Evolution versus Creationism

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Evolution versus Creationism

I believe in Evolution
89
78%
I believe in Creationism
7
6%
I believe in Itelligent Design
5
4%
I believe in Theistic Evolutionism
13
11%
 
Total votes: 114

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-05-26, 6:32

languagepotato wrote:
Varislintu wrote:
languagepotato wrote:i kinda believe in both
i believe evolution like for 99% but the difference is solely these two things:

1. i believe God started it and is in control of it
2, i believe that God put Adam and Eve (whom i view as the first homo sapiens) on earth directly right at the time that homo sapiens should have appeared through evolution.

so, which option should i choose?


How do you think of Neanderthals? I mean, how do you fit their existence into your beliefs? What are they to you, in other words?


i dunno, i'm not very knowledgeable on that field, but from what i gather scientists argue whether or not they are a subspecies of homo sapiens.*

so, that's the science part, now for the belief part: my belief is that if they are indeed a subspecies of homo sapiens, then they are descendants of Adam and Eve. if they aren't, they are humanoid creatures who evolved from other humanoid creatures.


*correct me if i'm wrong on this.


Thanks! I'm always interested in how creationists (even theistic ones) view other humanoid species that are close in attributes to humans. For example Neanderthals, who lived in the same era as humans, could make jewellery (or at least wear it, as I saw claimed in a documentary), possibly had rituals, and even bred with humans.

For me, who is not a creationist, and definitely not a believer in Adam and Eve (who, btw, science has pretty much determined couldn't have existed based on genetic analysis), it would seem as if they would need some special explanation by those who are creationists. So can I deduce that yours is that they evolved through guided evolution? (You're right that scientists disagree on whether they are a subspecies of homo sapiens or whether homo sapiens and Neanderthals are both species under the genus homo.) But that modern humans did not evolve, but were especially and separately created and then planted into the already existing ecosystem?

Can I ask you one other thing? Do you think the Neanderthals (and/or other now-extinct humanoids) went to Heaven? I'm curious how you think on that issue. :)

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Saim » 2014-05-26, 7:15

TeneReef wrote:What are your sources for this particular fusion?
(Origin of chromosome 2 in H. sapiens)

The scientists haven't found the final answer but only speculation.
If they advocate evidence-based science, they should be able to replicate it in a laboratory.


What is your proposal?

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby languagepotato » 2014-05-26, 12:30

Varislintu wrote:
languagepotato wrote:
Varislintu wrote:
languagepotato wrote:i kinda believe in both
i believe evolution like for 99% but the difference is solely these two things:

1. i believe God started it and is in control of it
2, i believe that God put Adam and Eve (whom i view as the first homo sapiens) on earth directly right at the time that homo sapiens should have appeared through evolution.

so, which option should i choose?


How do you think of Neanderthals? I mean, how do you fit their existence into your beliefs? What are they to you, in other words?


i dunno, i'm not very knowledgeable on that field, but from what i gather scientists argue whether or not they are a subspecies of homo sapiens.*

so, that's the science part, now for the belief part: my belief is that if they are indeed a subspecies of homo sapiens, then they are descendants of Adam and Eve. if they aren't, they are humanoid creatures who evolved from other humanoid creatures.


*correct me if i'm wrong on this.


Thanks! I'm always interested in how creationists (even theistic ones) view other humanoid species that are close in attributes to humans. For example Neanderthals, who lived in the same era as humans, could make jewellery (or at least wear it, as I saw claimed in a documentary), possibly had rituals, and even bred with humans.

For me, who is not a creationist, and definitely not a believer in Adam and Eve (who, btw, science has pretty much determined couldn't have existed based on genetic analysis), it would seem as if they would need some special explanation by those who are creationists. So can I deduce that yours is that they evolved through guided evolution? (You're right that scientists disagree on whether they are a subspecies of homo sapiens or whether homo sapiens and Neanderthals are both species under the genus homo.) But that modern humans did not evolve, but were especially and separately created and then planted into the already existing ecosystem?*

Can I ask you one other thing? Do you think the Neanderthals (and/or other now-extinct humanoids) went to Heaven? I'm curious how you think on that issue. :)**



*yes, exactly

**yes and no, same with humans, only the righteous.
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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-05-26, 12:54

languagepotato wrote:*yes, exactly

**yes and no, same with humans, only the righteous.


Thank you again! It's pretty interesting. Can I ask one more question? :P

Do you believe, then, that there was original sin created in Eden due to Adam's and Eve's actions? And that that's something we need the forgiveness of Jesus for? If yes, does that mean you believe the evolved human like species who go to either heaven or hell depending on righteousness, are unaffected by this original sin question and Jesus entirely?

