I love Joyce's comment on how the reader is supposed to approach his work. It reminds me of a similar comment the avant garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor made about his music (which is equally incomprensible). When asked about Tayor's comment in Ken Burns' PBC series, Branford Marselais dismissed it as "self-indulgent bulls**t". And so it is...

In the first Ghostbusters movie Dan Akroyd said to Bill Murray, "you don't know what it's like out there. I've worked in the private sector, they expect results."

Those who can, do. Those who can't ...

I think you are levelling the wrong charge at Darwin. Darwinism doesn't say anything in particular about human nature (except, by extension, that it isn't malleable except over periods dwarfing indivdual life spans).

Darwinism may negate your notion of how human nature came to be, but it doesn't contradict your notion of what it is, or its immutability in the face of political whim.

In that sense, Darwinism and Marxism contradict each other completely, since Marx found human nature to be whatever society caused.

The entire concept of "class warfare" has it's origens within the social interpretation of Darwinism's "survival of the fittest". Whether it is a misinterpretation or not is a question answered only in hindsight. Darwin was not nearly as convinced that it was not applicable to human social conditions as his contemporary adherents seem to be.

When the need for an exclusively materialistic solution to each perceived problem is sought, one will be found. When all authority is lodged in the state, those solutions will be rationalized and forcibly imposed. The very fact that the academic class of social theorists presently employed by American universities is as extensive as it is proves the point. The rather wide and exclusive acceptance of scientific/materialism, with it's utopian undertones, makes me a bit more pessimistic regarding any lessons learned from the experience of the 20th century.

OJ, you make a lot of sense here, and I admire your restraint in not reflexively attacking the usual Athiest strawman that Feser goes after. In fact, your commentary never mentions secularism or athiesm, and barely references religion, which must be a record for you.

I concur with your psychological assessment of the needy Humanities specialist and the need to prove that their insights into human nature are equal in complexity and inaccessability to the hard sciences. It aligns with my assessment in the Joyce discussion below, but it is a need shared by the consumers of these "disciplines" as well, the readers, students and art conoisseurs.

Jeff, I agree with the bum rap given Darwinism (though amazingly, again, OJ doesn't single Darwin out). The insight that OJ credits to Judeo-Christianity, that man is fallen, is an insight that can be supported by evolutionary explanation. I say supported, because 'fallen-ness', or to use a less theological term, 'morally defective' is a value judgement on human nature and not a scientific finding.

We are very good at finding Darwinian explanations for those human behavioral traits that we equate with moral behavior, with good reason, I believe. But the flip side of the human coin, those behavioral traits that we equate with immorality, can be likewise explained via Darwinism. I started reading a fascinating book, "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom, that purports to explain the whole coin. Haven't gotten far with it yet, but I believe that the basic idea makes sense.

So I agree with OJ that the leftist project is an attempt to explain away a basic human insight. I don't think that athiesm, Darwinism or the scientific revolution necessarily or inevitably contradict this insight, but I do believe that a highly specious philosophical meme that was spawned during the scientific revolution, that men are rational beings who by nature are capable of organizing their actions and societies according to objective calculations of their best interests, is at the heart of the Leftist 'heresy'. Freud actually was instrumental in attacking this delusion, his theory of the unconscious mind and the proposition that man is by nature irrational should have put pause to much of the nonsense, so it is ironic that many of the Leftist quackeries would have spun themselves off from him, including his own theories on the human psyche.

OK so far as Orrin goes. One problem is that when universities were overwhelmingly Christian and conservative, the nonsense coming out of the humanities departments was just as silly, though in a different way, as today. And the nonsense coming out of the sciences departments, such as they were, was just as ridiculous as in the humanities.

Fashions change, but fashionable claptrap is with us forever. (We see this most glaringly not in the Eng. Lit. departments but in the schools of theology, which have a much longer history.)

Orrin's project here is to discredit darwinism by lumping it together with marxism and freudianism. This would work better if, on a practical level, darwinism had failed to result in any profound insights into how life works. Unfortunately for that hypothesis, darwinism did not fail, it succeeded spectacularly.

If Asian bird flu gets loose in the world, I'm going to opt for a darwinism vaccine. Orrin can take his chances with a holy talisman.

Robert:

Atheism is really an effect rather than a cause of these things.

Harry:

"One problem is that when universities were overwhelmingly Christian and conservative, the nonsense coming out of the humanities departments was just as silly, though in a different way, as today."

Examples? And I mean the ones that defined the popular academic zeitgeist, not the obscure ones.

You know, you can't get away with: "Sure it isn't perfect, but it was worse before." forever. That's why leftists still can't bring themselves to condemn Stalin even though he made all the Czars look cuddly.

Tom:

The problem isn't "class warfare" theories, but rather utopian promises.

Whether in this world or the next.

No reading of Darwin even glacingly close to his intent could derive utopianism from it.

Marxism attempted to impose an Earthly utopia; religious certainty a heavenly one.

Darwinism refutes the former, and has nothing to say about the latter.

