolution.

Now, where is the fallacy. Where is the non-sequitor. Even if P1/2 is wrong(which they aren't), that wouldn't make the argument fallacious. it would be wrong, but not fallacious. I fear you have no grasp of what a fallacy, or even of what logic is.

As to 'this is outside science's realm', this is a statement that shows a true lack of understanding about what morality is and what science is. Evolution can explain, or attempt to explain, the existence of morality. Nothing else can.

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You've misunderstood rmWilliams's comments that science doesn't do ethics or morality. He didn't mean that science doesn't have answers on how these came about. He meant that science does not determine which morals or ethics are wrong or right, since those are subjective aspects that cannot be determined by science. What is moral and what is not, is something that is outside science's realm, and that is what rmwilliams was telling you.

t_w said:

In short, my argument is that it is irrational of God to give us dominion over all living things(or most) if we are, in reality, in contact or in the same 'realm of life' as a very small minority of them. I see God's role here as irrational. It would almost seem as though he isn't aware of all the other living things we can't have dominion over.

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Well t_w...there's a lot that's irrational about God, least of all this.

t_w said:

snip snip to address a single issue

As to 'this is outside science's realm', this is a statement that shows a true lack of understanding about what morality is and what science is. Evolution can explain, or attempt to explain, the existence of morality. Nothing else can.

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It appears that you miss my point. and in doing so fall prey to another kind of error about science.

Look at the issues in socio-biology or evolutionary psychology. Can evolution explain the rise of morality or talk about a morality module inside human beings. Yes of course it can, people do it all the time, that is what that field does. Can they announce that they have found all the reasons for this module, for ethics, for morality, for societal laws? no. that is a claim of sufficiency of explanation. Science doesn't do that either, metaphysics and worldviews make those claims. Science claims this as a potential and well evidenced claim, not a sufficient one.

In fact, if ethics and morality are a gift from God, science can't and won't talk about that at all. Partly because it can't see it because of it's commitment to methodological naturalism, partly because scientists are God-phobic and don't even want to be accused of talking that way. Does that mean that morality is not a gift from God and that science has proven it is not. of course not, that is the category error or confusion of levels error, where you are asking the wrong metaphysical questions of science.

take a scenario. say science shows a region of the brain that "lights up" when people think about God or morality. It terms this the God module. Does that prove that God is merely, only, sufficiently explained as, an evolutionary mechanism of survival of human beings? no. it is the problem of induction, the problem of sufficient explanations. It is one of a number of explanations, only some of which are scientific, or accessible via scientific methods. But nonetheless, such information would help define and refine those other not-scientific explanation as they try to deal in the real world.

science can and does talk about morality. but it doesn't "do" morality in the form of assigning good and bad labels to things.

it develops and propagates theories that talk about things but never in a sufficient metaphysical manner, also aware that it's tools don't work in the metaphysical realm.

however this does not stop Dennett, Dawkins, SJG(rip) etc from making metaphysical statements that purport to be scientific ones.
however the demarcation line between science and not science and between science and metaphysics is not a clearly understood boundary.

t_w said:

But if evolution can provide a valid argument that morality is simply a mechanism favoured by natural selection, then it follows that right and wrong are illusions, because in general right is what benefits our genes(overall) and wrong is what harms them. Right and wrong, if the argument that morality came about by evolution is true, are not special notions ordained by a higher being. They are one of natural selection's methods of judging.

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no it doesn't make a claim of simply anything. that is the take home message of emergent properties. It is true that chemistry is nothing but physics inasmuch as it is based on physics. but you can not derive the principles of chemistry from physics. likewise o.chem emerges out of chemistry. the principles of o.chem do not contradict the lower levels but they are not implicit in them but supported by them.

to state that because evolution produces a morality module and that all morality is illusion is akin to the claim that physics is all, that knowledge of chemistry is immaterial because it is all included in physics. hogwash, it finds explanation in terms of the lower level but the principles of the higher levels are not found at the lower ones.

can you explain altruism in terms of evolutionary psychology? are those the only and sufficient answers? or are they the only answers that science can give with its tools?
there is a big difference between science and scientism. don't confuse the two levels.

rmwilliamsll said:

In fact, if ethics and morality are a gift from God, science can't and won't talk about that at all. Partly because it can't see it because of it's commitment to methodological naturalism, partly because scientists are God-phobic and don't even want to be accused of talking that way.

