Ever since the publication in 1996 of his book Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe has been the most prominent biologist supporting "intelligent design theory." It is not surprising, therefore, that he was interviewed by Ben Stein for his movie Expelled, as indicated at the website for the movie. But it is surprising that this interview was cut out of the movie before its public release.
Or maybe this isn't so surprising if one considers how Behe's new book--The Edge of Evolution--subverts some of the crucial points in the Discovery Institute's rhetorical strategy, which would explain why Behe has fallen from favor with the folks at the Discovery Institute.
Was Behe expelled from Stein's movie for saying that "it's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans" (p. 72)?
Was he expelled for suggesting that the evolution of orders, families, genera, and species could be explained in a Darwinian manner through random mutation and natural selection (pp. 217-20)?
Was he expelled for saying that "treating the Bible as some sort of science textbook" would be "silly" (p. 166), and that in science there should be "no relying on holy books or prophetic dreams" (p. 233)?
Was he expelled for saying that "the purposeful design of life to any degree is easily compatible with the idea that, after its initiation, the universe unfolded exclusively by the intended playing out of natural laws" (p. 232), which would support theistic evolution?
Was he expelled for saying that "an intelligent designer deliberately made malaria" to kill millions of innocent children, and therefore we should consider the possibility that "the designer isn't all that beneficent or omnipotent" (pp. 237, 239)?
Of course, Behe still supports "intelligent design" reasoning. But he is enough of an independent thinker in his assessment of the scientific evidence and arguments that he can move away from the prescribed doctrines of the Discovery Institute. Was that independence of thought the reason he was expelled from Stein's movie?
Monday, May 05, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Has Michael Behe Fallen From Favor at the Discovery Institute?
As I noted in my first post on Ben Stein's movie Expelled, the absence of Michael Behe was remarkable. After all, Stein interviewed most of the "senior fellows" at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. So why didn't he interview the most famous one and the one who has been the leading scientist for "intelligent design"?
It is now almost a year since the publication of Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution. The Discovery Institute funded the writing of that book, and it heavily promoted the book when it first appeared. But now if you go to the website for the Center for Science and Culture, there are few references to Behe's new book. The lists for "Essential Readings" and "Books by Center Fellows" include Behe's Darwin's Black Box, published in 1996, but not his new book. Ever since the end of November, the blog for the CSC has given almost no attention to Behe's new book.
I now suspect that my early predictions last year have come true--the folks at the Discovery Institute now realize that Behe's new book subverts their rhetorical strategy, and that it was a big mistake for them to promote it.
In my first posts on the book, I noted at least four points on which Behe's position might be disturbing for the proponents of "intelligent design." (1) Behe accepts the Darwinian evolution of species by common descent, including the evolution of the human species from ancestral species shared with chimpanzees. (2) Behe rejects any attempt to treat the Bible as a "science textbook" as "silly," and he insists there should be "no relying on holy books or prophetic dreams." (3) Behe argues that "intelligent design" is not required to explain the emergence of the lower taxonomic levels of life--orders, families, genera, and species; and so the evolution of species could be fully Darwinian. (4) Behe endorses a version of theistic evolution, because he says that after the "initial set-up" by the intelligent designer, "the universe operates by unbroken natural law," with no need for miraculous intervention in nature.
Behe's Edge of Evolution is a serious intellectual retreat from the strong versions of intelligent design creationism, because he concedes so much to Darwinian evolution on so many crucial points. I suspect that for this reason, he has fallen out of favor at the Discovery Institute because he no longer serves their rhetorical purposes.
I should say that ever since I first read Darwin's Black Box, I have thought that Behe is a serious thinker. Even though I don't always agree with him, his reasoning is always worth confronting. He has an intellectual depth that none of the other proponents of intelligent design have.
Some of my posts on his new book can be found here, here, and here.
It is now almost a year since the publication of Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution. The Discovery Institute funded the writing of that book, and it heavily promoted the book when it first appeared. But now if you go to the website for the Center for Science and Culture, there are few references to Behe's new book. The lists for "Essential Readings" and "Books by Center Fellows" include Behe's Darwin's Black Box, published in 1996, but not his new book. Ever since the end of November, the blog for the CSC has given almost no attention to Behe's new book.
I now suspect that my early predictions last year have come true--the folks at the Discovery Institute now realize that Behe's new book subverts their rhetorical strategy, and that it was a big mistake for them to promote it.
In my first posts on the book, I noted at least four points on which Behe's position might be disturbing for the proponents of "intelligent design." (1) Behe accepts the Darwinian evolution of species by common descent, including the evolution of the human species from ancestral species shared with chimpanzees. (2) Behe rejects any attempt to treat the Bible as a "science textbook" as "silly," and he insists there should be "no relying on holy books or prophetic dreams." (3) Behe argues that "intelligent design" is not required to explain the emergence of the lower taxonomic levels of life--orders, families, genera, and species; and so the evolution of species could be fully Darwinian. (4) Behe endorses a version of theistic evolution, because he says that after the "initial set-up" by the intelligent designer, "the universe operates by unbroken natural law," with no need for miraculous intervention in nature.
Behe's Edge of Evolution is a serious intellectual retreat from the strong versions of intelligent design creationism, because he concedes so much to Darwinian evolution on so many crucial points. I suspect that for this reason, he has fallen out of favor at the Discovery Institute because he no longer serves their rhetorical purposes.
I should say that ever since I first read Darwin's Black Box, I have thought that Behe is a serious thinker. Even though I don't always agree with him, his reasoning is always worth confronting. He has an intellectual depth that none of the other proponents of intelligent design have.
Some of my posts on his new book can be found here, here, and here.
Why Eugenics is Good for Jews
Proponents of "intelligent design" at the Discovery Institute and elsewhere have charged that Darwinian biology is immoral because of its association with eugenics. This is part of the rhetoric of Ben Stein's movie Expelled.
But as I have indicated in some previous posts, this crude attack on eugenics as evil fails to consider the sort of good eugenics that Darwin favored. Darwin was worried, for example, about the deleterious effects of inbreeding, and so he wanted the British Parliament to sponsor some studies of the effects of first cousin marriages. (Darwin had a personal interest in this, because his wife Emma was his first cousin.)
The crude propaganda of the "intelligent design" proponents (like John West and those in Ben Stein's movie) assumes that eugenics is purely evil because of its abuse by the Nazis in their attack on the Jews. But this ignores the benefits of eugenics for Jews.
Most American Jews are Askenazim. The Askenazi Jews come from Eastern Europe, and because they were a small breeding population in the Middle Ages, many deleterious genes were propagated in the population. For example, about one in 25 Ashkenazi Jews is a carrier of Tay-Sachs disease, which causes the progressive degeneration of the central nervous system in infants, who usually die by the age of 4. It is a horrible disease, and parents would surely want to minimize their chances of producing children with such a disease. To deal with this problem, there are now many Jewish organizations in the United States that provide genetic screening programs so that Jews can determine the likelihood of their being carriers of such diseases, and then they can try to avoid mating with other carriers. As a result of this, the rate of Tay-Sachs and other diseases among Jews has declined dramatically.
This is what I call "good eugenics." Participation in these counseling and screening programs is voluntary. It is not forced on anyone. But it's available for people who want to make good decisions about reproduction and the prospects for their children. It's eugenics, because it is designed to improve the genetic health of offspring.
What's wrong with this? Isn't it good for Jews to be able to participate in such eugenic programs? Doesn't this show how genetics and Darwinian science can improve human life? Rather than denouncing eugenics as evil, wouldn't it be better to distinguish good eugenics from bad eugenics? Why don't the proponents of "intelligent design" do this? Is it because they are advancing a rhetorical strategy that does not favor intelligent thought about the issues?
For more information about genetic testing and family-planning decisions among American Jews, you can go to the website for the Victor Center for Jewish Genetic Diseases at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.
But as I have indicated in some previous posts, this crude attack on eugenics as evil fails to consider the sort of good eugenics that Darwin favored. Darwin was worried, for example, about the deleterious effects of inbreeding, and so he wanted the British Parliament to sponsor some studies of the effects of first cousin marriages. (Darwin had a personal interest in this, because his wife Emma was his first cousin.)
The crude propaganda of the "intelligent design" proponents (like John West and those in Ben Stein's movie) assumes that eugenics is purely evil because of its abuse by the Nazis in their attack on the Jews. But this ignores the benefits of eugenics for Jews.
Most American Jews are Askenazim. The Askenazi Jews come from Eastern Europe, and because they were a small breeding population in the Middle Ages, many deleterious genes were propagated in the population. For example, about one in 25 Ashkenazi Jews is a carrier of Tay-Sachs disease, which causes the progressive degeneration of the central nervous system in infants, who usually die by the age of 4. It is a horrible disease, and parents would surely want to minimize their chances of producing children with such a disease. To deal with this problem, there are now many Jewish organizations in the United States that provide genetic screening programs so that Jews can determine the likelihood of their being carriers of such diseases, and then they can try to avoid mating with other carriers. As a result of this, the rate of Tay-Sachs and other diseases among Jews has declined dramatically.
This is what I call "good eugenics." Participation in these counseling and screening programs is voluntary. It is not forced on anyone. But it's available for people who want to make good decisions about reproduction and the prospects for their children. It's eugenics, because it is designed to improve the genetic health of offspring.
What's wrong with this? Isn't it good for Jews to be able to participate in such eugenic programs? Doesn't this show how genetics and Darwinian science can improve human life? Rather than denouncing eugenics as evil, wouldn't it be better to distinguish good eugenics from bad eugenics? Why don't the proponents of "intelligent design" do this? Is it because they are advancing a rhetorical strategy that does not favor intelligent thought about the issues?
For more information about genetic testing and family-planning decisions among American Jews, you can go to the website for the Victor Center for Jewish Genetic Diseases at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Connecting Hitler and Darwin (or Luther?): David Berlinski's Sophistry
The last third of Ben Stein's movie Expelled claims that there is a direct connection from Charles Darwin to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. This is supposed to show how morally corrupting Darwinian biology can be. To support this conclusion, Stein interviews Richard Weikart, the Discovery Institute historian who wrote From Darwin to Hitler. Stein was very careful not to interview any historians who dispute Weikart's claims, because this would have weakened the propaganda value of the movie.
David Berlinski, another Discovery Institute fellow who was in the movie, has now written an article defending this part of the movie. Here is how he puts his argument:
"One man--Charles Darwin--says: 'In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals.'
"Another man--Adolf Hitler--says: Let us kill all the Jews of Europe.
"Is there a connection?
"Yes obviously is the answer of the historical record and common sense."
Really? Is this connection obvious?
In Darwinian Conservatism and in many posts on this blog, I have argued that Weikart's putative connection "from Darwin to Hitler" is very weak. For example, one of the obvious weaknesses in this argument is that there is no anti-Semitism in Darwin's writing. If one were looking for the source of Hitler's anti-Semitism, one might consider Martin Luther. Luther's "On the Jews and Their Lies is one of the most repugnant expressions of anti-Semitism in European history. Scholars such as Richard Steigman-Gall--in his book The Holy Reich--have shown the immense influence of Luther on the Nazis.
So what does Berlinski say about the Luther connection? "A professor of theology at Iowa State University, Hector Avalos, is persuaded that Martin Luther, of all people, must be considered Adolf Hitler's spiritual advisor. Luther, after all, liked Jews as little as Hitler did, and both men suffered, apparently, from hemorrhoids." That flippant comment is all Berlinski says about this. For him, that's enough. There's no need to confront the scholarly record on the history of Luther and anti-Semitism in Germany, because that might upset the rhetorical strategy of the Discovery Institute.
Astonishingly, Weikart never mentions Luther, because this would weaken his argument that Christianity promoted the equal moral dignity of all human beings against the degrading materialism of Darwinism. Of course, Weikart could rightly argue that Luther's anti-Semitism was a distortion of the Christian tradition. But then wouldn't he also have to consider the possibility that social Darwinism was a distortion of Darwinian science?
Weikart has written a hostile review of Steigman-Gall's book. But almost everything he says in criticizing Stegman-Gall's connecting Nazism to Christianity could easily be said in criticizing Weikart's connecting Nazism to Darwinism. For example, Weikart says that if one looks closely as the Nazi interpretations of Christianity, one can see that "their Christianity was always interpreted through the lens of their racial ideology, not vice versa." Yet the same could be said about the Nazi interpretations of Darwinism!
