Darwinism continued

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  • Created by: maya
  • Created on: 31-05-17 00:43

Darwin theory background

It’s often believed that there has to be a conflict between religion and the theory of evolution

Some religious individuals and groups are vociferous in their

opposition to the Theory of Evolution (and to teaching it in schools)

Popular presentations of the Theory of Evolution often present it as an alternative (and better) explanation than “God did it”.

As part of this story, it’s often believed:

that Darwin’s theory dealt a ‘death-blow’ to religion

that from the outset it met with a lot of resistance from religious believers, and support from atheists

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Opposition to Darwin

But: Some contemporaries refused to accept Darwin’s theory on grounds that had nothing to do with religion

E.g. William Whewell, a 19th century philosopher of science, argued that properly scientific theories were founded on induction. For this reason, he thought that Darwin’s theory was not scientific.

J.S. Mill was only prepared to regard it as a hypothesis:

“Mr. Darwin's remarkable speculation on the Origin of Species is another unimpeachable example of a legitimate hypothesis. … It is unreasonable to accuse Mr. Darwin (as has been done) of violating the rules of Induction. The rules of Induction are concerned with the conditions of Proof. Mr. Darwin has never pretended that his doctrine was proved.”

Mill: A System of Logic (1875), vol. 2, Ch. 14, section 6

Karl Popper, in the 20th century, thought that Darwin’s theory wasn’t scientific because it wasn’t falsifiable.

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atheist thinkers opposition

Some very well-known atheist thinkers opposed it – e.g. Nietzsche, George Bernard Shaw

“Over the whole of English Darwinism there hovers something of the suffocating air of over-crowded England, something of the odour of humble people in need and in straits. But as an investigator of nature, a person ought to emerge from his paltry human nook: and in nature the state of distress does not prevail, but superfluity, even prodigality to the extent of folly. The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will to live; the struggle, be it great or small, turns everywhere on predominance, on increase and expansion, on power, in conformity to the will to power, which is just the will to live.”

Nietzsche: The Gay Science (1882), Aphorism 349

(See also Shaw: Preface to Back to Methuselah, 1921)

Nietzsche : Darwin influenced by living in England - overcrowded fight for Space

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Marx ambivalent

Or were ambivalent about it – e.g. Marx

“Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history. ... [N]ot only is the death-blow dealt here for the first time to "teleology" in the natural sciences but their rational meaning is empirically explained.”

Marx: Letter to LaSalle, 16 January 1862

It is remarkable how Darwin rediscovers, among the beasts and plants, the society of England with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, ‘inventions’ and Malthusian ‘struggle for existence’.”

Marx: Letter to Engels, 18 June 1862.

ambivalent- means having mixed feelings 

Darwen helped remove supernatural elements from the world- naturalise it 

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religion welcoming Darwin

Some leading religious figures welcomed Darwin’s theory, e.g.

Frederick Temple (later Archbishop of Canterbury)
Charles Kingsley

They argued that it was more befitting of God’s dignity to create a world with laws capable of creating life, than to have to intervene to create life.

There was no particularly strong correlation between religious denomination and supporting or opposing the theory:

In Church of England, Temple supported it but Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, opposed it.

The Presbyterian congregation in Belfast opposed it, but the Presbyterian congregation in Princeton supported it.

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why religious people might oppose TofE:

There are a number of reasons why religious people might oppose TofE: 

  • Goes against literal reading of the Bible
  • Means there’s no sharp cut-off between humans and other animals
  • The most obvious reason is that it goes against the Argument from Design
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Goes against literal reading of the Bible

But the belief in a literal reading of the Bible was being greatly weakened at this time anyway

Goes against literal reading of the BibleBut the belief in a literal reading of the Bible was being greatly weakened at this time anyway.

Essays and Reviews (1860), by a group of Anglican clergymen, introduced German Higher Criticism to England.

This was the idea that the Bible needs to be read in light of our other historical and scientific knowledge

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Means there’s no sharp cut-off between humans and

Means there’s no sharp cut-off between humans and other animals

Some people were prepared to accept the Theory of Evolution but argued that a special intervention by God was needed to create humans

E.g. Alfred Russell Wallace

But Wallace thought that he had good scientific evidence for this view

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Evolution and the Argument from Design: A Complex

“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; ... But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? ... For this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive - what we could not discover in the stone - that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose”

William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

See also the Bridgewater Treatises, by various authors (1833-1840)

William Paley- produces famous analogy - watch - purpose- clearly living things exhibit this serves a purpose- eye- therefoe suggest designer/special entity made watch/us 

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Paley's argument

Paley’s design argument relies on the idea that the ‘design’ of living things requires a special explanation – i.e. an explanation over an above any explanation of why the physical world is the way it is.

