I commented on an online article by Jim Manzi here. Jim has another recent article, this time from the June 2 edition of the paper version of National Review, which you can get (if you pay for it) here.
The June 2 article has the promising title "Undetermined: There is danger in assuming that genes explain all." The title may lead the reader to suspect that the article will refute genetic determinism. While the article does punch holes in certain grandiose claims made in the name of genetic science, it unfortunately does not really address determinism at all; and this because it conflates the notions of determined and explained.
Something is determined when its nature and destiny are entirely the result of non-rational, physical causes. Given a certain physical state of a system and the universe in which it exists, the future state of the system follows of necessity from the initial state (at least in a statistical sense.) Something is explained (in a scientific sense) when its present or future physical states can be analyzed and predicted in terms of its past states. It is possible for something to be determined yet unexplained. This happens when the problem of analysis becomes intractable.
Such intractability happens all the time. In fact, in physics and engineering, the vast majority of physical problems are intractable. Take a simple coin toss. The trajectory of the coin is entirely determined by the physical forces on the coin. Yet predicting the result of a coin toss based on analysis of the forces is extremely difficult. There are just too many factors involved and even tiny variations in the parameters of the problem can change the result. So, as far as predicting the result of a coin toss, we are at no advantage to ancient Greeks who never heard of Newton. They knew as well as we do that a coin toss is a 50/50 proposition; but we cannot predict the result of an individual coin toss any better than they could. The intractability of many simple physical problems is what keeps Las Vegas in business. Casinos allow players to place roullette bets even after the ball has been sent rolling on the rim and the wheel spun. Given the velocities and locations of the ball and wheel, shouldn't a player be able to predict where it will land? In theory, yes; in practice, no. The problem is way too sensitive to the precise parameters involved and what happens when the ball falls off the rim and bounces around the number slots. The roullette wheel is entirely determined but also entirely unpredictable.
What about determinism with respect to ourselves? Jim Manzi talks particularly about genes, but the philosophical problem is the same whether it is proposed that we are determined by genes, the environment, some combination of the two, or even if we take the ancient view that we are determined by the stars. (Determinism is thought of as a modern philosophical development, but it is really a return to an ancient mode of thought.) If we are determined by non-rational causes (genes, the environment, evolution, the stars, black cats, etc.), then our nature and destiny are entirely functions of those causes. Whether we can explain or predict our destiny by analysis of those causes is entirely another question. A demonstration that such prediction is practically impossible does not answer the claim that we are determined.
The popular belief in genetic determinism, Manzi tells us, comes from the media loosely speaking "of things such as a 'happiness gene', a 'gay gene', or a 'smart gene.'" The inference that there are genes for every aspect of our nature, and that our nature can be engineered through those genes, naturally follows. "Seeing this momentum, it is natural to assume that eventually we will have explained all human behavior, not just diseases caused by one or a small number of interacting genes." But Manzi cites two reasons why such a conclusion is unjustified. One reason is the "correlation vs. causation" problem. The causal relation between two things does not follow directly from their correlation. In Bertrand Russell's famous example, it would be a mistake to conclude from the correlation of umbrellas opening and rain falling that opening umbrellas causes rain to fall. In the genetic case, a gene may be correlated with a certain trait yet not be the cause of it. Chinese people, for example, may possess a certain gene and also be susceptible to a particular disease, but the cause of the disease may be due to peculiarities of Chinese culture rather than genes. It is very difficult to disentangle environmental from genetic causes because of this problem. This point is of little moment, however, because the precise physical basis of determinism is incidental to its philosophical implications. Whether it is environment, genes, or the stars, the philosophical implications of determinism remain the same.
The more interesting reason Jim cites is something called "epistatic interaction", or the fact that many traits are caused by interactions between several genes rather than a single gene. Some traits are caused by the interaction of many genes. It doesn't take many genes interacting to make the problem of prediction intractable, as Jim points out:
"Consider a simplified case in which some personality characteristic - aggressiveness, for example - is regulated by 100 genes, each of which can have two possible states ('on' or 'off'). The combinatorial math is daunting: There are more than a trillion trillion possible combinations of these gene states. Thus we could sequence the DNA of all 6.7 billion human beings and still not know which genes are responsible for aggressiveness."