In the movie, neither Berlinski nor Weikart ever mention this debate over whether Luther is a better source for Nazism than Darwin, and Stein never raises this as a question. To have raised such questions would have provoked some deep thought about the issues, and that would have subverted the sophistical rhetoric of this movie.
David Berlinski, another Discovery Institute fellow who was in the movie, has now written an article defending this part of the movie. Here is how he puts his argument:
"One man--Charles Darwin--says: 'In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals.'
"Another man--Adolf Hitler--says: Let us kill all the Jews of Europe.
"Is there a connection?
"Yes obviously is the answer of the historical record and common sense."
Really? Is this connection obvious?
In Darwinian Conservatism and in many posts on this blog, I have argued that Weikart's putative connection "from Darwin to Hitler" is very weak. For example, one of the obvious weaknesses in this argument is that there is no anti-Semitism in Darwin's writing. If one were looking for the source of Hitler's anti-Semitism, one might consider Martin Luther. Luther's "On the Jews and Their Lies is one of the most repugnant expressions of anti-Semitism in European history. Scholars such as Richard Steigman-Gall--in his book The Holy Reich--have shown the immense influence of Luther on the Nazis.
So what does Berlinski say about the Luther connection? "A professor of theology at Iowa State University, Hector Avalos, is persuaded that Martin Luther, of all people, must be considered Adolf Hitler's spiritual advisor. Luther, after all, liked Jews as little as Hitler did, and both men suffered, apparently, from hemorrhoids." That flippant comment is all Berlinski says about this. For him, that's enough. There's no need to confront the scholarly record on the history of Luther and anti-Semitism in Germany, because that might upset the rhetorical strategy of the Discovery Institute.
Astonishingly, Weikart never mentions Luther, because this would weaken his argument that Christianity promoted the equal moral dignity of all human beings against the degrading materialism of Darwinism. Of course, Weikart could rightly argue that Luther's anti-Semitism was a distortion of the Christian tradition. But then wouldn't he also have to consider the possibility that social Darwinism was a distortion of Darwinian science?
Weikart has written a hostile review of Steigman-Gall's book. But almost everything he says in criticizing Stegman-Gall's connecting Nazism to Christianity could easily be said in criticizing Weikart's connecting Nazism to Darwinism. For example, Weikart says that if one looks closely as the Nazi interpretations of Christianity, one can see that "their Christianity was always interpreted through the lens of their racial ideology, not vice versa." Yet the same could be said about the Nazi interpretations of Darwinism!
In the movie, neither Berlinski nor Weikart ever mention this debate over whether Luther is a better source for Nazism than Darwin, and Stein never raises this as a question. To have raised such questions would have provoked some deep thought about the issues, and that would have subverted the sophistical rhetoric of this movie.
The Individuality of Bacteria
One of the most common misconceptions about the biological study of life is that it promotes a determinism that denies individuality and freedom. That's one of the primary reasons why conservatives fear any biological account of human life. They also fear that the genetic determinism of modern biology prepares the way for a genetic engineering of life that will bring a dehumanizing tyranny leading to what C. S. Lewis called "the abolition of man."
Against this misconception, I have argued in a recent post that biological science shows the natural ground for the "Individuality, Contingency, and Historicity of Life." For example, I pointed to the individuality of bacteria: even when bacteria are genetically identical, their behavior differs in ways that show the uniqueness of each bacterium.
Now, in a recent article in the New York Times, Carl Zimmer summarizes some of the recent research confirming this point. E. coli is a species of bacteria that lives in our gut, and it is one of the model organisms for biological research, particularly in genetics. He writes: "A colony of genetically identical E. coli is, in fact, a mob of individuals. Under identical conditions, they will behave in different ways. They have fingerprints of their own."
In a sense, E. coli has "personality"--distinct traits for each individual that cannot be explained by genetics alone. The reason for this is that unlike simple machines, living organisms show an "unpredictable noisiness" in their biological operations so that genetically identical individuals act differently in ways that are not controlled by their genes. Such unpredictable differences are advantageous for evolution, because it allows some individuals to survive in harsh environments when many others die.
If the social sciences and the humanities are to be linked to the natural sciences, that link will come through the life sciences rather than the physical sciences, because the life sciences confront the same individuality, contingency, and historicity that characterize social behavior and human life.
Against this misconception, I have argued in a recent post that biological science shows the natural ground for the "Individuality, Contingency, and Historicity of Life." For example, I pointed to the individuality of bacteria: even when bacteria are genetically identical, their behavior differs in ways that show the uniqueness of each bacterium.
Now, in a recent article in the New York Times, Carl Zimmer summarizes some of the recent research confirming this point. E. coli is a species of bacteria that lives in our gut, and it is one of the model organisms for biological research, particularly in genetics. He writes: "A colony of genetically identical E. coli is, in fact, a mob of individuals. Under identical conditions, they will behave in different ways. They have fingerprints of their own."
In a sense, E. coli has "personality"--distinct traits for each individual that cannot be explained by genetics alone. The reason for this is that unlike simple machines, living organisms show an "unpredictable noisiness" in their biological operations so that genetically identical individuals act differently in ways that are not controlled by their genes. Such unpredictable differences are advantageous for evolution, because it allows some individuals to survive in harsh environments when many others die.
If the social sciences and the humanities are to be linked to the natural sciences, that link will come through the life sciences rather than the physical sciences, because the life sciences confront the same individuality, contingency, and historicity that characterize social behavior and human life.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Shameful Sophistry of the Intelligent Design/Evolution Debate
As I have indicated in my previous post, Ben Stein's movie Expelled is a crude piece of propaganda for "intelligent design theory" that insults the intelligence of the audience. But the response of the defenders of evolutionary theory is just as crude. Over at the "Panda's Thumb" blog, they're gloating that the box office receipts for the movie haven't made as much money in its first week-end as was expected. It's clear that neither side in this debate cares about the intellectual content of the issues. What they care about is victory over their adversaries.
This is the tradition of the Greek sophists--those who claimed to be philosophers thinking about the deepest issues of human existence, but who really only cared about winning the glory of victory over their opponents.
Does the Discovery Institute want to promote intellectual inquiry into the origins of life and the profound implications of this for human existence? Or does it want to promote the political agenda of intelligent design creationism against its adversaries? Similarly, do people like Richard Dawkins and bloggers like those at "Panda's Thumb" really want to think through these issues and exchange ideas in ways that deepen our understanding? Or do they want to defeat their opponents?
Isn't the answer obvious? There is no interest in carrying on a serious intellectual inquiry into these great human questions. The interest is in winning victory for one's side and defeating the opponents.
There is no evidence in Ben Stein's movie that he wants to think through these questions for himself or help others to think through them. But at the same time, there is no evidence that his opponents--like those at "Panda's Thumb"--want to promote serious thinking about these questions. All these people really care about is claiming some victory for themselves against those opponents.
Am I being naive in thinking that some human beings care more for understanding the deepest human questions than for victory over their intellectual opponents? Is there something in human nature--the desire for dominance over others--that makes the love of victory stronger in most human beings than the love of wisdom?
This is the tradition of the Greek sophists--those who claimed to be philosophers thinking about the deepest issues of human existence, but who really only cared about winning the glory of victory over their opponents.
Does the Discovery Institute want to promote intellectual inquiry into the origins of life and the profound implications of this for human existence? Or does it want to promote the political agenda of intelligent design creationism against its adversaries? Similarly, do people like Richard Dawkins and bloggers like those at "Panda's Thumb" really want to think through these issues and exchange ideas in ways that deepen our understanding? Or do they want to defeat their opponents?
Isn't the answer obvious? There is no interest in carrying on a serious intellectual inquiry into these great human questions. The interest is in winning victory for one's side and defeating the opponents.
There is no evidence in Ben Stein's movie that he wants to think through these questions for himself or help others to think through them. But at the same time, there is no evidence that his opponents--like those at "Panda's Thumb"--want to promote serious thinking about these questions. All these people really care about is claiming some victory for themselves against those opponents.
Am I being naive in thinking that some human beings care more for understanding the deepest human questions than for victory over their intellectual opponents? Is there something in human nature--the desire for dominance over others--that makes the love of victory stronger in most human beings than the love of wisdom?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Rhetorical Blunder in Ben Stein's EXPELLED
Ben Stein's movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opened yesterday in theatres around the nation. This movie is the latest project of the Discovery Institute in promoting the political rhetoric of "intelligent design theory" as the alternative to Darwinian evolutionary science. The National Center for Science Education has set up a good website that corrects the many mistakes in the movie.
The folks at the Discovery Institute have made a big mistake in their production of this movie. The political rhetoric of the Discovery Institute's "wedge strategy" depends upon hiding a fundamental contradiction. But this movie makes the contradiction so evident that any viewer can see it. On the one hand, the rhetorical strategy of the Discovery Institute is to say that "intelligent design" is not a creationist religious belief but pure science, and therefore teaching "intelligent design" in public high school biology classes does not violate the First Amendment's prohibition on establishing religion. On the other hand, the popular success of the Discovery Institute's rhetoric depends on appealing to Biblical creationists who assume that "intelligent designer" is just another name for God the Biblical Creator.
This contradiction--both affirming and denying that "intelligent design theory" is the same as Biblical creationism--became evident in the 2005 case in Dover, Pennsylvania. Leaders of the Dover Area Public School board wanted to teach Biblical creationism. They were warned that this would violate U.S. Supreme Court decisions declaring that teaching creationism as science violated the First Amendment separation of church and state. They then decided to teach "intelligent design theory" as a disguised form of Biblical creationism. The trial made clear their deception, and this also exposed the contradiction in the Discovery Institute's rhetoric.
Rather than covering up this contradiction, this movie makes it hard for any viewer to ignore the contradiction. When Bruce Chapman--President of the Discovery Institute--is interviewed by Stein, Chapman says that journalists distort the true position of intelligent design by saying that it's a creationist religious belief, because the "intelligent designer" is clearly God. Chapman vehemently denies this. But then for the rest of the movie, it's asserted that anyone who denies "intelligent design" is therefore an atheist who denies the existence of God!
Viewers of the movie who know nothing about the debate over intelligent design will easily see this contradiction. Those who do know something about the debate will notice another indication of the contradiction--the absence of Michael Behe. Stein interviews almost all of the major spokesmen for intelligent design. The one remarkable exception, however, is Behe--the LeHigh University biologist who until recently has been the star scientific witness for intelligent design theory.
As I indicated in a blog post last year, Behe's most recent book is is strong attack on biblical creationism. Behe concedes so much to Darwinian science--the limited power of natural selection working on random mutation, evolution by common descent, the evolution of human beings from primate ancestors shared with chimpanzees, rejection of Biblical creationism as "silly," and support for theistic evolution--that Behe actually subverts much of the moral and religious agenda of the Discovery Institute. Behe even questions the goodness and omnipotence of the intelligent designer in deliberately creating malaria! The remarkable absence of Behe from this movie indicates that Behe's positions are no longer helpful to the Discovery Institute's rhetoric.
There are many other weaknesses in the rhetoric of this movie, but they are weaknesses that I have already taken up in many previous posts on intelligent design reasoning. The last third of the movie is devoted to Richard Weikart's "Darwin to Hitler" argument that I have analyzed in various posts. As is usual, a quotation from Darwin's Descent of Man is used to suggest that Darwin promoted something like Nazi eugenics. But the quotation is taken out of context to hide the fact that Darwin rejected the eugenics of Francis Galton. I refer you to my various posts on the issue of Nazi eugenics.
The movie assumes that evolutionary science must be atheistic. To support this assumption, Stein is careful only to interview people like Richard Dawkins who are atheistic evolutionists. He is very careful not to interview theistic evolutionists like Ken Miller or Francis Collins, or even someone like Behe who argues that God might have worked through an evolutionary process. Stein also is careful not to quote from any of Darwin's references to God as Creator.
Consider how different this movie would have been if Stein had interviewed someone like Francis Collins. Collins could have explained how reading C. S. Lewis helped to convert him to Christianity. He could also have explained how he as a geneticist accepts evolutionary science as supported by the evidence and rejects "intelligent design theory" as unfounded. He could have indicated how he sees evolution as compatible with his Christian beliefs and why he rejects Richard Dawkins' atheism as not based on science. Such an interview would have raised some deep questions about the relationship between science and religion--questions that would have been intellectually challenging to the viewers. But Stein chose not to do anything like this. Why? Because it would have subverted his intention in producing a crude piece of propaganda that insults the intelligence of his viewers?
