Saturday, April 23, 2005

Evolution, Good and Evil

It seems to me that a reason for adherence to Darwinism has always been "bad design." As he was a theologian Darwin made the same theological argument and then tried to do away with British natural theology. As Darwinists seek to blame Good for evil who will blame Evil, for evil?

And how do those who do not "really" believe that humans are capable of being aware of some transcendent Good and Evil try to judge God by such a standard in some way that transcends their own subjective personal opinion? (I.e., a judgment that is transferrable to other humans/subjects.) After all, they typically insist on a sort of philosophy in which their judgments are nothing more than the essentially meaningless biochemical state of their brain at that moment. One might agree that their judgment is the biochemical state of the brain in that moment, yet not believe that it is meaningless. No more than one would believe that just because physically these words are patterns of pixels on your computer monitor right now, then they have no message and are meaningless.

The assumption of a sort of non-subjective or transcendent anthropic principle that Darwinists are making use of in their argument blaming Good for Evil (That which Life needs to exist, mainly high forms of life such as human life, is good.) would be consistent if Darwinists did not appeal to some form of misanthropy and utlimate meaninglessness often enough. Yet they do appeal to such things, and how! They seem especially fond of pointing out how the universe is essentially random and how science has supposedly refuted any anthropocentric notions ever since the Copernican revolution. They also tend to argue that anyone who disagrees with their sort of Naturalism is one step from believing that the earth is flat or somethin'.

Here is the argument from "bad design,"
"Provine's main argument was from dysteleology, or bad design. That is, he argued for evolution by saying that a creating intelligence, especially a superintellect with omnipotence, would not have been either sloppy or malevolent. Thus, anything "leftover," out of place, odd, or unnecessary is obviously evidence for evolution because no superintellect would have been so sloppy. Provine looked to parasites found on beetles and wasps. What kind of intelligence behind the cosmos would create such things? Why would "God" have done it that way? Certainly, he argued, this is evidence for evolution."
cf. Evolution News

I have always thought that naturalistic explanations do indeed fit in best with forms of degeneration, parasitism, etc. Although even there it seems that sometimes they may fail, Michael Denton has noted this. It is possible to cite some fascinating examples of it.

There the question is,
"What kind of intelligence behind the cosmos would create such things?"

Clearly, a malevolent one would...although the main argument of Evil these days is that it does not exist. So it becomes popular to deny the existence of Evil, yet blame the Good for it, while simultaneously avoiding being thankful to the Good for all the good in the world by selectively denying its existence. The only consistency to these patterns of thought lie at the end, blaming God.

(Note, I am not arguing based on science. The debate about origins, Good and Evil, and so on is one of philosophy, history, religion, tradition and so on. Although science is important, opening up a debate about origins deals in much more than science.)

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