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby languagepotato » 2014-05-26, 13:24

Varislintu wrote:
languagepotato wrote:*yes, exactly

**yes and no, same with humans, only the righteous.


Thank you again! It's pretty interesting. Can I ask one more question? :P

Do you believe, then, that there was original sin created in Eden due to Adam's and Eve's actions? And that that's something we need the forgiveness of Jesus for? If yes, does that mean you believe the evolved human like species who go to either heaven or hell depending on righteousness, are unaffected by this original sin question and Jesus entirely?


as a muslim, i don't believe in an original sin, i believe every soul is accountable for its own sins and only its own.
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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-05-26, 14:05

languagepotato wrote:as a muslim, i don't believe in an original sin, i believe every soul is accountable for its own sins and only its own.


Oh right, you are muslim! I think I should have known that, but I forgot, sorry.

Still, thanks for answering. It's interesting that you apply sin to the evolved human-like species (but who are not specifically created, unlike homo sapiens) as well. I've often wondered how that works for creationists. :)

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby languagepotato » 2014-05-26, 14:19

Varislintu wrote:
languagepotato wrote:as a muslim, i don't believe in an original sin, i believe every soul is accountable for its own sins and only its own.


Oh right, you are muslim! I think I should have known that, but I forgot, sorry.

Still, thanks for answering. It's interesting that you apply sin to the evolved human-like species (but who are not specifically created, unlike homo sapiens) as well. I've often wondered how that works for creationists. :)



no problem, i find the questions quite interesting too. so about sin, basically my view is this: Every being, be they evolved or created be it on this earth or on another planet, that has been granted a free will by God is accountable for its sin.
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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby md0 » 2014-09-17, 17:56

Image
This is the new biology textbook for high school students in Greece.
Not only The Creation of Adam is the cover artwork, but Adam's genitalia are censored too... in a biology textbook. (Need I say that they don't have sexual education, or that when human reproduction is brought up in a class full of 17 year olds, the only reactions are immature giggles?)
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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-10-02, 9:19

languagepotato wrote:
Varislintu wrote:
languagepotato wrote:as a muslim, i don't believe in an original sin, i believe every soul is accountable for its own sins and only its own.


Oh right, you are muslim! I think I should have known that, but I forgot, sorry.

Still, thanks for answering. It's interesting that you apply sin to the evolved human-like species (but who are not specifically created, unlike homo sapiens) as well. I've often wondered how that works for creationists. :)



no problem, i find the questions quite interesting too. so about sin, basically my view is this: Every being, be they evolved or created be it on this earth or on another planet, that has been granted a free will by God is accountable for its sin.


Recently I read an article on Neanderthals and the Denisovans in a science magazine, and the article specifically looked at how cross-breeding means that DNA-traces of these extinct relatives live on in some of the current human population. The article quoted an estimate that 20% of Neanderthal DNA has survived thanks to cross-breeding (how it determined that I don't know since it was a popular science magazine and didn't go very deeply into specifics). From the Denisovan man, on the other hand, some humans seem to have inherited a genetic adaptation for living in higher altitudes (better oxygen efficiency).

I couldn't help but wonder what religious creationists make of information like this. Does it require some kind of "sense-making" in the religious sense? What does it mean to be a special creation that's mixed with a non-special creation genetically? Does it mean anything? For Christian creationists, I suppose the concept of sin might also come into play. How does it work if Neanderthals are not original sinners, but humans are, but some humans are part Neanderthal? Or is it such a minor detail that it doesn't make any difference?

I guess we don't have very many creationists here on UL, but I got very curious about this so I thought I'd pose the question anyway. :)

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-10-02, 10:38

The incomprehensions between creationists and evolutionists arises from a great misunderstanding of the letter of the Bible. This book says that God created in six days the universe and life, but it doesn't say that the world in which we live now is the world that God created. The Bible says that between the creation and the present day there is an abrupt modification of all the things that God made, an alteration caused by the original sin, which is a sharp cut that modifies everything that God made in the begining. After this modification the initial good creation started a new course, with a new ontological structure and thus new laws that govern it (Romans 8, 20: τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη "the creation was subjected to futility/vanity"). We could even say that the Big Bang - or whatever the beginning of our world may be - came after the original sin as a consequence of it.

This means that our world - the world after the original sin - is a different world from the one God created. It is a world subjected to change, birth, and death - it is a world that follows physical laws which science is discovering and that maybe started with the Big Bang - a world in which life, probably, follows the evolutionary theory suggested by Darwin. The story of Genesis cannot be threatened by any scientific worldview.