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t_w said:

Wow - I was expecting a decent discussion until I read this. I'd expect something like this from a YEC, but theistic evolutionists tend to be fairly well-educated and logical....

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read some of the sociobiology stuff, especially E.O.Wilson, who because of his background and his adult reaction to it, does not wish to even sound like he is doing God-talk in his science.

it is a criticism that even in choice of words they wish to avoid. it doesn't mean that science is anti-supernatural only that scientists are aware of the issues and don't wish to lead into potential criticism from their peers that they are doing religion or speaking in terms of purpose or teleology. look at the reaction to ID, much of which is closing the scientific ranks against the reentry of Aristotelian final teleology back into biology as a scientific explanatory principle.

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t_w said:

Yes you can. Easily.
In response to all else you wrote, I have never suggested that it is science's job to judge what is right and wrong. I have suggested that it can logically be induced from the fact of evolution that morality is an illusion and does not exist indepedant of the human mind. This may or may not be true, but nevertheless there is no fallacy. The induction is logical. I have not suggested science should judge what is right or wrong, or indeed that such a thing can be judged by the scientific method.

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your position is what i refer to as "nothing butism" the idea that morality is an illusion and nothing but atoms in motion in the brain. it neglects the takehome message of emergent properties as i wrote earlier.

you can say: within the confines of science, i believe that morality is an emergent property of the complexity of the human brain as it interacts with the evolutionary history of both its development and the development of human societies. but you can never say: i am certain that morality is nothing but a result of ToE and as a result is illusionary at the level of human consciousness. This is a denial of: the radical incompleteness of science, it is never certain, the confusion of levels-category level error(between biochemistry and morality) and the error of confusing science with scientism, that confusion that says science is the only valid epistemology and its domain is the totally of existence.

the statement that:
morality is illusion is the same kind of error as stating that organic chemistry is nothing but physics. it neglects lots of important issues, as i've tried to outline above.

God has nothing to do with science. This is primarily because there is no scientific evidence for his existence. ID was rejected by science because it is not science, not because its proponents were theists.
Why do say scientists have a God-phobia?

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God has nothing to do with science
this is certainly NOT true concerning the Christian conception of God, i believe what you mean to write is:
science has nothing to do with God.

This is primarily because there is no scientific evidence for his existence.
if the domain of science is naturalistic then any type of supernatural being is by definition excluded from the universe of discourse. this does not mean that the being does not exist, only that that field can not talk about it. nor would i expect or desire for science to talk about God, for it would exceed not just its domain but its mandate and out run its tools.

ID was rejected by science because it is not science, ID is primarily rejected because science has with great difficulty freed itself from conceptions of Aristotelian final purpose and it not going to revisit the effort. science especially biology is defined as secondary causes (efficient causes) and is perfectly happy with the situation. but this is not a scientific statement but a metaphysics or philosophy of science statement. science does not prove that there is no final causes only that it will not discuss them. a big difference. i can agree with you not to discuss the pink elephant that sits in the corner of my room but that agreement does not make the elephant go away. only the discussion of the elephant.

Why do say scientists have a God-phobia? in biology because they don't want to give the YECists any apparent ammo in their debate.
in physics because they are aware of the anthropic principle and don't wish to give those guys more ammo.
in math because they are all neo-platonists and are crazy to begin with *grin*


btw
don't confuse the usage of Ockam's razor, which in the case of morality leads you to believe that explanation in terms of God are unnecessary, with the application of logical principles like deduction or induction. For O.R. is not proof in any sense it is a rule of thumb.

t_w said:

I never once stated that I am certain morality is an illusion. I only said that such a view is a logical conclusion. It is not fallacious, as another poster claimed. The view that morality is God-ordained is not a logical conclusion from anything. Hence, it is more logical to believe morality is an illusion than it is to believe morality is God-ordained. It is still possible morality is God-ordained.

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Even if we suppose that morality is an illusion, it doesn't stop us from making ethical decisions. We will continue to place an "ought" where it seems to belong. The problem is that any basis we put in place of "the will of God" is equally arbitrary. The well being of the human race is just as arbitrary as the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may his noodliness forgive me). This isn't influenced by the fact that one is real and the other is fictitious. It is still a metaphysical ought. The man who helps the old lady across the street because a noodly appendage pushed him into it will still be called greater than the man who didn't because he didn't feel like assisting in the well being of the human race.

The question is which source we will choose for our ethics, and why? In this case, science actually seems less suited for the task than the Flying Spaghetti Monster.