What Jim has shown, of course, is that genetic explanation may be impossible; what he has not shown is any reason to dismiss genetic determinism. Indeed, the tone of the article seems to concede determinism without a fight. He ends the article with the following:
"Science may someday allow us to predict human behavior comprehensively and reliably, so that we can live in Woodrow Wilson's 'perfected, co-ordinated beehive.' Until then, however, we need to keep stumbling forward in freedom as best we can."
Determinism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for physical explanation. That is, we "may someday" be able to predict human behavior comprehensively only if human behavior is in fact determined, whether we can explain it now or not. And if human behavior is determined, then we are not free, whether anyone can predict our behavior now or not. If scientists someday come up with that comprehensive and reliable explanation of human behavior, they will not kill freedom at the moment their theory is complete; they will have shown that freedom was an illusion all along. But it isn't even necessary for scientists to come up with that comprehensive theory for freedom to die. The acknowledgment of the possibility of such an explanation is already to concede the philosophical battle to determinism, for such explanations are only possible if human behavior is in fact determined. The truth of determinism is the ground of the possibility of a comprehensive scientific explanation of man.
Jim's argument amounts to a "freedom of the gaps." The reader may recall the famous "god of the gaps" - the god who is conceded to exist as an explanation for those things science has yet to explain. As science advances, the god of the gaps recedes, for there is less and less for him to do. Jim grounds our freedom on the present ignorance of science, and hopes that science will not advance sufficiently to wipe out freedom completely. But the freedom of the gaps, like the god of gaps, is a poor imitation of the original.
Freedom is philosophical, and the reasons for sustaining true freedom in the face of determinism are philosophical rather than scientific. Human nature and behavior cannot possibly be determined by any set of non-rational causes (the only causes of which science is cognizant), for the simple reason that we are rational, or knowing, beings. Through knowledge, we transcend what we know, and break free of its determinations. Science, for instance, is itself an example of human behavior. Any scientific theory that attempted to comprehensively and reliably explain human behavior would have to include scientific behavior itself in the account. It would have to predict the behavior of scientists in their laboratories and in their theorizing. But such prediction assumes that the scientists can't discover anything radically new that is not already accounted for in the deterministic theory. In other words, the only way a comprehensive and reliable prediction of scientific behavior is possible is if science has come to an end, for only if it is at an end can we be sure that a scientist won't discover something that upsets our comprehensive deterministic theory of man. The comprehensive deterministic theory of man, then, must be the Final Theory of Everything, leaving nothing in the universe out of account that might possibly be a discovery of the future.
But even if someone managed such a Final Theory of Everything, he would still find one thing left out of his theory: Himself. His theory cannot account for his own understanding of the theory, for his understanding of the theory doesn't exist until he has finished it. And once he has finished it, he has created a novel human behavior that is not yet accounted for by the theory; the discovery of this particular Final Theory of Everything. So there cannot possibly be a comprehensive and reliable deterministic explanation of man, for the explainers themselves will escape the deterministic explanation.
The argument can be put another way: Any claim of determination must cite the non-rational causes that are the ground of determination. We are determined by genes, evolution, the stars, whatever. But the very argument for non-rational determination is itself an example of rational causation that transcends the set of non-rational causes. The geneticist may propose a "happiness gene", but he never proposes a "genetic theory gene"; in other words, a gene that causes someone to propose the very genetic theory he is proposing. But unless there is such a gene (or epistatic interaction of genes), then his deterministic theory cannot be a comprehensive explanation of man.
In the end, I agree with Jim's title. We are indeed "undetermined." But the reasons we are undetermined are philosophical, not scientific, and the best Jim's scientific argument can show is that we are (currently) "unexplained", not that we are "undetermined."
The title of this post mentions eugenics, but I will save that for a coming post...