The movie also assumes that evolutionary science denies morality and promotes moral nihilism. To support this assumption, Stein is careful to interview only people like Will Provine who interprets evolution in a nihilistic manner. But this means that Stein has to be very careful not to interview people like David Sloan Wilson who emphasize Darwin's theory of the "moral sense."
A big part of this movie argues that scientists who question Darwinian science or suggest the possibility of intelligent design are censored or otherwise punished and thus their intellectual freedom of thought is denied. The NCSE website surveys the evidence in these cases and indicates how the movie distorts the facts. The one case that might support the movie's argument is that of Guiellermo Gonzalez, an astronomer who was denied tenure at Iowa State University in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. From what little I know of this case, it does appear that Gonzalez has a pretty good record of academic research that might justify tenure, and so it's possible that his support for intelligent design might have provoked some unfair bias against him. The problem, however, is that the policy of confidentiality in academic tenure cases makes it hard to know for sure what motivated the people involved.
I agree on the importance of freedom of thought in these matters. I have argued on this blog and elsewhere that biology classes--both at the high school level and at the college and university level--should be open to discussion of "intelligent design theory" as a possible alternative to Darwinian science. As I have indicated, I don't find the arguments and evidence offered by the ID proponents persuasive. But I see nothing wrong in allowing students to debate this in their biology classes. I have promoted such open debate in my own university classes.
The problem, however, is that both sides of this debate are caught up in a frenzy of rhetorical posturing that makes it impossible to have a thoughtful exchange of competing ideas. I have seen this on those many occasions when I have debated these folks in public. This movie is an example of the rhetorical distortions that make me wonder whether I am being naive in thinking that students and scholars should be able to debate these vital questions in an open and honest manner.
A few of my blog posts relevant to these issues can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
My argument for "teaching the controversy" by teaching Darwin has received some coverage in Inside Higher Ed, which can be found here and here.
One of my first essays on "intelligent design theory" for Salon.com in 2001 can be found here.
I also have a chapter on intelligent design in Darwinian Conservatism.
Last year, I debated intelligent design at the American Enterprise Institute with John West and George Gilder. The New York Times article on the debate can be found here. A podcast of this AEI debate can be found here.
The folks at the Discovery Institute have made a big mistake in their production of this movie. The political rhetoric of the Discovery Institute's "wedge strategy" depends upon hiding a fundamental contradiction. But this movie makes the contradiction so evident that any viewer can see it. On the one hand, the rhetorical strategy of the Discovery Institute is to say that "intelligent design" is not a creationist religious belief but pure science, and therefore teaching "intelligent design" in public high school biology classes does not violate the First Amendment's prohibition on establishing religion. On the other hand, the popular success of the Discovery Institute's rhetoric depends on appealing to Biblical creationists who assume that "intelligent designer" is just another name for God the Biblical Creator.
This contradiction--both affirming and denying that "intelligent design theory" is the same as Biblical creationism--became evident in the 2005 case in Dover, Pennsylvania. Leaders of the Dover Area Public School board wanted to teach Biblical creationism. They were warned that this would violate U.S. Supreme Court decisions declaring that teaching creationism as science violated the First Amendment separation of church and state. They then decided to teach "intelligent design theory" as a disguised form of Biblical creationism. The trial made clear their deception, and this also exposed the contradiction in the Discovery Institute's rhetoric.
Rather than covering up this contradiction, this movie makes it hard for any viewer to ignore the contradiction. When Bruce Chapman--President of the Discovery Institute--is interviewed by Stein, Chapman says that journalists distort the true position of intelligent design by saying that it's a creationist religious belief, because the "intelligent designer" is clearly God. Chapman vehemently denies this. But then for the rest of the movie, it's asserted that anyone who denies "intelligent design" is therefore an atheist who denies the existence of God!
Viewers of the movie who know nothing about the debate over intelligent design will easily see this contradiction. Those who do know something about the debate will notice another indication of the contradiction--the absence of Michael Behe. Stein interviews almost all of the major spokesmen for intelligent design. The one remarkable exception, however, is Behe--the LeHigh University biologist who until recently has been the star scientific witness for intelligent design theory.
As I indicated in a blog post last year, Behe's most recent book is is strong attack on biblical creationism. Behe concedes so much to Darwinian science--the limited power of natural selection working on random mutation, evolution by common descent, the evolution of human beings from primate ancestors shared with chimpanzees, rejection of Biblical creationism as "silly," and support for theistic evolution--that Behe actually subverts much of the moral and religious agenda of the Discovery Institute. Behe even questions the goodness and omnipotence of the intelligent designer in deliberately creating malaria! The remarkable absence of Behe from this movie indicates that Behe's positions are no longer helpful to the Discovery Institute's rhetoric.
There are many other weaknesses in the rhetoric of this movie, but they are weaknesses that I have already taken up in many previous posts on intelligent design reasoning. The last third of the movie is devoted to Richard Weikart's "Darwin to Hitler" argument that I have analyzed in various posts. As is usual, a quotation from Darwin's Descent of Man is used to suggest that Darwin promoted something like Nazi eugenics. But the quotation is taken out of context to hide the fact that Darwin rejected the eugenics of Francis Galton. I refer you to my various posts on the issue of Nazi eugenics.
The movie assumes that evolutionary science must be atheistic. To support this assumption, Stein is careful only to interview people like Richard Dawkins who are atheistic evolutionists. He is very careful not to interview theistic evolutionists like Ken Miller or Francis Collins, or even someone like Behe who argues that God might have worked through an evolutionary process. Stein also is careful not to quote from any of Darwin's references to God as Creator.
Consider how different this movie would have been if Stein had interviewed someone like Francis Collins. Collins could have explained how reading C. S. Lewis helped to convert him to Christianity. He could also have explained how he as a geneticist accepts evolutionary science as supported by the evidence and rejects "intelligent design theory" as unfounded. He could have indicated how he sees evolution as compatible with his Christian beliefs and why he rejects Richard Dawkins' atheism as not based on science. Such an interview would have raised some deep questions about the relationship between science and religion--questions that would have been intellectually challenging to the viewers. But Stein chose not to do anything like this. Why? Because it would have subverted his intention in producing a crude piece of propaganda that insults the intelligence of his viewers?
The movie also assumes that evolutionary science denies morality and promotes moral nihilism. To support this assumption, Stein is careful to interview only people like Will Provine who interprets evolution in a nihilistic manner. But this means that Stein has to be very careful not to interview people like David Sloan Wilson who emphasize Darwin's theory of the "moral sense."
A big part of this movie argues that scientists who question Darwinian science or suggest the possibility of intelligent design are censored or otherwise punished and thus their intellectual freedom of thought is denied. The NCSE website surveys the evidence in these cases and indicates how the movie distorts the facts. The one case that might support the movie's argument is that of Guiellermo Gonzalez, an astronomer who was denied tenure at Iowa State University in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. From what little I know of this case, it does appear that Gonzalez has a pretty good record of academic research that might justify tenure, and so it's possible that his support for intelligent design might have provoked some unfair bias against him. The problem, however, is that the policy of confidentiality in academic tenure cases makes it hard to know for sure what motivated the people involved.
I agree on the importance of freedom of thought in these matters. I have argued on this blog and elsewhere that biology classes--both at the high school level and at the college and university level--should be open to discussion of "intelligent design theory" as a possible alternative to Darwinian science. As I have indicated, I don't find the arguments and evidence offered by the ID proponents persuasive. But I see nothing wrong in allowing students to debate this in their biology classes. I have promoted such open debate in my own university classes.
The problem, however, is that both sides of this debate are caught up in a frenzy of rhetorical posturing that makes it impossible to have a thoughtful exchange of competing ideas. I have seen this on those many occasions when I have debated these folks in public. This movie is an example of the rhetorical distortions that make me wonder whether I am being naive in thinking that students and scholars should be able to debate these vital questions in an open and honest manner.
A few of my blog posts relevant to these issues can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
My argument for "teaching the controversy" by teaching Darwin has received some coverage in Inside Higher Ed, which can be found here and here.
One of my first essays on "intelligent design theory" for Salon.com in 2001 can be found here.
I also have a chapter on intelligent design in Darwinian Conservatism.
Last year, I debated intelligent design at the American Enterprise Institute with John West and George Gilder. The New York Times article on the debate can be found here. A podcast of this AEI debate can be found here.
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Hero with Twenty Faces: Darwinian Literary Studies
In teaching my graduate seminar on "American Political Novels," I have thought about how Darwinian science might illuminate the study of literature. Professional scholars in literary studies usually assume that literature belongs to the humanistic disciplines that must be radically separated from the natural sciences generally and from biological science in particular. But a small group of literary scholars have recently begun to apply Darwinian psychology to the study of literature. A couple of years ago, The New York Times Magazine published an article surveying the work of these folks--D. T. Max, "The Literary Darwinists" (November 6, 2005). One of the best of these scholars is Joseph Carroll, and he offers a good analysis of this research in his contribution ("Literature and Evolutionary Psychology") to The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2005) edited by David Buss.
I would say that literature is an emotionally-charged imaginative simulation of human experience. Literature has a universal appeal in so far as it explores a universal human nature. A Darwinian science of human evolution would account for human nature as manifested in the twenty natural desires that I have sketched out in various places. Literature engages our interest because it depicts the conflicts that arise within and between individuals as they strive to satisfy those natural desires over the course of their lives.
Literature displays not only the universality of human desires but also the cultural and individual variability in the expression of those universal desires. This creates the interesting complexity in human experience in which natural desires constrain but do not rigidly determine the customary traditions of social life and the variable temperaments of unique individuals. Literature helps us to understand and manage this complex interaction of universal nature, customary traditions, and individual choices.
Joseph Campbell's famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces argues that literature around the world and throughout history portrays certain mythic archetypes that evoke a universal human psychology, which he thought was best explained by Carl Jung's psychoanalysis. I would see this as showing the universality of the twenty natural desires, which could be best explained as arising from the evolved nature of human beings.
In some ways, there is nothing new about this. Beginning with Aristotle's Poetics, students of literature have seen it as an artistic imitation of human nature. But the strength of Darwinian literary theory is that it offers a scientific explanation for the universal human nature that traditional literary scholarship has simply taken for granted.
Moreover, a Darwinian approach to literature can challenge those contemporary schools of literary study that deny human nature. Feminist theorists, for example, have argued that gender identity in European literature is an arbitrary social construction to enforce the patriarchal subordination of women to men. By contrast, Darwinian psychology would predict that although there will be great cultural and individual variation in the sexual differentiation of males and females, this variation will be constrained by the natural differences in the mental and behavioral propensities of men and women. This would predict that across all cultures, there should be certain regularities in the literary depiction of men and women. So even if there is much in the novels of Jane Austen that reflects the peculiarities of courtship and marriage in nineteenth-century Victorian England, her novels should also show some universal patterns of sexual mating that would be found in all cultures throughout history.
I would say that literature is an emotionally-charged imaginative simulation of human experience. Literature has a universal appeal in so far as it explores a universal human nature. A Darwinian science of human evolution would account for human nature as manifested in the twenty natural desires that I have sketched out in various places. Literature engages our interest because it depicts the conflicts that arise within and between individuals as they strive to satisfy those natural desires over the course of their lives.
Literature displays not only the universality of human desires but also the cultural and individual variability in the expression of those universal desires. This creates the interesting complexity in human experience in which natural desires constrain but do not rigidly determine the customary traditions of social life and the variable temperaments of unique individuals. Literature helps us to understand and manage this complex interaction of universal nature, customary traditions, and individual choices.
Joseph Campbell's famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces argues that literature around the world and throughout history portrays certain mythic archetypes that evoke a universal human psychology, which he thought was best explained by Carl Jung's psychoanalysis. I would see this as showing the universality of the twenty natural desires, which could be best explained as arising from the evolved nature of human beings.
In some ways, there is nothing new about this. Beginning with Aristotle's Poetics, students of literature have seen it as an artistic imitation of human nature. But the strength of Darwinian literary theory is that it offers a scientific explanation for the universal human nature that traditional literary scholarship has simply taken for granted.