The degree to which one believes the results in life derive from social, rather than personal, factors, is also the degree to which one trusts in material solutions to alleviate life's unfairness.

Religious people are no more immune to degrees of that belief than are areligionists.

Jeff:

Darwinism, by saying there is no ought, only is, no good or evil, only survival or not, is inherently utopian, excusing all our behaviors and allowing us to believe that we already live in the best of all possible worlds, because the only possible

Sorry, that stretches the term "utopian" far past the breaking point.

By your use of the term, whatever is, is utopia. Further, by your reasoning, the most fervent Darwinians would have to also believe that, because they live in the best of all possible worlds, no further improvement is possible.

Which also means no further change is possible, since any change would have to mean a movement away from the best of all possible worlds.

Yet the one thing a fervent Darwinian would believe is that there is no stopping change. And the second thing a Darwinian would believe is that the change is directionless.

Oh, yeah, it is reproduction, not survival, that counts.

That is a whole mistakes to pack into one sentence.

OJ
Darwinism says none of that. It describes mechanisms that explain what is and how it got that way, it has nothing to say about ought. Having nothing to say about ought is not the same as saying there is no ought. Ought is a value judgement, there is nothing scientific about it. No behaviors are excused, nor is this world described in a way that cannot exist in any other way.

Where science limits itself to the domain of knowledge, and refuses to encroach on the domain of ethics and values, then you accuse it of saying that there is no need for that domain.

If your plumber refuses to advise you on your options for electrical wiring, do you accuse him of saying that there is no need for electrical wiring in your house?

"Atheism is really an effect rather than a cause of these things."

Athiesm is an effect of the failure of Christianity to defend it's authority. Modern secular science sprang up like trees from the cracked foundation of Western Christianity, after the earthquakes of the Reformation. Leftist quackery also grew from these cracks, more like weeds, filling the vacuum of authority left by Christianity. When all men are priests, none are Popes, and heresy has no check.

Isn't the phase is "survival of the fit'" not "survival of the fittest"? The first means that an organism that meets a minimum requirement will survive. The second says that only the best will survive.

Robert:

Why, why, why do your persist in exculpating science and scientists from any responsibility for how their discoveries have, will or may be used by mankind? You wouldn't let a theologian get away with that for a minute. It can't be because you believe science deals in objevtive truth, because your own definition of science is that it is an open-ended system of inquiry that is constantly improving and updating itself. So, at any point in time, it can't claim to be true, right? So what is it that takes the work of scientists right out of the world they live in?

Robert:

But Darwinism is a philosophy, not a science.

Jeff:

That's exactly what Darwinists believe, that the world we live in is the only one possible at that moment. This has the obvious convenience of excusing all human pathologies and social ills, which is why it was seized on so eagerly as a political theory by conservatives and as a moral theory by liberals.

Peter:

You make a category mistake. Unless the scientist in question is also implementing his discoveries, there is no comparison to a theologian implementing theology.

OJ:

Darwinism is not a philosophy; it is a falsifiable explanation for natural history that has a very high concordance with observations. All the things Darwinism requires to be true in order to work have turned out to be true (age of the earth, particulate v. blended inheritance, the phylogenetic tree, a single DNA structure common to all life, number of genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are just a few).

It doesn't excuse social pathologies any more than religion does, it just offers a different explanation for their existence.

After all, the Bible says we are fallen, and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. If that doesn't excuse everything, than what does?

Jeff:

I'm not talking about a theologian "implementing" theology. I'm talking about one discovering and developing it.

"After all, the Bible says we are fallen, and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it."

Jeff, THAT is a classic!

Jeff:

There's no shame in your simply having a different philosophy than the rest of us,. the problem is the type of world it renders. But even Mayr doesn't pretend it's anything more than a philosophy, a different story we use to explain the world.

Peter:

How so? OJ says evolution defers to excuses everything. I fail to see the distinction between than and Christian theology.

If I am, by definition, irrevocably fallen, then all I have to do to excuse any moral trangression is appeal to my fallenness. It isn't my fault, it is the fact of my creation.

Six of one, half dozen of another.

The point of the commandments is that you may not excuse yourself by pointing out your fallen nature--you are required to fight against it.

OJ, if we are saved through faith alone, then why bother? That was Luther's conclusion, we cannot save ourselves through our own efforts, no matter how hard we try. If you are going to extrapolate on the type of world that a philosophy renders, then shouldn't you conclude that a philosophy which expects depravity but rewards only faith will result in the worst possible world?

Robert:

Yes, obviously we can not compel God by our actions, but faith can not be sufficient by itself else all sin is excused.

Sola Fides.

Yes, it's wrong.