Those who think that the story of the creation as it is narrated in the Bible refers to the physical world in which we live now - subjected to the laws of science that we discover - is completely in error.

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-10-02, 11:22

Massimiliano B wrote:The incomprehensions between creationists and evolutionists arises from a great misunderstanding of the letter of the Bible. This book says that God created in six days the universe and life, but it doesn't say that the world in which we live now is the world that God created. The Bible says that between the creation and the present day there is an abrupt modification of all the things that God made, an alteration caused by the original sin, which is a sharp cut that modifies everything that God made in the begining. After this modification the initial good creation started a new course, with a new ontological structure and thus new laws that govern it (Romans 8, 20: τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη "the creation was subjected to futility/vanity"). We could even say that the Big Bang - or whatever the beginning of our world may be - came after the original sin as a consequence of it.

This means that our world - the world after the original sin - is a different world from the one God created. It is a world subjected to change, birth, and death - it is a world that follows physical laws which science is discovering and that maybe started with the Big Bang - a world in which life, probably, follows the evolutionary theory suggested by Darwin. The story of Genesis cannot be threatened by any scientific worldview.

Those who think that the story of the creation as it is narrated in the Bible refers to the physical world in which we live now - subjected to the laws of science that we discover - is completely in error.


Cool, that's actually a way of looking at it that I haven't (specifically) encountered before. Thanks for taking the time to explain!

This goes a bit off-topic, perhaps, but would you care to open up a little bit your view on original sin in this kind of interpretation of the universe? As in, what is/was original sin?

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-10-03, 17:20

I'll answer tomorrow - I have no time now. Odota vähän!

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-10-04, 9:23

Varislintu wrote:
This goes a bit off-topic, perhaps, but would you care to open up a little bit your view on original sin in this kind of interpretation of the universe? As in, what is/was original sin?


In order to understand what the original sin is, we have to acknowledge the profound deep bond which unites man and God at the beginning. If we don't accept this original link, we cannot accept the original sin either. This sin is indeed a break in the relation between man and God.
In Heaven, where the first couple lived, everything was perfect: all the live beings lived in harmony with the rest of the world. In Genesis 1, 28-30 there's a clear description of the harmony that ruled this primeval world: "I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals. I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; but for all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food" (Genesis 1, 28-30). The supremacy of man over the rest of the creation is affirmed and at the same time it is specified that this supremacy has to be employed without overstepping the limits that are inherent to the creation, which is already "good". But man could cross these limits, since it was made in the image of God (Genesis 26-27)

The story told in Genesis 3 affirms a primordial event that took place at the beginning: the man, tempted by the evil, setted himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God. This self-exclusion from the original relation from God is represented in the Bible in the story of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3). We cannot say that God didn't want us to be ignorant about the good and evil - in fact, God created the first couple with a complete knowledge of good and evil. The evil was outside the world that God created (since the creation was good - Genesis 1,12). Human beings had already free will, but they desired the good - that is, they wanted what God wanted. They could also want something different: they could freely desire to attain something different from the good that God decided for the sake of the creation - if they thought it was good (even God could want something different from good, since God is almighty). So, the decision to freely determine what is good and what is evil - apart from the will of God about the good and evil - is the original sin.
Why the first "good" man could be tempted by the evil? Maybe because God could abstain from creating. This is evil. We can say that God created in order to limit the reality of evil before the creation. The first men had to to continue this work, but they failed.

These were the consequences of this first disobedience: Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness and become afraid of the God. From that moment, they have a distorted image of a God - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.

The original harmony is now destroyed. Even harmony with creation is broken: the creation has become alien and hostile to man (Genesis 3, 17-19:" Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you. It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants. You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again"). The Bible says: "Because of what you have done" (Genesis 3. 17) "you go back to the soil" (Genesis 3, 19). So, the death is a consequence of the original sin. We were immortal at the beginning, and after the original sin we became mortal.
This change involved the whole creation. Because of original sin made by man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay" (Romans 8, 20).

How can we now still believe in this story? We know know that the universe started likely with a big bang, that the life is probably subjected to evolution, etc...
How can an act performed by a microscopic being (in comparison with the universe) change the laws of the universe? I don't know. The only answer I can find is that either all this story is a myth, or (this idea is mine) it has happened in another dimension of time and space - that is, outside our universe - and it is connected to our universe through a relation of causality. This means that our universe is caused by that universe. Our universe is the opposite of the primeval universe, where everything was perfect. The original irreality of our universe was transformed into reality by a single act, committed by a single person. After that act, a new course of events began.
A new universe began. Maybe this new universe started with a big bang. This universe is the one in which we live now.