Moreover, a Darwinian approach to literature can challenge those contemporary schools of literary study that deny human nature. Feminist theorists, for example, have argued that gender identity in European literature is an arbitrary social construction to enforce the patriarchal subordination of women to men. By contrast, Darwinian psychology would predict that although there will be great cultural and individual variation in the sexual differentiation of males and females, this variation will be constrained by the natural differences in the mental and behavioral propensities of men and women. This would predict that across all cultures, there should be certain regularities in the literary depiction of men and women. So even if there is much in the novels of Jane Austen that reflects the peculiarities of courtship and marriage in nineteenth-century Victorian England, her novels should also show some universal patterns of sexual mating that would be found in all cultures throughout history.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Against "the Conservatism of Slavery"
In Darwinian Natural Right, I have a chapter on slavery that shows how a Darwinian view of morality allows us to recognize the immorality of slavery while exercising prudence in managing the tragic conflicts that slavery has created in history. On this blog, I have have posted a series of comments on the similarities between Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin in this opposition to slavery.
Unfortunately, some American conservatives who look to the Southern tradition of political thought try to justify slavery in the American South as a natural and customary institution supporting liberty. In his comments in The Conservative Mind on the Southern conservatism of John Randolph and John C. Calhoun, Russell Kirk observed that "human slavery is bad ground for conservatives to make a stand upon." But, even today, some conservatives disregard Kirk's warning.
For example, the fall 2007 issue of Modern Age has a collection of articles on American intellectual conservatism that includes a section on the "defense of the Old Republic," and the "Old Republic" turns out to be predominantly the "Old South" and its institutions. One of the articles is "The Old Republic and the Sectional Crisis" by Mark Malvasi. According to Malvasi, the demise of the "Old Republic" came with the defeat of the South and the emancipation of slaves in the Civil War. He criticizes Lincoln for leading those Republicans who "knowingly misrepresented" slavery as "a departure from the original intentions of the Founding Fathers." Malvasi quotes a Southern congressman as warning his Northern colleagues that "the conservatism of slavery may be necessary to save you from the thousand destructive isms infecting the social organization of your section." Malvasi notes that the proslavery Southerners were Christians who believed the Bible supported slavery as necessary for a good social order. "For men who took seriously the biblical injunction to be their brothers' keepers, slavery was the best, if not the only, means of preserving a Christian social order in the modern world."
Malvasi's defense of "a genuinely Christian slavery" as the foundation for the conservatism of the "Old Republic" is a disturbing manifestation of the intellectual and moral confusion in contemporary conservatism. A Darwinian conservatism would escape such confusion by showing how conservative thought can be rooted in prudence and Darwinian natural right, which allows us to recognize the evil in practices like human slavery.
Some of my posts on Darwin, Lincoln, and slavery elaborate these points. Some of them can be found here, here, here, and here.
Unfortunately, some American conservatives who look to the Southern tradition of political thought try to justify slavery in the American South as a natural and customary institution supporting liberty. In his comments in The Conservative Mind on the Southern conservatism of John Randolph and John C. Calhoun, Russell Kirk observed that "human slavery is bad ground for conservatives to make a stand upon." But, even today, some conservatives disregard Kirk's warning.
For example, the fall 2007 issue of Modern Age has a collection of articles on American intellectual conservatism that includes a section on the "defense of the Old Republic," and the "Old Republic" turns out to be predominantly the "Old South" and its institutions. One of the articles is "The Old Republic and the Sectional Crisis" by Mark Malvasi. According to Malvasi, the demise of the "Old Republic" came with the defeat of the South and the emancipation of slaves in the Civil War. He criticizes Lincoln for leading those Republicans who "knowingly misrepresented" slavery as "a departure from the original intentions of the Founding Fathers." Malvasi quotes a Southern congressman as warning his Northern colleagues that "the conservatism of slavery may be necessary to save you from the thousand destructive isms infecting the social organization of your section." Malvasi notes that the proslavery Southerners were Christians who believed the Bible supported slavery as necessary for a good social order. "For men who took seriously the biblical injunction to be their brothers' keepers, slavery was the best, if not the only, means of preserving a Christian social order in the modern world."
Malvasi's defense of "a genuinely Christian slavery" as the foundation for the conservatism of the "Old Republic" is a disturbing manifestation of the intellectual and moral confusion in contemporary conservatism. A Darwinian conservatism would escape such confusion by showing how conservative thought can be rooted in prudence and Darwinian natural right, which allows us to recognize the evil in practices like human slavery.
Some of my posts on Darwin, Lincoln, and slavery elaborate these points. Some of them can be found here, here, here, and here.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Good Eugenics
Critics of Darwinian conservatism--John West, for example--often argue that the history of eugenics illustrates the morally repugnant consequences of Darwinian thinking. In my chapter on "Social Darwinism" in Darwinian Conservatism and in various posts on this blog responding to West, I have suggested that for Darwin, eugenics--the management of human breeding to promote the physical and mental health of the offspring--can be either good or bad. Eugenics is good when it is based on a realistic understanding of our limited knowledge of biological inheritance, and when it is guided by a moral sympathy for the weaker members of society. Eugenics is bad when it is motivated by a utopian vision of human perfectibility through the breeding of superior races, and when it is unchecked by humanitarian sympathy. Darwin promoted good eugenics, as in his concern about the consequences of incest and cousin marriage. Francis Galton promoted bad eugenics rooted in a tradition of utopian eugenics that began with Plato's Republic. Like Plato, Galton described his eugenics as directed to producing "a race of gifted men," so that "the utopias in the dreamland of philanthropists may become practical possibilities."
Good eugenics would allow parents to exercise prudence in making informed decisions about reproduction to satisfy their natural desire for parental care. We need prudence to decide particular cases where no absolute rule would work because of the contingencies and uncertainties in each decision. And we need to rely on parental care (as one of the 20 natural desires) to guide such decisions as conforming to our human nature.
As an illustration of such good eugenics, consider the recent article by Wesley Smith in The Weekly Standard. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute who campaigns against abortion and what he calls "politically correct eugenics." But in this article, he implicitly supports what I would call good eugenics by supporting some legislation proposed by Senators Edward Kennedy and Sam Brownback. The legislation would require that parents making decisions about pre- and postnatal disabilities be given full information about "life expectancy, development potential, and quality of life" for children born with genetic disabilities such as Down syndrome. Smith hopes this would persuade many parents to care for Down children once they learn that such children can live good lives. He quotes from one parent of a Down child who decided that "Down's syndrome is not an insupportable horror for either the sufferer or the parents." Smith cites this parent's report as showing "the joy that many parents of Down children discover." He supports the Kennedy/Brownback legislation because it would allow parents to make a "fully informed decision," which might be a decision to care for a Down child as a joyful experience.
We allow parents to make such reproductive decisions because we assume that most parents will be motivated by a desire for parental care that considers the best interests of their children. Using governmental coercion to force a decision on them would be bad eugenics. Allowing them to make their own decisions based on the best available information and their natural desire for a healthy family life is good eugenics.
Good eugenics would allow parents to exercise prudence in making informed decisions about reproduction to satisfy their natural desire for parental care. We need prudence to decide particular cases where no absolute rule would work because of the contingencies and uncertainties in each decision. And we need to rely on parental care (as one of the 20 natural desires) to guide such decisions as conforming to our human nature.
As an illustration of such good eugenics, consider the recent article by Wesley Smith in The Weekly Standard. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute who campaigns against abortion and what he calls "politically correct eugenics." But in this article, he implicitly supports what I would call good eugenics by supporting some legislation proposed by Senators Edward Kennedy and Sam Brownback. The legislation would require that parents making decisions about pre- and postnatal disabilities be given full information about "life expectancy, development potential, and quality of life" for children born with genetic disabilities such as Down syndrome. Smith hopes this would persuade many parents to care for Down children once they learn that such children can live good lives. He quotes from one parent of a Down child who decided that "Down's syndrome is not an insupportable horror for either the sufferer or the parents." Smith cites this parent's report as showing "the joy that many parents of Down children discover." He supports the Kennedy/Brownback legislation because it would allow parents to make a "fully informed decision," which might be a decision to care for a Down child as a joyful experience.
We allow parents to make such reproductive decisions because we assume that most parents will be motivated by a desire for parental care that considers the best interests of their children. Using governmental coercion to force a decision on them would be bad eugenics. Allowing them to make their own decisions based on the best available information and their natural desire for a healthy family life is good eugenics.
The Individuality, Contingency, and Historicity of Life
One objection to Darwinian conservatism is that a Darwinian view of evolved human nature opens the way to the use of biotechnology to change, or even abolish, human nature. Some conservatives worry that even if Darwinian biology denies the utopian belief of the left in human perfectibility through social engineering, this still leaves open the possibility of perfectibility through biological engineering. These conservatives share Leon Kass's worry that biotech is leading us to a "posthuman" future that will bring what C. S. Lewis called "the abolition of man."
In response to this objection, I have argued that people like Kass have exaggerated the power of biotech for changing human nature. They fail to see that biotech will always be limited in its power by the historical indeterminacy of living nature.
We commonly classify biology along with physics and chemistry as belonging to the natural sciences, which we distinguish from the social sciences such as economics and political science and the humanistic disciplines such as history. But I agree with biologists such as Ernst Mayr and Jared Diamond who argue that the fundamental distinction is between historical sciences and nonhistorical sciences, and that biology belongs to the historical sciences, along with economics, history, and political science, while physics and chemistry belong to the nonhistorical sciences.
For each kind of elementary particle studied by physicists and for each kind of molecule studied by chemists, the individual members of the class are identical. And consequently, physicists and chemists can formulate universal deterministic laws, at least at the macroscopic level. But in the historical sciences, the objects of study display a radical individuality in that each member of a class is unique. So, for the social scientist, every human society is unique, and every member of each society is unique. For the biologist, every species is unique, and every member of each species is unique. Even genetically identical bacteria grown in homogeneous conditions show unique individuality in their behavioral movements that persist over their lifespans. Consequently, social scientists and biologists can formulate probabilistic regularities but not deterministic laws. The phenomena studied in the historical sciences show emergent complexity, in that they must be consistent with the deterministic laws of physics and chemistry, but they cannot be reduced to those laws.
Consider, for example, Jane Goodall's magnum opus The Chimpanzees of Gombe. As the title suggests, this book gives a historical narrative of one unique group of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Preserve in Tanzania, and yet it also generalizes about probabilistic tendencies in all chimpanzee groups. So, for example, she narrates the history of the male dominance hierarchy in Gombe, which reflects the unique personalities and unique social circumstances of the Gombe chimps. She can generalize about how any chimpanzee group will tend to display a male dominance hierarchy, but she cannot predict the precise historical pathway for any particular chimpanzee dominance hierarchy. Moreover, she notices that different chimpanzee groups have different cultural traditions of behavior reflecting unique cultural histories. And now many primatologists have confirmed that chimps show complex patterns of cultural learning and tradition that resemble those of human beings. The uniqueness of each chimpanzee individual and the uniqueness of each chimpanzee group give rise to historical traditions of behavior that cannot be precisely predicted by deterministic laws.
It is true that all life depends on genes and a shared genetic code, which allow us to formulate general laws of life, and that through biotech, we can use our knowledge of those genetic laws of life to gain some power over living nature. But although genes are necessary for explaining life, they are not sufficient. And, furthermore, the complexity of genetic causality introduces historical contingency in ways that make it impossible to develop deterministic laws of behavioral genetics.
From the earliest days of genetics, beginning with T. H. Morgan, the fruit fly has been one of the favored model organisms for studying genetics. Amazingly, many of the genetic mechanisms that shape not only the anatomy and physiology but also the behavior of fruit flies are fundamentally similar to those for more complex animals, including human beings. And yet, even the fruit fly shows a remarkable flexibility in its genetics that comes from the complexity of genetic causality. There are few cases where a single gene has a single function. Most genes are pleiotropic, in that they have more than one effect. And most genes are interactive, in that the action of each gene depends on its interactions with other genes, with other molecules inside and outside its cell, and with the external world generally. Moreover, the action of the gene may depend on the life history of its cell and of the individual organism in which it resides. Rather than acting through linear pathways, as is commonly depicted in textbooks, genes form complex networks. These networks of genes influence behavior only through networks of cellular mechanisms throughout the organism, including the neural networks of the nervous system. These highly integrated networks arranged in nested hierarchies--from genes to cells to tissues to nervous systems--give even a simple fruit fly an adaptive flexibility to respond to contingent events that cannot be predetermined by deterministic laws.