Friday, June 13, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Evolution, Philosophy, and Science
An interesting article by Jim Manzi on National Review Online on the relationship between science and conservatism. Manzi is anxious to distinguish between the facts discovered by science and the ethical and political conclusions drawn from them. Conservatives, he thinks, make the mistake of attacking science when their real target should be the philosophical conclusions drawn from science. He argues this way:
"Science has replaced religion as the pinnacle of serious knowledge in the Western world. In response, many educated people have invested scientists — and more often, popularizers of science — with the right to be taken seriously as they pontificate about morality and public policy. The argument tends to take this form: Scientific finding X implies liberal political or moral conclusion Y. Important contemporary examples include the assertions that evolution implies atheism, and the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas implies that we must reduce carbon emissions rapidly and aggressively."
Manzi is not quite right that science has replaced religion as the "pinnacle of serious knowledge." In the first place, there is no such thing as "serious" knowledge, anymore than there is "unserious" knowledge. There is just knowledge and its opposite, ignorance. In the second place, what science has replaced is not so much religion as philosophy. The fact that we tend to see the conflict as one between "science and religion" rather than as a disruption in the relationship between empirical science and philosophy is an indication of how unphilosophical we have become. But things are what they are, and philosophy has priority with respect to empirical science, whatever the opinions of scientists and biblical scholars.
Empirical science is not a self-defining enterprise. What makes an endeavor "scientific" is a question that is not itself scientific but rather philosophical. The possibility of the philosophical question "What makes something genuinely scientific?" is enough to establish the priority of philosophy with respect to science. It is amazing how many otherwise intelligent people fail to understand this point or fail to see its significance. Science cannot be the one source of true knowledge because science is not capable of answering the question of its own constitution. Either there is some other source of knowledge beyond (or better, prior to) science or we have no knowledge in the true sense at all.
Furthermore, if "serious knowledge" is only scientific knowledge, then we have no culturally significant answer to the question of what is science and what is not, since the question is by nature philosophical rather than scientific. Yet the question of what is truly scientific is one of the most important we face, since whatever carries the blessing of "science" carries tremendous cultural clout as "true knowledge." A question of overriding significance that has no legitimate mode of answer can only be answered one way: Politically. This is the real source of the increasing entanglement of science and politics. We have eliminated any cultural space or weight to the true judge of science, philosophy, and so the task of judging science has devolved to politics.
It is interesting that Europe does not have the same sort of creation/evolution controversy that we do. Part of the reason is that they are further down the road of secularism than we are, and so are not as disturbed by the atheistic conclusions sometimes drawn from evolution. But it is also true that philosophy carries much more cultural weight in Europe than it does here. Europeans tend to judge science by philosophy rather than philosophy by science. The writings of recent Popes on the subject reflects this. JPII wrote a famous encyclical dealing with evolution in which he acknowledged the legitimacy of evolution as an explanation for the material origin of man, but firmly cautioned that it could never of itself become a total explanation of man. Man has aspects to his being that cannot possibly be explained by a material theory of evolution. Americans tended to read JPII's last point as a "religious hedge." The Pope is Catholic, after all, and so he must, for religious reasons, leave a place for God in the explanation of man. Restricted to reading the Pope's writing under either the lens of "science" or the lens of "religion", Americans of both secular and religious bent missed his point entirely. American atheists, reading it under the "science" lens, saw a half-hearted concession to science followed by an irrational appeal to faith. American religionists, reading it under the "religious" lens, saw a fatal compromise with atheist materialism followed by a half-hearted appeal to faith. But the Pope was writing neither scientifically nor religiously; he was writing philosophically. And certain philosophical facts about man are obvious and stand in judgment of science. Among these facts is the fact of science itself. Man, the creator and judge of evolutionary science, by that very fact will never have his being entirely captured by evolutionary science. This is a philosophical point that is both true and impervious to scientific criticism. Europeans, still retaining a respect for philosophy, get it; Americans usually don't.
Manzi goes on to argue that we should accept the scientific conclusions of evolution but balk at philosophical conclusions:
"I have argued at length that the philosophical claims Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and others make on behalf of evolution are unsupported by any science. This was hardly an original observation. As early as the 19th century, Anglican theologian Aubrey Moore made the same basic point in a different way, and many, many others have made it since. Most major religious denominations in the Western world accept evolution as a scientific finding.