Anothe answer is this: the story of the Genesis is a myth. The writers of this story, if they lived nowadays, would write a different story. They simply had to remove the connection between the original sin and the consequent decay of all the creation. But they also had to rewrite the story of the creation and say that the original good creation was already penetrated by death. The problem would be how to combine the omnipotence and goodness of God with this new kind of creation. It would be impossible to describe such creation as a "good" one. Thus, either God could not be at the same time good, omnipotent, and comprehensible, or there would be two Gods - a good one, and a bad one - the latter contrasting the original good creation by inserting in it the death and the evil.

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2014-10-05, 6:44

Massimiliano B wrote:The incomprehensions between creationists and evolutionists arises from a great misunderstanding of the letter of the Bible. This book says that God created in six days the universe and life, but it doesn't say that the world in which we live now is the world that God created. The Bible says that between the creation and the present day there is an abrupt modification of all the things that God made, an alteration caused by the original sin, which is a sharp cut that modifies everything that God made in the begining. After this modification the initial good creation started a new course, with a new ontological structure and thus new laws that govern it (Romans 8, 20: τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη "the creation was subjected to futility/vanity"). We could even say that the Big Bang - or whatever the beginning of our world may be - came after the original sin as a consequence of it.

This means that our world - the world after the original sin - is a different world from the one God created. It is a world subjected to change, birth, and death - it is a world that follows physical laws which science is discovering and that maybe started with the Big Bang - a world in which life, probably, follows the evolutionary theory suggested by Darwin. The story of Genesis cannot be threatened by any scientific worldview.

A good point, but it is not necessary to divorce the creation of this world from the creation in Genesis. If I do read the bible literally, I get that life comes about in this order:
plants
fish
birds (dinosaurs)
mammals lizards
humans
which is not that incompatible with the scientific evolutionary view. Evolution is original sin, then.

This raises the question what kind of creatures Adam and Eve were. Were they the first primates, or the first non-apes, or later along that branch?
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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-10-05, 8:23

Massimiliano B wrote:In order to understand what the original sin is, we have to acknowledge the profound deep bond which unites man and God at the beginning.


Kiitos kirjoituksestasi, Massimiliano! It was very interesting to read. Thanks for taking the time again. :)

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-10-05, 9:01

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:A good point, but it is not necessary to divorce the creation of this world from the creation in Genesis.



I don't say that there are two creations. I say that if the consequence of the original sin is a passage from immortality to mortality which involves all the creation , then the original sin cannot have taken place in our universe. We know now what probably has happened from the beginning of our universe until now: it is not possible for a person to change the structure of all the universe. If the first men who sinned came after the formation of our universe, how is it possible to mantain the faith in the universal consequences of that sin? How is it possible to say that the decay to a mortal condition involves all the universe? The original sin chaged not only the condition of men, but also the condition of all the creation: all the animals and all the nature became hostile to the man and all the animals towards each other. I think this is possible only if the original sin took place in another universe. I can only say that the consequence of the original sin was a sort of universal destruction which gave origin to the "matter" which has later ended up in the universe in which we live now - in which life is not eternal.
Our universe shares some common features with the original universe. One of these features is the order of appearence of animals.


In order to avoid such view, we have only one possibility: the consequences of original sin are not universal. The decay of the first men is just a moment that happen at some point in the life
of everyone, as a self-exclusion from the relationship with God. We were created mortal, but since God is completely good, we have to assume that the creation is still in action. We can now cooperate with God in the achievement of its goals. One of its goals is our immortal condition. I think, sincerely, that this view is more rational. But we have to interprete the passages of Genesis 2, 17 ("you shall surely die") and Genesis 3. 17 and 3. 19 ("Because of what you have done (...) you go back to the soil") in a different way. Maybe these words are just hyperboles, that indicate the "mortal" - in a figurative sense - consequences of the breech of the relation between God and man.

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-10-07, 8:52

I have a question about evolutionism. If it is true, then evolution is still in action. If it is still in action, it's likely that somewhere around the world there are (or there will be necessarily) groups of people more evolved intellectually and culturally. If there is (or there will be) at least one group of people more evolved, all the human beings are not (or will not be) biologically equal. That is, different human races do (or will) exist. If they exist (or will exist), differences in rights and duties between them are (or will be) admissible - as they are between men and animals.
This is just the situation of our world: a small part of the population is very rich and has a life expectancy of 80-85 years, while the rest is poor and has a life expectancy of 50-60 years. Should I consider these differences as a proof of validity of the evolutionary theory and accept them as a necessary consequence of it?
Nazism would not have existed without Nietzsche, whose theories about the Übermensch ("Superman"), in turn, whould not have existed without Darwin. How can we mantain the faith in evolution and at the same time the conception of equality of all men and women?