But this is a relatively new way of thinking about the argument from design.

The Greek word telos means ‘end’ or ‘goal’, but
(i) It doesn’t in any way imply ‘organized complexity’.

(ii) And it applies to natural processes in general, not just to living things and machines

For Aristotle, the telos of a stone is to fall towards the Earth.

Aristotle does say that the telos of parts of living things is to sustain the soul, but there’s no suggestion that he thinks this requires a special explanation.

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Acquinas & Hume

Thomas Aquinas:

“Goal directed behaviour is observed in all bodies obeying natural laws”

– Summa Theologica (1265-74), Article 3, Question 2

David Hume

:“Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain.”

– Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part II

Hume uses language of machinery - new intro- intricate machinery - seeing animals as machines - can argue industrial revolution 

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Dawkin's take on Darwinism

Paley’s argument impressed Darwin, and his own studies convinced him that the parts of animals were designed.

When writing On the Origin of Species he saw this ‘design’ as the thing that needed to be explained.

Even Richard Dawkins describes himself as a ‘transformed Paleyan’.

What Darwin objected to was not the idea of God but the idea of special creation

– i.e.

(1) that each type of living thing requires a separate act of creation

.(2) that the existence of living things needs an explanation separate from the existence of the rest of the world.

What Darwin is trying to establish is not the non-existence of God, but the uniformity of nature

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Evolution vs. “Intelligent Design”

The principal argument for intelligent design

Irreducible complexity
(Michael Behe: Darwin’s Black Box, 1996)

There are complex mechanisms such that, if you remove one part, they wouldn’t work.

Therefore they can’t have evolved.

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Replies: (Kenneth Miller: Finding Darwin’s God,

Replies: 

(Kenneth Miller: Finding Darwin’s God, Michael Ruse: Can a Darwinian be a Christian? and others)

The idea of ‘irreducible complexity’ requires that something can’t serve a useful purpose in any context.

There are lots of examples of things serving different purposes at different times in their evolutionary history.

And of things doing a reasonably good job even if they’re ‘incomplete’.

In any case, ID has a problem explaining imperfect ‘design’, of which there seem to be plenty of examples

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Another argument for intelligent design

Another argument for intelligent design

Evolution entails a ‘contradiction’

(Philip Johnson: Darwin on Trial)

If evolution is true, then at one time humans didn’t exist and there was no time at which humans started to exist.

But humans do exist.

This is a contradiction, therefore evolution is false.

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Replies: (Ruse and others)

Replies:

(Ruse and others)

This is akin to a well-known ancient philosophical paradox known as the sorites [‘heap’] paradox

If we accept this argument, we have to apply it to any case where there are categories that don’t have sharp cut-off points:

e.g. When exactly did the industrial revolution begin? Exactly how many hairs can someone have and be considered bald?

An alternative conclusion to draw from this argument is that species boundaries are, strictly speaking, arbitrary.

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General problem with “God of the Gaps” arguments:

They are potentially vulnerable to future developments in science.

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In any case, theologians have objected to “God of

In any case, theologians have objected to “God of the Gaps” arguments:

“There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps –— gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in the gaps! What view of Nature or of Truth is theirs whose interest in Science is not in what it can explain but in what it cannot, whose quest is ignorance not knowledge, whose daily dread is that the cloud may lift, and who, as darkness melts from this field or from that, begin to tremble for the place of His abode? What needs altering in such finely jealous souls is at once their view of Nature and of God. Nature is God's writing, and can only tell the truth [...] .”

Henry Drummond: The Ascent of Man,
NewYork: James Pott & Co. 1894, p. 333

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God of the gaps quote

“... [H]ow wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1944,

Letters and Papers from Prison

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Barrett, 2009

Scientific accounts of the origins of religion

What insights can scientific psychology provide into the nature of religion? 

Reading:   Justin Barrett: ‘Cognitive Science, Religion and Theology,’ in Jeffrey Schloss and   Michael J. Murray ed. The Believing Primate. Oxford University Press, 2009

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Barrett, 2009

Battle 'intelligent design' versus 'unguided materialist biology ' planned vs random' 

new scientific study of religion attempts to show that religion is a by-rpdouct of natural selection or accidents (BLOOM 2005) 

cognitive science can enrich our understanding of how humans might be 'fearfully and wonderfully made' God awareness conscience

Cognitive science mind numerous specialised tools- mental tools and their charateristic biases provide insights on how many beliefs arise- e.g. beliefs in God.