This has nothing to do with the ongoing conversation, but even the sciences are rife with outright hostility to non-left/PC thought. Comments I have had interjected into conversations with academic colleagues for no apparent reason include: "When I hear someone with a Southern accent, I automatically assume they are stupid."; "People who believe in religion are idiots."; and far too many anti-Bush/anti-Republican messages to count. Shortly before each of the last few elections, I have received e-mails which ostensibly discuss important work but feel the need to throw in lines like "Although I fear the world is about to become a much scarier place with the probable election of Bush...(Arnold is another bogeyman for some bizarre reason)"

I have no problem shrugging off these and other comments, but I have no doubt that they encourage many people who are religious and/or conservative to leave academia, so that the situation becomes self-perpetuating. Why should someone who is deeply religious but loves science have to put up with such abuse? Many don't, and choose to either work in industry or change fields. What I find most sad/comical is that many academics echo those religious voices they hold in contempt, and state that religion and science are incompatible, which is nonsense.

Jeff:

You're not even trying anymore, and you really aren't interested. Are you now playing the role of Christian theologian? What about Judaism, Jeff? Do you believe it excuses everything too? After all, same scripture, same moral law. Tell us a bit about your take on Jewish theology and the historical sins of Judaism.

Peter:

Really, I am trying. The assertion is that Darwinism excuses everything. That is wrong--it is rather harsh about failure. The Darwinism that apparently undergirded Nazism and Communism is pretty clear about that.

Therefore, Darwinism does not excuse everything. Just like capitalism, it imposes some pretty harsh limits on what one can hope to get away with and survive.

From what I have read here, we are irrevocably fallen, and are left with striving as mightily as we can to adhere to an unreachable moral code. When we fail, which we inevitably will, then what? Are we judged with respect to our capacity to do well, or the gold standard? If the former, then it seems to me everything is excused. How does confession fit in?

In practice, the former and the latter are indistinguishable. For if either doesn't work in material terms, then it wouldn't be available for discussion, would it?

I wish you'd stop misrepresenting Mayr, Orrin. He spends many dozen pages in his main work on the intellectual foundation of Darwinism, explaining why Darwinism is a science. He does say that it requires a different philosophy (what he calls "population thinking") from the non-life sciences, but he does not say that non-life sciences do not also require a philosophy.

Peter was going to read Mayr at Christmas, but we haven't seen any book reviews yet. I admit that May's "Principles" is a lengthy work.

Jeff's certainly right to say that applying "utopia" to Darwinism squeezes any meaning out of the word, since one of Darwin's principal arguments against an active participation in life by a Creator was the relentless cruelty he observed everywhere. I don't recall that ruthless culling was part of More's vision.

Since Darwinism is also explicitly nonteleological, it not only is not Utopian now, but it excludes any prospect of Utopia.

That many secularists who were not specialists in biology thought differently has nothing to do with Darwinism. That intellectual strand came from a number of sources, but mainly a sort of weak-kneed Christian socialism.

Harry:

Darwinism is inherently teleological and Utopian, precisely because it suggests that where we are now is the point of maximal fitness thus far. It is always the best of all possible worlds. That's why folks llike y'all embrace it with such religious fervor.

OJ:

Your previous statement packs more misapprehension into fewer words than I have seen outside Democratic foreign policy statements.

While Darwin might have used "survival of the fittest," thinking in population terms insists on modifying that to "survival of the sufficiently fit" (or, insufficiently unfit--means the same thing, but more graphically.)--as Raoul noted above.

It simply isn't possible, without imputing to the theory concepts it does not contain, to get from there to "maximal fitness." Everytime you say that, you are exposing your unwillingness to discuss the theory on it own terms.

Jeff:

Here's Mayr, who we've agreed will be our sine qua non of Darwinism:

"5. Natural selection. According to this theory, evolutionary change comes about throught the abundant production of genetic variation in every generation. The relatively few individuals who survive, owing to a particularly well-adapted combination of inheritable characters, give rise to the next generation."

"well-adapted" is a value judgment. Belief that Darwinism renders species ever better adapted is teleological.

Well-adapted is a value judgment only if you think death is a value judgment.

Well-adapted is a definition, relative to environment and competition. Variations that don't survive are a combination of unlucky (random) and slightly less well-adapted (statistical).

Your assertion that Darwinism renders species ever better adapted makes sense only if the environment itself has some upward spiral of quality.

Organisms today are different than those of say, 65 MYA. Are todays organisms better adapted to this environment than those of 65 MYA were to theirs? Are organisms today more complex than those of 65 MYA?

Your assertion that Darwinism renders species ever better adapted is specious.

Here's Mayr: "... evolutionary change ..." not improvement, change. Not better, different.

How about you discuss what Mayr says, rather than what you wish he said?

Jeff:

So are you saying worse adapted members of species too may come to predominate? Or that neither may predominate? Or that the mix is so varied that it's kind of silly to imagine that adaptation matters much?

What's left of Darwinism by the time you're done denying its teleology?

OJ:

Where did you ever get the idea I said that?

It sounds as if you are treating the environment within which a species exists as being completely static over time.

But it isn't is it? Continents drift over thousands of miles, meaning their weather changes dramatically. (If organisms didn't change in response, then what alternative would there be to complete extinction?) The earth undergoes periodic ice ages and intervening warm periods. Meteors hit, and so on, and so forth. At any given time, the degree of adaptation is measured with respect to the total environment at the time, but that environment is never completely static over time.

Nothing is left of Darwin after you get done posing strawmen.