The causal complexity of gene action puts severe limits on the power of biotech for manipulating genes that influence complex traits. So, for example, while we hear a lot of talk these days about "designer babies," there is no reason to believe that we will ever be able to "design" babies if that means controlling complex behavioral traits like intelligence and personality. The complexity of gene networks make it difficult, if not impossible, to use biotech to alter our genes to enhance desirable traits without bringing about undesirable side effects. If we knock out or suppress one gene because it contributes to some undesirable effect, we might discover that the same gene has other effects that are desirable. Or we might discover that the undesirable effect really depends on so many genes interacting among themselves and with so many other factors, that controlling one gene gives us no control over that undesirable effect.
Identical (monozygotic) twins--who have the same genetic constitution--are often remarkably similar, not only in their physical appearance, but also in their emotional and intellectual character. Fraternal (dizygotic) twins--who share only about half their genes--are often quite different from one another. This surely shows the powerful influence of genes on the behavioral propensities of human beings. But still, even identical twins are not really identical. For example, their fingerprints are similar and yet different. Identical twins differ in their character traits in ways that make them distinct persons, because subtle differences in their life-history development give them different traits. These differences start even in the uterus. Most identical twins share the same placenta. But about one-third develop in separate placentas. Those who had separate placentas seem to be less similar to one another than twins who shared a placenta.
Even conjoined twins--those whose bodies are attached--show clear differences in their personalities, even though they have shared virtually identical environments as well as identical genomes. The original "Siamese twins"--Eng and Chang Bunker--were born in Siam (now Thailand) in 1811. They were born joined at the chest by a band of flesh. After their death, an autopsy showed that they had shared liver tissue. They moved to the United States, became successful farmers in North Carolina, and married two sisters. The sisters lived in separate houses. Eng and Chang would divide each week between the two homes. They had 21 children between the two of them. The brothers often fought with one another because their personalities were so different. Eng was quiet, amiable, and a teetotaler. Chang was aggressive, irritable, and inclined to alcoholism. In other words, they were individuals.
The individual uniqueness of living beings--even with individuals having the same genome--denies the popular idea that cloning produces duplicates. One motivation for cloning might be to preserve a loved one that is going to die. But this motivation is misguided because the clone would not really be identical to its progenitor. For example, pet owners might want to preserve their favorite pets by cloning them, but they would discover that the clones were not really replicas of their beloved animal. A company--Genetic Savings and Clone--was set up to sell cloning services to pet owners. They attracted great publicity a few years ago when they announced that they had cloned a cat that they named "Copy Cat." But this turned into a public relations flop when the pictures were widely published around the world. They had cloned a calico cat, and calicos have varying patterns of coloration that depend not just on genes but also on environmental cues in the mother cat's womb. As a result, "Copy Cat" did not look at all like the cat from which she was cloned. The scientists who did this work at Texas A & M University reported: "As with other genetically identical animals with multicolored coats, the cloned kitten's color patterning is not exactly the same as that of the nuclear donor--this is because the pattern of pigmentation in multicolored animals is the result not only of genetic factors but also of developmental factors that are not controlled by genotype." But that suggests that the excitement about cloning as a way of duplicating animals and humans is based on the false idea that identical genes produce identical creatures.
In response to this objection, I have argued that people like Kass have exaggerated the power of biotech for changing human nature. They fail to see that biotech will always be limited in its power by the historical indeterminacy of living nature.
We commonly classify biology along with physics and chemistry as belonging to the natural sciences, which we distinguish from the social sciences such as economics and political science and the humanistic disciplines such as history. But I agree with biologists such as Ernst Mayr and Jared Diamond who argue that the fundamental distinction is between historical sciences and nonhistorical sciences, and that biology belongs to the historical sciences, along with economics, history, and political science, while physics and chemistry belong to the nonhistorical sciences.
For each kind of elementary particle studied by physicists and for each kind of molecule studied by chemists, the individual members of the class are identical. And consequently, physicists and chemists can formulate universal deterministic laws, at least at the macroscopic level. But in the historical sciences, the objects of study display a radical individuality in that each member of a class is unique. So, for the social scientist, every human society is unique, and every member of each society is unique. For the biologist, every species is unique, and every member of each species is unique. Even genetically identical bacteria grown in homogeneous conditions show unique individuality in their behavioral movements that persist over their lifespans. Consequently, social scientists and biologists can formulate probabilistic regularities but not deterministic laws. The phenomena studied in the historical sciences show emergent complexity, in that they must be consistent with the deterministic laws of physics and chemistry, but they cannot be reduced to those laws.
Consider, for example, Jane Goodall's magnum opus The Chimpanzees of Gombe. As the title suggests, this book gives a historical narrative of one unique group of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Preserve in Tanzania, and yet it also generalizes about probabilistic tendencies in all chimpanzee groups. So, for example, she narrates the history of the male dominance hierarchy in Gombe, which reflects the unique personalities and unique social circumstances of the Gombe chimps. She can generalize about how any chimpanzee group will tend to display a male dominance hierarchy, but she cannot predict the precise historical pathway for any particular chimpanzee dominance hierarchy. Moreover, she notices that different chimpanzee groups have different cultural traditions of behavior reflecting unique cultural histories. And now many primatologists have confirmed that chimps show complex patterns of cultural learning and tradition that resemble those of human beings. The uniqueness of each chimpanzee individual and the uniqueness of each chimpanzee group give rise to historical traditions of behavior that cannot be precisely predicted by deterministic laws.
It is true that all life depends on genes and a shared genetic code, which allow us to formulate general laws of life, and that through biotech, we can use our knowledge of those genetic laws of life to gain some power over living nature. But although genes are necessary for explaining life, they are not sufficient. And, furthermore, the complexity of genetic causality introduces historical contingency in ways that make it impossible to develop deterministic laws of behavioral genetics.
From the earliest days of genetics, beginning with T. H. Morgan, the fruit fly has been one of the favored model organisms for studying genetics. Amazingly, many of the genetic mechanisms that shape not only the anatomy and physiology but also the behavior of fruit flies are fundamentally similar to those for more complex animals, including human beings. And yet, even the fruit fly shows a remarkable flexibility in its genetics that comes from the complexity of genetic causality. There are few cases where a single gene has a single function. Most genes are pleiotropic, in that they have more than one effect. And most genes are interactive, in that the action of each gene depends on its interactions with other genes, with other molecules inside and outside its cell, and with the external world generally. Moreover, the action of the gene may depend on the life history of its cell and of the individual organism in which it resides. Rather than acting through linear pathways, as is commonly depicted in textbooks, genes form complex networks. These networks of genes influence behavior only through networks of cellular mechanisms throughout the organism, including the neural networks of the nervous system. These highly integrated networks arranged in nested hierarchies--from genes to cells to tissues to nervous systems--give even a simple fruit fly an adaptive flexibility to respond to contingent events that cannot be predetermined by deterministic laws.
The causal complexity of gene action puts severe limits on the power of biotech for manipulating genes that influence complex traits. So, for example, while we hear a lot of talk these days about "designer babies," there is no reason to believe that we will ever be able to "design" babies if that means controlling complex behavioral traits like intelligence and personality. The complexity of gene networks make it difficult, if not impossible, to use biotech to alter our genes to enhance desirable traits without bringing about undesirable side effects. If we knock out or suppress one gene because it contributes to some undesirable effect, we might discover that the same gene has other effects that are desirable. Or we might discover that the undesirable effect really depends on so many genes interacting among themselves and with so many other factors, that controlling one gene gives us no control over that undesirable effect.
Identical (monozygotic) twins--who have the same genetic constitution--are often remarkably similar, not only in their physical appearance, but also in their emotional and intellectual character. Fraternal (dizygotic) twins--who share only about half their genes--are often quite different from one another. This surely shows the powerful influence of genes on the behavioral propensities of human beings. But still, even identical twins are not really identical. For example, their fingerprints are similar and yet different. Identical twins differ in their character traits in ways that make them distinct persons, because subtle differences in their life-history development give them different traits. These differences start even in the uterus. Most identical twins share the same placenta. But about one-third develop in separate placentas. Those who had separate placentas seem to be less similar to one another than twins who shared a placenta.
Even conjoined twins--those whose bodies are attached--show clear differences in their personalities, even though they have shared virtually identical environments as well as identical genomes. The original "Siamese twins"--Eng and Chang Bunker--were born in Siam (now Thailand) in 1811. They were born joined at the chest by a band of flesh. After their death, an autopsy showed that they had shared liver tissue. They moved to the United States, became successful farmers in North Carolina, and married two sisters. The sisters lived in separate houses. Eng and Chang would divide each week between the two homes. They had 21 children between the two of them. The brothers often fought with one another because their personalities were so different. Eng was quiet, amiable, and a teetotaler. Chang was aggressive, irritable, and inclined to alcoholism. In other words, they were individuals.
The individual uniqueness of living beings--even with individuals having the same genome--denies the popular idea that cloning produces duplicates. One motivation for cloning might be to preserve a loved one that is going to die. But this motivation is misguided because the clone would not really be identical to its progenitor. For example, pet owners might want to preserve their favorite pets by cloning them, but they would discover that the clones were not really replicas of their beloved animal. A company--Genetic Savings and Clone--was set up to sell cloning services to pet owners. They attracted great publicity a few years ago when they announced that they had cloned a cat that they named "Copy Cat." But this turned into a public relations flop when the pictures were widely published around the world. They had cloned a calico cat, and calicos have varying patterns of coloration that depend not just on genes but also on environmental cues in the mother cat's womb. As a result, "Copy Cat" did not look at all like the cat from which she was cloned. The scientists who did this work at Texas A & M University reported: "As with other genetically identical animals with multicolored coats, the cloned kitten's color patterning is not exactly the same as that of the nuclear donor--this is because the pattern of pigmentation in multicolored animals is the result not only of genetic factors but also of developmental factors that are not controlled by genotype." But that suggests that the excitement about cloning as a way of duplicating animals and humans is based on the false idea that identical genes produce identical creatures.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Elizabeth Blackburn and Leon Kass
Recently, MIT Press published Catherine Brady's biography of Elizabeth Blackburn--Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA. Blackburn is famous among biologists as the leading researcher in the study of telomeres. Telomeres are those regions of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes. As cells divide, these telomeres tend to shorten, and eventually this shortening of the telomeres leads to the death of the cells. Some cells--such as cancer cells--continue dividing endlessly because of the enzyme telomerase that slows the shortening of telomeres. Blackburn's research on telomeres has become important both for aging research and cancer research.
In the fall of 2001, when President Bush established his Council on Bioethics with Leon Kass as the Chair, Blackburn was appointed as one of the original 17 members. Although Kass was careful to appoint members who would generally support Bush's political agenda--particularly, his opposition to embryonic stem cell research--Blackburn emerged as one of a group of four members who argued with Kass and criticized the President's agenda.
Early in 2004, Kass demanded that Blackburn be removed from the Council. She and two others--William May and Stephen Carter--were removed and replaced by three new members--Peter Lawler, Diana Schaub, and Benjamin Carson. This provoked a public controversy because it seemed that Kass was manipulating the membership of the Council to weaken any opposition to Bush's political agenda on bioethics. Although Kass tried to argue that there was no political motivation behind his moves, he was unpersuasive, particularly since the three people joining the Council--Lawler, Schaub, and Carson--were friendly to Kass's positions. (In 2005, Kass resigned as Chair of the Council, although he remains a member of the Council.)
Brady recounts this controversy, with a clear bias towards Blackburn and without much intellectual depth. Blackburn herself is a great scientist, but she lacks any understanding of the deep philosophic implications of the debate surrounding Kass and the Council. For example, she was baffled by Kass's assertion that there is "a disjunction between the way science understands things and the way human beings on the plane of human experience understand things" (p. 280 in Brady's book). Blackburn was unfamiliar with the intellectual legacy of Kass as influenced by Martin Heidegger, Jacob Klein, Leo Strauss, and Hans Jonas--particularly, the legacy of phenomenological philosophy and its account of early modern science as abstracting from the common sense experience of human beings for the sake of fostering a technological conquest of nature.