Evolution is a scientific paradigm of immense beauty, power, and practical significance, but it doesn’t really tell us much about the existence of God. The theory of evolution assumes pre-existing building blocks — everything evolves from something else — and therefore leaves the First Cause problem unaddressed. As far as we can tell, all scientific findings will have this problem."
Notice that Manzi starts out talking about philosophical claims, then refers to their scientific support, and finally ends by saying that many religious denominations accept evolution. This is a natural way of expressing the American view that we must judge philosophy by science rather than vice versa, and that religion and philosophy name the same rather than different intellectual modes. We must use science to judge philosophy because it is only science that gives us true knowledge. Since neither religion nor philosophy are science, both are sources of opinion rather than knowledge, and as opinion they are indistinguishable. So Americans tend to use the words philosophy and religion interchangeably, and judge both by science.
Evolution doesn't tell us much about God because it is not about God, but about man. The point of thinkers like Dawkins and Dennett is that evolution can give us a complete explanation of man, in the fullness of his being, within the confines of material causation. God may or may not be necessary as a remote first cause, but he is an utter irrelevance when it comes to understanding man, his nature, and his destiny. This is just the point disputed by JPII that Manzi seems happy to concede. And if we are ultimately concerned about ethics and politics, it is man in his nature and destiny that we need to know, whatever the final nature of the First Cause. If that nature and destiny are fully explained by evolution, then Dawkins and Dennett are right that evolution must be the ground of all ethical and political thought.
There is an ambiguity in Manzi's second paragraph that is typical of those not sure of the relationship between science and philosophy. He writes that the theory of evolution leaves the "First Cause problem unaddressed." And so it does. But he does not ask the natural follow-on questions: What does address the First Cause problem? What sort of answers does it give? The First Cause problem is a metaphysical problem; that is, it is a pure question of philosophy. And philosophically, we know more than merely that "as far as we can tell, all scientific findings will have this problem." We know that all scientific findings must have this problem, by their very nature. The "as far as we can tell" is a hedge by someone afraid to judge science by philosophy.
The ambiguity continues in the next paragraph where Manzi writes "Just as science can’t answer moral questions, it’s of limited use in the field of politics." This is a strange way to begin the paragraph in any case, since the First Cause problem just referred to is not a moral question but a metaphysical one. In any case, Manzi avoids the natural question: If science can't answer moral questions, just what can answer moral questions? Traditionally, the answer to that question was "philosophy", including philosophy as occasionally enlightened by religion. But that answer is not available to those who think that only science gives true knowledge. Manzi does not ask the question because the answer is unpalatable: If science can't answer moral questions, then nothing can truly answer moral questions.
Manzi winds up with the following:
"Conservatives would feel a lot less threatened by science if they were more engaged with it. De-mystification of science would be a good thing for all concerned. Science is a very practical discipline. It enables the development of reliable rules that we can employ to do things like build airplanes and develop medicine. In the end, we grant science authority because airplanes generally stay up. Pretension and prestige aside, science is a first cousin to engineering, but a very distant relation to philosophy."
I heartily agree that demystification of science would be a good thing. The first thing to demystify is the unfounded belief that science is the one and only source of knowledge. It is a measure of how far we have come (or gone) that Manzi finds philosophy only a very distant relation to science. At one time, knowledge was holistic and empirical science was considered to be a part of philosophy, "natural philosophy." No one felt "threatened" by science because everyone understood the place of science in the vision of human knowing as understood by philosophy. And science was granted authority for the only reason that any intellectual endeavor should be granted authority, because it is true. Now philosophy and science have split, being only distant relations barely speaking to each other. And since science is no longer led by its rightful guide, philosophy, it is led by a less understanding master - politics.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Suicide Attacks and the Incarnation
I've been reading Twin Powers, Politics and the Sacred by Thomas Molnar. In the first chapter, Molnar discusses the differences between the sacred languages of Christianity and Islam:
"Islamic sacred language is different: it does not refer to an incarnate God at its spiritual center. Perhaps for this reason it is less intellectual, as the amorphous plan of the mosque also suggests. Burckhardt sees in the arabesque 'a surface transformed into a tissue of colors, a vibration of light and shadow' behind which there is a religious intention. The endless intertwining of the lines 'hinders the mind from fixing itself on any particular form, from saying 'I' as an image says 'I.' The center of an arabesque is everywhere and nowhere; each affirmation is followed by a negation.' In other words, while Christianity tolerates a great amount of anthropomorphism and calls attention to the self as the center of creation and as itself a creator as well as the locus of mediation, Islam humbles the self, melts it down, so to speak, in the rhythm and pulsation of the world as ordained by Allah."