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Varislintu » 2014-10-07, 17:45

Massimiliano B wrote:I have a question about evolutionism. If it is true, then evolution is still in action. If it is still in action, it's likely that somewhere around the world there are (or there will be necessarily) groups of people more evolved intellectually and culturally. If there is (or there will be) at least one group of people more evolved, all the human beings are not (or will not be) biologically equal. That is, different human races do (or will) exist. If they exist (or will exist), differences in rights and duties between them are (or will be) admissible - as they are between men and animals.
This is just the situation of our world: a small part of the population is very rich and has a life expectancy of 80-85 years, while the rest is poor and has a life expectancy of 50-60 years. Should I consider these differences as a proof of validity of the evolutionary theory and accept them as a necessary consequence of it?
Nazism would not have existed without Nietzsche, whose theories about the Übermensch ("Superman"), in turn, whould not have existed without Darwin. How can we mantain the faith in evolution and at the same time the conception of equality of all men and women?


I think you are confusing is and ought in this question. Evolution is not an ideology. Something called social darwinism is an ideology. Evolution, if accurate, is a model that explains what is in nature. Social darwinism, for example, is what some people think ought to be (in society).

But could there be intellectually or culturally more evolved subsets of the human species? First of all, "culturally" is such a subjective and biologically independent thing that we can pretty safely say "no". (A culture as a social meme, however, could be more evolved, if we agree upon the definition of "more evolved" first.) Intellect could depend on genes, however, but I think the problem with that evolving noticeably in some human population is pretty much impossible with the current size, age, and global distribution of the human species. Genes will mix between populations in the time spans we are talking about here (I mean the time spans that would be required for such a change), and there are so many other, stronger selective pressures on humans that intellect would probably not get a chance to advance significantly in one group. Because remember what "evolved" means: it roughly means a trait "meeting or not hindering the current requirements of populations in a specific ecological niche".

Lastly, whatever nature is or does, does not obligate us to anything (well, unless you have the ideology of social darwinism --- then you might think that). If we find equality important, then we can and should strive for equality.

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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby linguoboy » 2014-10-07, 17:55

Massimiliano B wrote:If it is true, then evolution is still in action. If it is still in action, it's likely that somewhere around the world there are (or there will be necessarily) groups of people more evolved intellectually and culturally.

Evolution is not teleological. Every group of humans around today is equally "evolved". After all, they've all been subject to competitive pressures for precisely the same length of time.

It's an open question whether greater intellect increases your chances of survival in the long run. The average human has an intellect several orders of magnitude greater than even the smartest cockroach. Yet humans are in the process of destroying the conditions under which they've thrived thus far and cockroaches are all but guaranteed to survive any catastrophe that might lead to.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Massimiliano B
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Re: Evolution versus Creationism

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-10-08, 9:23

Varislintu wrote:I think you are confusing is and ought in this question. Evolution is not an ideology. Something called social darwinism is an ideology. Evolution, if accurate, is a model that explains what is in nature. Social darwinism, for example, is what some people think ought to be (in society).


The transition from the consideration of what is to the consideration of what ought to be is inherent to a world which is determined by the evolution. Even the capacity of thinking about values and imaginary worlds has to be seen as a property that has been selected by evolution. The evolution legitimises any kind of outcome of its process - and any kind of value which one can have. Therefore, I don't understand why one should consider the equality as the only and the highest value to be pursued. The problem is that if a value has been selected by the natural selection, we could not rationally uphold that value. The strongest group of people would impose its worldview and all its values by forces.
On the other hand ,if you want to rationally assert your position, you have to be ready to go against the principle of natural selection. There are in effect some values that everyone shares: rape and paedophilia are abominable crimes and everyone agrees about that (even though someone considers the latter normal - what a sick world!). Also the assistance of terminally ill persons, of disabled and old people, are almost everywhere considered moral duties - together with equality. What leads us to consider these people to be worthy of our respect? Why do we need to help them? Is there a rational ground for all these values? If the answer is "yes", then I don't see how could they derive from natural selection. This model can explain well the origin of our body, but the origin of the capacity of rationally thinking of good and evil is out of reach of it.


linguoboy wrote:Evolution is not teleological. Every group of humans around today is equally "evolved". After all, they've all been subject to competitive pressures for precisely the same length of time.


We cannot say that evolution is not teleological. We don't know whether the teleonomy in nature has been wanted by a divine architect or not.
Last edited by Massimiliano B on 2014-10-08, 23:38, edited 2 times in total.


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