The serious flaws in Kass's reasoning arise from his dubious assumption that Descartes's materialist reductionism "sets the program of all modern science" and his failure to see how Darwinian biology refutes Cartesianism. Some of my blog posts on these points can be found here, here, and here. I also have an entry on the President's Council on Bioethics in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (4 vols., 2005) and a chapter on Kass and biotechnology in Darwinian Conservatism. Some of the material in the book chapter can also be found in my article for The New Atlantis (summer 2003), which can be found here.
In May, I will be directing a Liberty Fund colloquium in New Orleans on "Biotechnology and Liberty." We will be reading Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, one of the reports of the President's Council edited by Kass, and Ron Bailey's Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution. There is a good debate between these two books. Kass's book reflects neoconservative fears about the dehumanizing effects of trying to use biotech to conquer nature for human benefit. Bailey's book is a libertarian defense of biotech as a tool for advancing human liberty through the scientific mastery over nature.
In the fall of 2001, when President Bush established his Council on Bioethics with Leon Kass as the Chair, Blackburn was appointed as one of the original 17 members. Although Kass was careful to appoint members who would generally support Bush's political agenda--particularly, his opposition to embryonic stem cell research--Blackburn emerged as one of a group of four members who argued with Kass and criticized the President's agenda.
Early in 2004, Kass demanded that Blackburn be removed from the Council. She and two others--William May and Stephen Carter--were removed and replaced by three new members--Peter Lawler, Diana Schaub, and Benjamin Carson. This provoked a public controversy because it seemed that Kass was manipulating the membership of the Council to weaken any opposition to Bush's political agenda on bioethics. Although Kass tried to argue that there was no political motivation behind his moves, he was unpersuasive, particularly since the three people joining the Council--Lawler, Schaub, and Carson--were friendly to Kass's positions. (In 2005, Kass resigned as Chair of the Council, although he remains a member of the Council.)
Brady recounts this controversy, with a clear bias towards Blackburn and without much intellectual depth. Blackburn herself is a great scientist, but she lacks any understanding of the deep philosophic implications of the debate surrounding Kass and the Council. For example, she was baffled by Kass's assertion that there is "a disjunction between the way science understands things and the way human beings on the plane of human experience understand things" (p. 280 in Brady's book). Blackburn was unfamiliar with the intellectual legacy of Kass as influenced by Martin Heidegger, Jacob Klein, Leo Strauss, and Hans Jonas--particularly, the legacy of phenomenological philosophy and its account of early modern science as abstracting from the common sense experience of human beings for the sake of fostering a technological conquest of nature.
The serious flaws in Kass's reasoning arise from his dubious assumption that Descartes's materialist reductionism "sets the program of all modern science" and his failure to see how Darwinian biology refutes Cartesianism. Some of my blog posts on these points can be found here, here, and here. I also have an entry on the President's Council on Bioethics in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (4 vols., 2005) and a chapter on Kass and biotechnology in Darwinian Conservatism. Some of the material in the book chapter can also be found in my article for The New Atlantis (summer 2003), which can be found here.
In May, I will be directing a Liberty Fund colloquium in New Orleans on "Biotechnology and Liberty." We will be reading Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, one of the reports of the President's Council edited by Kass, and Ron Bailey's Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution. There is a good debate between these two books. Kass's book reflects neoconservative fears about the dehumanizing effects of trying to use biotech to conquer nature for human benefit. Bailey's book is a libertarian defense of biotech as a tool for advancing human liberty through the scientific mastery over nature.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Ben Stein's Movie on the Evolution Debate
Ben Stein has made a documentary movie--"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"--criticizing universities for suppressing the academic freedom of those promoting "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwinian biology. Although the movie will not be released for public viewing until April 18, it is already creating controversy because critics charge that it's a biased piece of propaganda advancing "intelligent design theory."
Today's Inside Higher Ed has published an article on the movie by Andy Guess, who interviewed me for the article. Unfortunately, he doesn't make clear in the article that I argue for allowing university students to have an open debate in their biology classes over Darwinism and "intelligent design theory." But my argument is set forth in an article published by Inside Higher Ed a few years ago, which can be found here.
Today's Inside Higher Ed has published an article on the movie by Andy Guess, who interviewed me for the article. Unfortunately, he doesn't make clear in the article that I argue for allowing university students to have an open debate in their biology classes over Darwinism and "intelligent design theory." But my argument is set forth in an article published by Inside Higher Ed a few years ago, which can be found here.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
John Adams--Ambition and Limited Government
The $100 million HBO mini-series on John Adams has prompted questions as to why this most-neglected of America's Founding Fathers has now suddenly become famous. I have personal reasons to agree with the conclusion in the recent issue of The Economist that "sometimes short bald men are right"!
But what was he right about? In Darwinian Conservatism, Adams is prominent in the chapter on "Limited Government." In that chapter, I suggest that in some ways, Adams was the deepest thinker among the American Founders. He was an intensely ambitious man. But he was also a well-read scholar and serious thinker who understood that the ambition of the sort of people who strive for power would become tyrannical if it was not properly channelled. He understood that in every society, there will be a rivalry for power between those few who want to be dominant, while the multitude of people will look to the leadership of the few, even as they resist being exploited by the ambitious few. Adams indicated that this structure of rule--the one, the few, and the many--could be found among many animals with dominance hierarchies. And in my chapter, I suggested that his political anthropology was confirmed by modern ethological studies of "chimpanzee politics."
From his reading of political philosophy--from Aristotle to Cicero to Machiavelli to Adam Smith--and from his own political experience, Adams rightly concluded that the best form of government was a "mixed regime" that allows the few to strive for dominance, with one person rising to the top, but with a system of divided powers balanced against one another so that no one person or group can become despotic. I argue that studies of primate politics confirms the practical wisdom of Adams' political thought.
If the HBS television series turns the attention of the public to Adams, and if it directs a few serious readers to read Adams writings (including the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780) and biographies of Adams like that by David McCullough, this could promote a renewed appreciation for Adams' argument for balanced government, which figures prominently in Darwinian conservatism.
But what was he right about? In Darwinian Conservatism, Adams is prominent in the chapter on "Limited Government." In that chapter, I suggest that in some ways, Adams was the deepest thinker among the American Founders. He was an intensely ambitious man. But he was also a well-read scholar and serious thinker who understood that the ambition of the sort of people who strive for power would become tyrannical if it was not properly channelled. He understood that in every society, there will be a rivalry for power between those few who want to be dominant, while the multitude of people will look to the leadership of the few, even as they resist being exploited by the ambitious few. Adams indicated that this structure of rule--the one, the few, and the many--could be found among many animals with dominance hierarchies. And in my chapter, I suggested that his political anthropology was confirmed by modern ethological studies of "chimpanzee politics."
From his reading of political philosophy--from Aristotle to Cicero to Machiavelli to Adam Smith--and from his own political experience, Adams rightly concluded that the best form of government was a "mixed regime" that allows the few to strive for dominance, with one person rising to the top, but with a system of divided powers balanced against one another so that no one person or group can become despotic. I argue that studies of primate politics confirms the practical wisdom of Adams' political thought.
If the HBS television series turns the attention of the public to Adams, and if it directs a few serious readers to read Adams writings (including the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780) and biographies of Adams like that by David McCullough, this could promote a renewed appreciation for Adams' argument for balanced government, which figures prominently in Darwinian conservatism.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Recipient of the Templeton Prize Rejects Intelligent Design Theory
Recently, the John Templeton Foundation announced that the 2008 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities will be awarded to Michael Heller, a Catholic priest and cosmologist at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, Poland. The prize brings an award of $1.6 million dollars. This is part of the Templeton Foundation's extensive sponsorship of work in science and religion.
Heller's statement on receiving the prize can be found here. As part of this statement, he explains why he rejects "intelligent design theory" as a putative alternative to Darwinian science:
"Adherents of the so-called intelligent design ideology commit a grave theological error. They claim that scientific theories that ascribe a great role to chance and random events in the evolutionary processes should be replaced, or supplemented, by theories acknowledging the thread of intelligent design in the universe. Such views are theologically erroneous. They implicitly revive the old manicheistic error postulating the existence of two forces acting against each other: God and an inert matter; in this case, chance and intelligent design. There is no opposition here. Within the all-comprising Mind of God what we call chance and random events is well composed into the symphony of creation."
I made a somewhat similar point in my chapter on "intelligent design" in Darwinian Conservatism. "Intelligent design theory" denies Christian theology by assuming a Gnostic antagonism between natural order and divine intelligence. It assumes a dichotomy such that either living beings evolved or they were intelligently designed. William Dembski's "explanatory filter" posits that if we can explain something as a product of natural regularities, then we cannot attribute this to design. But Christian theology would say that everything is intelligently designed by God--either through His design of natural laws (including evolution) or through His designing things outside His natural laws. For that reason, many Christian scientists believe that if all living things could be explained as products of Darwinian natural evolution, this would be a wondrous manifestation of God's power for intelligently designing natural laws to execute His purposes. Whether God works through the ordinary laws of nature or through extraordinary miracles, it's all an expression of His intelligent design. From the point of view of Christian theology, Darwinian evolution is intelligent design.
Heller's statement on receiving the prize can be found here. As part of this statement, he explains why he rejects "intelligent design theory" as a putative alternative to Darwinian science:
"Adherents of the so-called intelligent design ideology commit a grave theological error. They claim that scientific theories that ascribe a great role to chance and random events in the evolutionary processes should be replaced, or supplemented, by theories acknowledging the thread of intelligent design in the universe. Such views are theologically erroneous. They implicitly revive the old manicheistic error postulating the existence of two forces acting against each other: God and an inert matter; in this case, chance and intelligent design. There is no opposition here. Within the all-comprising Mind of God what we call chance and random events is well composed into the symphony of creation."
I made a somewhat similar point in my chapter on "intelligent design" in Darwinian Conservatism. "Intelligent design theory" denies Christian theology by assuming a Gnostic antagonism between natural order and divine intelligence. It assumes a dichotomy such that either living beings evolved or they were intelligently designed. William Dembski's "explanatory filter" posits that if we can explain something as a product of natural regularities, then we cannot attribute this to design. But Christian theology would say that everything is intelligently designed by God--either through His design of natural laws (including evolution) or through His designing things outside His natural laws. For that reason, many Christian scientists believe that if all living things could be explained as products of Darwinian natural evolution, this would be a wondrous manifestation of God's power for intelligently designing natural laws to execute His purposes. Whether God works through the ordinary laws of nature or through extraordinary miracles, it's all an expression of His intelligent design. From the point of view of Christian theology, Darwinian evolution is intelligent design.
The Darwinian Biology of Thomistic Natural Law
In contrast to people like John Finnis, I believe that the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition of ethical naturalism is rooted in a biological understanding of human nature. A few years ago, Alasdair MacIntyre took a similar position despite his earlier disagreement. In his remarkably influential book After Virtue (1981), MacIntyre tried to defend an Aristotelian and Thomistic view of ethics as founded on the moral and intellectual virtues. But he insisted that his ethical view did not depend on Aristotle's "metaphysical biology." Almost twenty years later, in Dependent Rational Animals (1999), he conceded that "I was in error in supposing an ethics independent of biology to be possible." He generously referred to my Darwinian Natural Right as an influence on his change of mind. He had decided that we cannot explain how we develop into moral beings unless we explain how our biological nature as animals makes such a form of life possible for us. He also observed that denying or denigrating our bodily nature as animals obscures our natural vulnerability and dependence. MacIntyre went on to argue that the Aristotelian and Thomistic understanding of the animal nature of human thought and action is confirmed by Darwinian biology.
That Darwinian biology supports Thomas Aquinas's natural law is an idea that I have developed in various writings, most fully in "Thomistic Natural Law as Darwinian Natural Right," an article published in the winter 2001 issue of Social Philosophy & Policy. (This whole issue of the journal was also published as a book by Cambridge University Press--Natural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy.)
But for some strange reason my absolutely conclusive arguments have not persuaded all of the scholars of Thomistic natural law. In particular, Craig Boyd has challenged my position. His reasoning is laid out in an article--"Was Thomas Aquinas a Sociobiologist? Thomistic Natural Law, Rational Goods, and Sociobiology," in Zygon (September 2004)--in a book chapter in Evolution and Ethics (edited by Philip Clayton and Jeffrey Schloss, 2004), and in Boyd's recent book A Shared Morality: A Narrative Defense of Natural Law Ethics (2007).