This passage brought to mind the practice of Muslim suicide-bombing, and the question of why suicide attack is an occasional feature of non-Western warfare but is virtually unheard of as a tactic of Western war. Those of us raised in the allegedly "post-Christian" West, in fact, cannot but find something creepy, even unholy, in the idea of suicide attacks. Molnar, I think, gives us a clue to the spiritual origin of the Western taboo on suicide attacks. The Christian Incarnation, in which God became Man, grants a special dignity to the individual human being; individual man no longer finds his meaning and purpose solely in his place in the wider community of men, like a bee in the hive, but also in his own nature and his personal relationship with God. The individual man has become something holy in his nature, for in light of the Incarnation, God Himself shares his nature. To reduce the individual man to a pure instrument of the larger human community, then, is to commit an act of sacrilege. And this is what suicide attack demands in the starkest terms. It is a brutal expression of the nullity of the individual man before collective humanity.
Kierkegaard pointed out the paradoxical nature of Christian man. Man, Kierkegaard says, is the only animal for whom the individual is higher than the species. The bee exists for the hive, the bird for the flock, the fish for the school, but man does not exist for the city, at least in Christendom. The Christian city exists for man and his individual relationship with God; to demand, then, that the individual destroy himself for the sake of collective man is to contradict the very purpose of the Christian city and is, indeed, sacrilegious.
I am not talking about the merely rational calculation of self-interest. The Western tradition has regularly demanded military feats that offer only a small chance of survival. But it is part of that tradition that any military mission, no matter how dangerous, must offer some chance for survival, however small. To have as the goal of the mission the destruction of the self crosses a line that has always been clear in the West.
A good example of this is the Nazi Sonderkommando Elbe compared to Japanese Kamikaze. In a desperate attempt to stem the Allied bombing attacks at the end of WWII, the Germans called for volunteers to perform ramming attacks on Allied bombers. Pilots were to literally fly their planes into B-24s and B-17s. These attacks may seem very similar to kamikaze attacks, but there was a crucial difference. The German pilots wore parachutes, opened their cockpits, and either bailed out just before the collision or hoped the collision would throw them free of the cockpit. This was the "small chance of survival" demanded by the Western military tradition. In fact, a number of Sonderkommando Elbe volunteers survived their missions. Japanese kamikaze, in contrast, were not supposed to survive their missions. In fact, it was considered a disgrace if they did somehow survive. There were legitimate veterans of Sonderkommando Elbe attacks, but no legitimate kamikaze veterans. Now the Nazis were not Christians, but they were heirs to the Western military tradition, which was ultimately inspired by Christianity.
I agree with the thesis that the West is now "post-Christian." But post-Christian means that some Christian impulses linger on in the West... one of these impulses is the unease with which we view suicide attacks, although we can no longer name the source of this unease. When the day comes that we in the West no longer feel disturbed by suicide attacks, or even embrace them ourselves, then our post-Christian trajectory will be nearly complete.
"Islamic sacred language is different: it does not refer to an incarnate God at its spiritual center. Perhaps for this reason it is less intellectual, as the amorphous plan of the mosque also suggests. Burckhardt sees in the arabesque 'a surface transformed into a tissue of colors, a vibration of light and shadow' behind which there is a religious intention. The endless intertwining of the lines 'hinders the mind from fixing itself on any particular form, from saying 'I' as an image says 'I.' The center of an arabesque is everywhere and nowhere; each affirmation is followed by a negation.' In other words, while Christianity tolerates a great amount of anthropomorphism and calls attention to the self as the center of creation and as itself a creator as well as the locus of mediation, Islam humbles the self, melts it down, so to speak, in the rhythm and pulsation of the world as ordained by Allah."