Mental tools automatically generate non-reflective beliefs continually- why people believe reigions 
non-reflective beliefs operate in our subconscious, without our conscious awareness

1.God concepts transmit easily and retain plausibility by virtue of being minimally counter-intuitive” (93) and having “rich inferential potential” (84). Discuss.

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Barrett, 2009

Why might gods have especially strong inferential potential? (85)

because these intentional agents have an ability to inject explaination or meaning into a broader array of human concerns and connect a large number of mental tools. 

the more mental tools that that converge on a belief the more likely it is to be upheld.

The detection of agency the role of agents in reasoning about fortune, misfortune and morality; the fate of agents after death.

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Barrett, 2009

1.HADD reinforces religious belief by seeking superhuman agency (86 - 7). Discuss.

Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie argues our tendency to find agency around us has arisen for survival purposes. 

 hypersensitive agency detection device produces non-reflective beliefs that agency is possible. 

Relevant to religion - HADD registers an evvent as being caused by agency & recognising an object/person as being caused by intentional agency  - we have a purpose, God;s will

^^ reinforces religious belief 
If after detecting agency a candidate superhuman agent is offered and seems cosistent with the event- belief can be encouraged.
When a god concept is available as a good candidate- events that HADD might have overlooked become significant.

It's because the agency detection device is so eager to find agency when other events fail, many different events may be attached to superhuman agency. These events then support belief.

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HADD's ability to reinforce beliefs (Barrett, 2009

HADD might only play a minor role in reinforcing beliefs in super-human agents

even if HADD experiences alone rarely propel belief in superhuman agents they are likely to encourage belief in superhuman agency. 

HADD's sensitivity could vary across individuals & perhaps across lifespan and sex, in part accounting for differences in religiosity as a function of age and sex (Barret, 2004) 
These claims however demand considerably more empiral support.

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Barrett, 2009

Christians devoted to their faith often refer to answered prayer, special communications, snd other events they attrivute to God's activity thanks to HADD at work. 

HADD reinforces the agency that God is at work. Explains what science cannot, thus reinforcing beliefs.

 Without HADD these experiences that support belief would never register, they;d remain as pecular inexplainable happenings instead of being remembered as possible actions of an intentional being. 

 1.Intuitive morality coupled with inexplicable dramatic events provides    an “explanatory niche” for gods to fill (88 – 89).  Can you think of examples which might support this claim? 

A formidable amount of research supports that children intuitively embrace gods as designers and creators of the natural world.
Children eagerly embrace creationist accounts
children are intiuitive theists- intuitive uniformatiy non-relative beliefs, God awareness conscious believe everyone- implications?

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Barrett, 2009

  • Few strict monotheists exist - even in the monotheistic beliefs, people believe in God plus devils, angels, ghosts and other counter-intuitive superhuman targets  <- all supernatural
  • Hypocrite HADD finds agency -> everything - limits it. -> Juedo-Christian God difficult to make coherent- complex disembodied souls
  • Why might atheism be particularly prevalent in urban, post-industrial environments? (94)
  • post-industrial communities have  relative stability and affluence - don't pray for fortune

forest spirits irrelevant - urbanisation
fertillity gods dispensible- technology 
These communities in North America & Europe, provide broad separatin betweeen human cognitive activities and natural survival concerns. 

These artifical environments offer non-religious candidates for HADD experiences 
In Urban settings with powrful technologies - catastrophe  may be attributed to human agency. People in these places rely on humans to solve problems and blame humans for creating problems from povery to hurricanes.The affluence of these communties allows for detached reflection and instituions that make a point of undermining intuitive belief-making: formal education.

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Barrett, 2009 CRITICISMS

Explaining how these beliefs come about - no matter how complete the explanation - says nothing about whether a belief is true or justified. 

Atheist  may suggest that the evolved human mind happens to encourage belief. 

If Christian theology teaches that God created humans so that they may enjoy a relationship with Himm why would Godleave such important cognitive capacities to chance plus natural selection?

The diversity in god concepts we see is a consequence of human error and not divine design.

HADD may be interpreted as God revealing Himself in a variety of ways that trigger these cognitive capacities to suspect human agency. 

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