Boyd contends that "although much of natural law morality is clearly rooted in human biology, Arnhart's claim that the entirety of human morality is merely biological certainly cannot be supported by natural law morality." The natural morality of the natural inclinations to self-preservation, conjugal bonding, parental care, and social life is rooted in animal nature. But "the human ability to deliberate, judge, and guide activities transcends animal nature." As uniquely rational animals, human beings have "rational goods" that transcend human biology.
For Boyd's position, the crucial passage in Aquinas's Summa Theologica is the famous passage on the three levels of natural law:
"Since good has the idea of an end, and evil the idea of a contrary, all those things to which a human being has a natural inclination reason naturally apprehends as good, and consequently as objects to be pursued, and the contraries of these as evil and to be avoided. Therefore, the order of the precepts of the natural law is according to the order of the natural inclinations. For there is first in a human being an inclination to good according to the nature which he shares with all substances: insofar as every substance seeks the preservation of itself accroding to its own nature. And according to this inclination, those things through which human life is preserved and threats to life avoided belong to the natural law. Secondly, there is in a human being an inclination to some things more special to him according to the nature that he shares with other animals. And accroding to this inclination, it is said that those things are of natural law 'that nature has taught all animals,' such as the joining of male and female, the education of children, and similar things. In a third mode, there is in human being an inclination to good according to the nature of reason, which is proper to him: thus a human being has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society. And according to this inclination, those things that pertain to this kind of inclination belong to natural law: for example, that a human being avoid ignorance, and that he not offend those others with whom he must live, and other such things that pertain to his inclination" (I-II, q. 94, a. 2).
Boyd agrees with me that the first two levels of natural human inclinations are shared with other animals, and therefore they are rooted in biological nature, and they are open to study by Darwinian science. But he disagrees with me by arguing that the third level of natural inclinations--based on the uniquely human capacity for reason--transcends human biology.
In reply to Boyd, I say that his reading of Aquinas confuses "natural law" with "divine law." Natural law, Aquinas believes, guides human beings in pursuit of their natural ends--earthly happiness. But insofar as human beings are directed to supernatural ends--heavenly beatitude--they need the divine law of Biblical revelation. This supernatural or divine law transcends the capacity of human nature. But natural law is fully within human nature (I-II, q. 91, a. 4).
In distinguishing the various levels of natural law, Aquinas identifies the "generic nature" that human beings share with other animals, the "specific nature" that they share with other members of the human species, and the "temperamental nature" unique to particular human individuals (I-II, q. 46, a. 5; q. 51, a. 1; q. 63, a. 1). Aquinas draws this three-leveled analysis from Aristotle's biology. Darwinian biology employs the same analysis in that some human traits are shared with other animals, some are unique to human beings, and some are unique to particular individuals.
Boyd stresses the human uniqueness of "the human ability to deliberate, judge, and guide activities." But, of course, Darwin recognizes this as well: human beings have a natural ability to deliberate about their desires in the light of past experience and future expectations that makes human beings unique in their morality. This uniqueness does not "transcend animal nature," because it is part of the uniquely human animal nature. Human beings have mental capacities that emerge from the evolution of the brain that give them a unique freedom to deliberate about their conduct and to freely choose between alternative courses of action. I take this up in various parts of Darwinian Natural Right and in the chapter on "Emergence" in Darwinian Conservatism.
But what should one say about Aquinas's reference to the "natural inclination to know the truth about God"? Does this show a transcendence of human biological nature? I would say that Aquinas understands the "natural desire to know God" as fully within human nature and natural law in a manner that can be accounted for by Darwinian naturalism.
A serious study of Aquinas on this point would require some study of passages scattered throughout the Summa Theologica (I, q. 12, a. 1; I-II, q. 3, a. 8; q. 99, a. 3; II-II, q. 81, a. 5; q. 85, a. 1) and Summa Gentiles (I, 11; III, 25, 50-51, 57, 119).
As I read it, this "natural inclination to know the truth about God" corresponds to what I have identified as the natural desire for religious understanding. The natural rationality of human beings inclines them to seek the causes of everything, even to the point of asking for the first cause or ultimate explanation of everything. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is nature ordered as it is and not differently? If we do not accept the order of nature as a brute fact--That's just the way it is!--we might ask for the uncaused cause of all natural causes, and that would lead us to God as First Cause. This is Aquinas's natural theology. From natural effects, we can reason our way to God as the First Cause. But this purely natural inference of human reason cannot take us to the essence of God. For that, we need revelation.
Darwin acknowledged that when we ask about the first cause of life or of the universe as a whole, we reach the limits of human reason, and this leaves an opening for God as Creator or uncaused cause. This yearning to explain everything is a uniquely human desire, but it is still part of human biological nature insofar as it expresses a natural desire for understanding that arises from the emergent powers of the human brain.
I have written a paper elaborating my responses to the various criticisms of my argument for Thomistic natural law as Darwinian natural right.
That Darwinian biology supports Thomas Aquinas's natural law is an idea that I have developed in various writings, most fully in "Thomistic Natural Law as Darwinian Natural Right," an article published in the winter 2001 issue of Social Philosophy & Policy. (This whole issue of the journal was also published as a book by Cambridge University Press--Natural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy.)
But for some strange reason my absolutely conclusive arguments have not persuaded all of the scholars of Thomistic natural law. In particular, Craig Boyd has challenged my position. His reasoning is laid out in an article--"Was Thomas Aquinas a Sociobiologist? Thomistic Natural Law, Rational Goods, and Sociobiology," in Zygon (September 2004)--in a book chapter in Evolution and Ethics (edited by Philip Clayton and Jeffrey Schloss, 2004), and in Boyd's recent book A Shared Morality: A Narrative Defense of Natural Law Ethics (2007).
Boyd contends that "although much of natural law morality is clearly rooted in human biology, Arnhart's claim that the entirety of human morality is merely biological certainly cannot be supported by natural law morality." The natural morality of the natural inclinations to self-preservation, conjugal bonding, parental care, and social life is rooted in animal nature. But "the human ability to deliberate, judge, and guide activities transcends animal nature." As uniquely rational animals, human beings have "rational goods" that transcend human biology.
For Boyd's position, the crucial passage in Aquinas's Summa Theologica is the famous passage on the three levels of natural law:
"Since good has the idea of an end, and evil the idea of a contrary, all those things to which a human being has a natural inclination reason naturally apprehends as good, and consequently as objects to be pursued, and the contraries of these as evil and to be avoided. Therefore, the order of the precepts of the natural law is according to the order of the natural inclinations. For there is first in a human being an inclination to good according to the nature which he shares with all substances: insofar as every substance seeks the preservation of itself accroding to its own nature. And according to this inclination, those things through which human life is preserved and threats to life avoided belong to the natural law. Secondly, there is in a human being an inclination to some things more special to him according to the nature that he shares with other animals. And accroding to this inclination, it is said that those things are of natural law 'that nature has taught all animals,' such as the joining of male and female, the education of children, and similar things. In a third mode, there is in human being an inclination to good according to the nature of reason, which is proper to him: thus a human being has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society. And according to this inclination, those things that pertain to this kind of inclination belong to natural law: for example, that a human being avoid ignorance, and that he not offend those others with whom he must live, and other such things that pertain to his inclination" (I-II, q. 94, a. 2).
Boyd agrees with me that the first two levels of natural human inclinations are shared with other animals, and therefore they are rooted in biological nature, and they are open to study by Darwinian science. But he disagrees with me by arguing that the third level of natural inclinations--based on the uniquely human capacity for reason--transcends human biology.
In reply to Boyd, I say that his reading of Aquinas confuses "natural law" with "divine law." Natural law, Aquinas believes, guides human beings in pursuit of their natural ends--earthly happiness. But insofar as human beings are directed to supernatural ends--heavenly beatitude--they need the divine law of Biblical revelation. This supernatural or divine law transcends the capacity of human nature. But natural law is fully within human nature (I-II, q. 91, a. 4).
In distinguishing the various levels of natural law, Aquinas identifies the "generic nature" that human beings share with other animals, the "specific nature" that they share with other members of the human species, and the "temperamental nature" unique to particular human individuals (I-II, q. 46, a. 5; q. 51, a. 1; q. 63, a. 1). Aquinas draws this three-leveled analysis from Aristotle's biology. Darwinian biology employs the same analysis in that some human traits are shared with other animals, some are unique to human beings, and some are unique to particular individuals.
Boyd stresses the human uniqueness of "the human ability to deliberate, judge, and guide activities." But, of course, Darwin recognizes this as well: human beings have a natural ability to deliberate about their desires in the light of past experience and future expectations that makes human beings unique in their morality. This uniqueness does not "transcend animal nature," because it is part of the uniquely human animal nature. Human beings have mental capacities that emerge from the evolution of the brain that give them a unique freedom to deliberate about their conduct and to freely choose between alternative courses of action. I take this up in various parts of Darwinian Natural Right and in the chapter on "Emergence" in Darwinian Conservatism.
But what should one say about Aquinas's reference to the "natural inclination to know the truth about God"? Does this show a transcendence of human biological nature? I would say that Aquinas understands the "natural desire to know God" as fully within human nature and natural law in a manner that can be accounted for by Darwinian naturalism.
A serious study of Aquinas on this point would require some study of passages scattered throughout the Summa Theologica (I, q. 12, a. 1; I-II, q. 3, a. 8; q. 99, a. 3; II-II, q. 81, a. 5; q. 85, a. 1) and Summa Gentiles (I, 11; III, 25, 50-51, 57, 119).
As I read it, this "natural inclination to know the truth about God" corresponds to what I have identified as the natural desire for religious understanding. The natural rationality of human beings inclines them to seek the causes of everything, even to the point of asking for the first cause or ultimate explanation of everything. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is nature ordered as it is and not differently? If we do not accept the order of nature as a brute fact--That's just the way it is!--we might ask for the uncaused cause of all natural causes, and that would lead us to God as First Cause. This is Aquinas's natural theology. From natural effects, we can reason our way to God as the First Cause. But this purely natural inference of human reason cannot take us to the essence of God. For that, we need revelation.
Darwin acknowledged that when we ask about the first cause of life or of the universe as a whole, we reach the limits of human reason, and this leaves an opening for God as Creator or uncaused cause. This yearning to explain everything is a uniquely human desire, but it is still part of human biological nature insofar as it expresses a natural desire for understanding that arises from the emergent powers of the human brain.
I have written a paper elaborating my responses to the various criticisms of my argument for Thomistic natural law as Darwinian natural right.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
C. S. Lewis on Theistic Evolution
On this blog, I have often argued that theistic evolution is compatible with evolutionary science. Although there are Darwinian atheists like Richard Dawkins, their atheism is not dictated by Darwinian science, which is open to the possibility that God acted as First Cause in using an evolutionary process to carry out his will.
C. S. Lewis--perhaps the most famous Christian apologist of the twentieth century--was a theistic evolutionist. In his writings, he identified the Creation story in the book of Genesis as a "myth" or "Hebrew folk tale" that should not be interpreted literally. That God created everything and created human beings in His image was true, but the natural process by which this occurred was not specified in the Bible, and it could have occurred by an evolutionary process.
Lewis accepted the traditional doctrine of the Fall. Although it is sometimes asserted that the evolutionary account of human beings as evolving from lower animals and from primitive proto-human ancestors denies the Fall, Lewis denied this.
In The Problem of Pain, Lewis speculated on the origins of human beings:
"For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say 'I' and 'me,' which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgements of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past. This new consciousness ruled and illuminated the whole organism, flooding every part of it with light, and was not, like ours, limited to a selection of the movements going on in one part of the organism, namely the brain. Man was then all consciousness."
This original "Paradisal man" is not detectable by the natural fossil record, because "judged by his artefacts, or perhaps even by his language, this blessed creature was, no doubt, a savage." This original specific nature was lost when man fell though some act of pride. "Thus human spirit from being the master of human nature became a mere lodger in its own house, or even a prisoner, rational consciousness, became what it now is--a fitful spot-light resting on a small part of the cerebral motions."
Although Lewis was critical of evolutionists who falsely claimed that evolutionary science dictated atheism, he saw no necessary conflict between his Christianity and evolutionary science.
It is true, however, that towards the end of his life, he was somewhat influenced by his correspondence with Bernard Acworth, a creationist anti-evolutionist who tried to persuade Lewis to become an opponent of evolution. But there was no change in his published writing on creation and evolution.
A survey of Lewis's correspondence with Acworth can be found here.
In his book The Language of God, Francis Collins--the head of the Human Genome Project--indicates that reading C. S. Lewis was a crucial point in his journey from atheism to Christianity. He decided that science and Christian faith were compatible. In the section of his book explaining why he accepts theistic evolution, he quotes the same passage I just quoted from Lewis about divinely guided evolution. Collins defends theistic evolution--or "BioLogos" as he calls it--as superior to the alternatives--atheism, creationism, and intelligent design.
C. S. Lewis--perhaps the most famous Christian apologist of the twentieth century--was a theistic evolutionist. In his writings, he identified the Creation story in the book of Genesis as a "myth" or "Hebrew folk tale" that should not be interpreted literally. That God created everything and created human beings in His image was true, but the natural process by which this occurred was not specified in the Bible, and it could have occurred by an evolutionary process.
Lewis accepted the traditional doctrine of the Fall. Although it is sometimes asserted that the evolutionary account of human beings as evolving from lower animals and from primitive proto-human ancestors denies the Fall, Lewis denied this.
In The Problem of Pain, Lewis speculated on the origins of human beings:
"For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say 'I' and 'me,' which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgements of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past. This new consciousness ruled and illuminated the whole organism, flooding every part of it with light, and was not, like ours, limited to a selection of the movements going on in one part of the organism, namely the brain. Man was then all consciousness."
This original "Paradisal man" is not detectable by the natural fossil record, because "judged by his artefacts, or perhaps even by his language, this blessed creature was, no doubt, a savage." This original specific nature was lost when man fell though some act of pride. "Thus human spirit from being the master of human nature became a mere lodger in its own house, or even a prisoner, rational consciousness, became what it now is--a fitful spot-light resting on a small part of the cerebral motions."
Although Lewis was critical of evolutionists who falsely claimed that evolutionary science dictated atheism, he saw no necessary conflict between his Christianity and evolutionary science.
It is true, however, that towards the end of his life, he was somewhat influenced by his correspondence with Bernard Acworth, a creationist anti-evolutionist who tried to persuade Lewis to become an opponent of evolution. But there was no change in his published writing on creation and evolution.
A survey of Lewis's correspondence with Acworth can be found here.
In his book The Language of God, Francis Collins--the head of the Human Genome Project--indicates that reading C. S. Lewis was a crucial point in his journey from atheism to Christianity. He decided that science and Christian faith were compatible. In the section of his book explaining why he accepts theistic evolution, he quotes the same passage I just quoted from Lewis about divinely guided evolution. Collins defends theistic evolution--or "BioLogos" as he calls it--as superior to the alternatives--atheism, creationism, and intelligent design.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
James C. Carter's Evolutionary Jurisprudence
Today, I am going to Indianapolis to be the discussion leader for a Liberty Fund conference on James Coolidge Carter's book Law: Its Origin, Growth, and Function. Carter was one of the most prominent American lawyers at the end of the nineteenth century. He wrote his book as a series of lectures to be delivered at Harvard Law School in 1905, although he died before he could deliver the lectures.
Carter's primary argument is that all law is ultimately rooted in custom. In defense of customary law, he argues against attempts to codify the rules of common law and thus replace unwritten law with the written law of statutory legislation. He thus opposes proponents of "positive law"--like Jeremy Bentham and John Austin--who claim that all law is ultimately made by command of the sovereign lawmaker. He also opposes proponents of "natural law"--like Cicero and William Blackstone--who claim that all law is ultimately discovered as part of the natural order of things.
But even as Carter elevates customary law over both natural law and positive law, he implicitly concedes the partial truth in the natural law and positive law positions. The order of custom evolves from the natural dispositions and capacities of human beings as they discover over long periods of time the customary norms of social order. And along the way, human beings learn how to deliberately design rules of order that perfect the evolutionary tendencies of human nature and human custom.
Carter thus moves towards a view of social and legal order as rooted in nature, custom, and reason, which conforms to what I have proposed as the three levels of order in which custom is constrained by nature, and reason is constrained by both nature and custom. This is implicit in Darwin's account of the evolution of human morality as rooted in the complex interaction of natural evolution, cultural evolution, and deliberate choice.
The evolutionary character of Carter's jurisprudence becomes clear when he acknowledges his debt to Alexander Sutherland's book The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. Sutherland indicates that his book elaborates the reasoning of Darwin in The Descent of Man to explain the evolution of the moral sense.
Traditionally, the philosophy of law has been divided into competing intellectual camps defending natural law, customary law, or positive law as the ultimate ground of all law. An evolutionary jurisprudence would reconcile these opposing positions by showing how they each represent a partial truth, because a full account of legal order requires a complex interaction of nature, custom, and reason.
I have tried to sketch such an evolutionary jurisprudence in various parts of Darwinian Natural Right and Darwinian Conservatism.
Carter's primary argument is that all law is ultimately rooted in custom. In defense of customary law, he argues against attempts to codify the rules of common law and thus replace unwritten law with the written law of statutory legislation. He thus opposes proponents of "positive law"--like Jeremy Bentham and John Austin--who claim that all law is ultimately made by command of the sovereign lawmaker. He also opposes proponents of "natural law"--like Cicero and William Blackstone--who claim that all law is ultimately discovered as part of the natural order of things.
But even as Carter elevates customary law over both natural law and positive law, he implicitly concedes the partial truth in the natural law and positive law positions. The order of custom evolves from the natural dispositions and capacities of human beings as they discover over long periods of time the customary norms of social order. And along the way, human beings learn how to deliberately design rules of order that perfect the evolutionary tendencies of human nature and human custom.
Carter thus moves towards a view of social and legal order as rooted in nature, custom, and reason, which conforms to what I have proposed as the three levels of order in which custom is constrained by nature, and reason is constrained by both nature and custom. This is implicit in Darwin's account of the evolution of human morality as rooted in the complex interaction of natural evolution, cultural evolution, and deliberate choice.
The evolutionary character of Carter's jurisprudence becomes clear when he acknowledges his debt to Alexander Sutherland's book The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. Sutherland indicates that his book elaborates the reasoning of Darwin in The Descent of Man to explain the evolution of the moral sense.
Traditionally, the philosophy of law has been divided into competing intellectual camps defending natural law, customary law, or positive law as the ultimate ground of all law. An evolutionary jurisprudence would reconcile these opposing positions by showing how they each represent a partial truth, because a full account of legal order requires a complex interaction of nature, custom, and reason.
I have tried to sketch such an evolutionary jurisprudence in various parts of Darwinian Natural Right and Darwinian Conservatism.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Ayn Rand on Human Evolution
In a comment on my previous post on Ayn Rand and evolution, Neil Parille refers to his essay on "Ayn Rand and Evolution." The article provides a good survey of Rand's scattered remarks on evolution.
Saying that she was neither a supporter nor an opponent of the theory of evolution, Rand's comments are confusing and incoherent. Rand said that "rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival." She rooted this conclusion in the idea that only living organisms can have values because only they show self-generated, goal-directed action. "An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." Moreover, "since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil." This and other comments suggest that Rand's ethics is rooted in a biological teleology of human nature. As I have suggested in my previous post, Harry Binswanger develops this Randian idea in his book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts.
But as Parille indicates, Rand herself was unclear about whether she accepted biological evolution. Oddly enough, although Rand was an atheist, she assumed that man transcended biological nature, and this transcendence sounds a lot like the Christian conception of human beings as set apart from the natural world. Here she resembles Nietzsche in his atheistic religiosity--denying Christianity even as he appropriated the Christian language of "exaltation" and "redemption."
Moreover, Rand's suspicion of biological evolution seems to assume a "blank slate" conception of human beings that contradicts her appeal to human nature. This is strange because the "blank slate" idea was the basis for the collectivist vision of the radical malleability of human nature, and it was this vision that Rand challenged.
Saying that she was neither a supporter nor an opponent of the theory of evolution, Rand's comments are confusing and incoherent. Rand said that "rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival." She rooted this conclusion in the idea that only living organisms can have values because only they show self-generated, goal-directed action. "An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." Moreover, "since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil." This and other comments suggest that Rand's ethics is rooted in a biological teleology of human nature. As I have suggested in my previous post, Harry Binswanger develops this Randian idea in his book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts.
But as Parille indicates, Rand herself was unclear about whether she accepted biological evolution. Oddly enough, although Rand was an atheist, she assumed that man transcended biological nature, and this transcendence sounds a lot like the Christian conception of human beings as set apart from the natural world. Here she resembles Nietzsche in his atheistic religiosity--denying Christianity even as he appropriated the Christian language of "exaltation" and "redemption."
Moreover, Rand's suspicion of biological evolution seems to assume a "blank slate" conception of human beings that contradicts her appeal to human nature. This is strange because the "blank slate" idea was the basis for the collectivist vision of the radical malleability of human nature, and it was this vision that Rand challenged.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
The Biological Teleology of Ayn Rand's Ethics
This semester, I am teaching a graduate seminar on "American Political Novels." Right now, we are reading Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. Reading Rand reminds me how Rand's individualist ethics rests upon the sort of biological teleology that I have defended as part of "Darwinian natural right."
The best statement of Rand's ethics is "The Objectivist Ethics," the first chapter of The Virtue of Selfishness. In that essay, she declares: "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil." Inanimate entities cannot have any values because they have nothing to gain or lose. But living organisms have values because they have the capacity for self-generated, self-directed action.
"Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism's life.
"An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means--and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."
It is often assumed that modern science denies any teleological conception of nature and therefore denies the teleological basis for Aristotelian natural right. Leo Strauss suggested this, for example, at the beginning of Natural Right and History. But I have argued--in Darwinian Natural Right--that Darwinian science actually supports a modern biological conception of teleology. By natural selection, living organisms are designed for survival and reproduction, and thus they are designed for goals or purposes. Some animals pursue their goals consciously. Human beings pursue their goals through conscious reasoning. As Rand puts it, man is "a specific organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to sustain his life." "Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil."
The Darwinian basis for Rand's ethics as rooted in biological teleology is elaborated in some of the writings of Harry Binswanger--particularly, his book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts and his article "Life-based Teleology and the Foundation of Ethics" in The Monist (January 1992). Binswanger shows how ethics presupposes the goal-directed action of all living organisms as products of natural selection, and "where there are goals of any sort, life as an ultimate goal is presupposed." We reach the realm of ethics in the strict sense when we come to human volition. Unlike plants and animals, human beings must deliberately choose to pursue their goals over their entire life-span. And their fundamental choice is between courses of action that are life-denying and those that are life-affirming. The drama of Rand's fiction turns on this choice.
Some of my previous posts on the biological teleology of ethics can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
The best statement of Rand's ethics is "The Objectivist Ethics," the first chapter of The Virtue of Selfishness. In that essay, she declares: "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil." Inanimate entities cannot have any values because they have nothing to gain or lose. But living organisms have values because they have the capacity for self-generated, self-directed action.
"Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism's life.
"An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means--and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."
It is often assumed that modern science denies any teleological conception of nature and therefore denies the teleological basis for Aristotelian natural right. Leo Strauss suggested this, for example, at the beginning of Natural Right and History. But I have argued--in Darwinian Natural Right--that Darwinian science actually supports a modern biological conception of teleology. By natural selection, living organisms are designed for survival and reproduction, and thus they are designed for goals or purposes. Some animals pursue their goals consciously. Human beings pursue their goals through conscious reasoning. As Rand puts it, man is "a specific organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to sustain his life." "Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil."
The Darwinian basis for Rand's ethics as rooted in biological teleology is elaborated in some of the writings of Harry Binswanger--particularly, his book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts and his article "Life-based Teleology and the Foundation of Ethics" in The Monist (January 1992). Binswanger shows how ethics presupposes the goal-directed action of all living organisms as products of natural selection, and "where there are goals of any sort, life as an ultimate goal is presupposed." We reach the realm of ethics in the strict sense when we come to human volition. Unlike plants and animals, human beings must deliberately choose to pursue their goals over their entire life-span. And their fundamental choice is between courses of action that are life-denying and those that are life-affirming. The drama of Rand's fiction turns on this choice.
Some of my previous posts on the biological teleology of ethics can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
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