This passage brought to mind the practice of Muslim suicide-bombing, and the question of why suicide attack is an occasional feature of non-Western warfare but is virtually unheard of as a tactic of Western war. Those of us raised in the allegedly "post-Christian" West, in fact, cannot but find something creepy, even unholy, in the idea of suicide attacks. Molnar, I think, gives us a clue to the spiritual origin of the Western taboo on suicide attacks. The Christian Incarnation, in which God became Man, grants a special dignity to the individual human being; individual man no longer finds his meaning and purpose solely in his place in the wider community of men, like a bee in the hive, but also in his own nature and his personal relationship with God. The individual man has become something holy in his nature, for in light of the Incarnation, God Himself shares his nature. To reduce the individual man to a pure instrument of the larger human community, then, is to commit an act of sacrilege. And this is what suicide attack demands in the starkest terms. It is a brutal expression of the nullity of the individual man before collective humanity.
Kierkegaard pointed out the paradoxical nature of Christian man. Man, Kierkegaard says, is the only animal for whom the individual is higher than the species. The bee exists for the hive, the bird for the flock, the fish for the school, but man does not exist for the city, at least in Christendom. The Christian city exists for man and his individual relationship with God; to demand, then, that the individual destroy himself for the sake of collective man is to contradict the very purpose of the Christian city and is, indeed, sacrilegious.
I am not talking about the merely rational calculation of self-interest. The Western tradition has regularly demanded military feats that offer only a small chance of survival. But it is part of that tradition that any military mission, no matter how dangerous, must offer some chance for survival, however small. To have as the goal of the mission the destruction of the self crosses a line that has always been clear in the West.
A good example of this is the Nazi Sonderkommando Elbe compared to Japanese Kamikaze. In a desperate attempt to stem the Allied bombing attacks at the end of WWII, the Germans called for volunteers to perform ramming attacks on Allied bombers. Pilots were to literally fly their planes into B-24s and B-17s. These attacks may seem very similar to kamikaze attacks, but there was a crucial difference. The German pilots wore parachutes, opened their cockpits, and either bailed out just before the collision or hoped the collision would throw them free of the cockpit. This was the "small chance of survival" demanded by the Western military tradition. In fact, a number of Sonderkommando Elbe volunteers survived their missions. Japanese kamikaze, in contrast, were not supposed to survive their missions. In fact, it was considered a disgrace if they did somehow survive. There were legitimate veterans of Sonderkommando Elbe attacks, but no legitimate kamikaze veterans. Now the Nazis were not Christians, but they were heirs to the Western military tradition, which was ultimately inspired by Christianity.
I agree with the thesis that the West is now "post-Christian." But post-Christian means that some Christian impulses linger on in the West... one of these impulses is the unease with which we view suicide attacks, although we can no longer name the source of this unease. When the day comes that we in the West no longer feel disturbed by suicide attacks, or even embrace them ourselves, then our post-Christian trajectory will be nearly complete.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Brooks and Materialism
I commented on a response to a David Brooks column here. The original column is here. The statement that Derbyshire and friends jumped all over is this:
"Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment."
Derbyshire overlooks the hilarity of Brooks's appeal to "researchers" who have, just now, discovered that people actually like to to be fair, empathetic, and become close to others. Apparently neither Brooks nor the researchers ever had a mother. Instead, Derbyshire and his correspondent treat the statement with deep scientific seriousness that makes them look even more foolish than Brooks.
With respect to Darwinism and materialism in general, Brooks has the naivete of the uninitiated. It is clear that he thinks he is writing on the side of the "good guys", that is, the scientific materialists, but he is charmingly innocent of just how difficult it is to stay within Darwinian orthodoxy. For example, we are regularly told that scientific theories are provisional and always subject to potential revision, evolutionary theory no less than others. What the nasty creationists do is take this reasonable scientific development and distort it into an attack on science itself. Fair enough, the uninitiated thinks. If the scientist tells me that he has a scientific theory that genes are "selfish", and scientific theories are provisional, it is possible that the theory will be revised in the future and we will conclude that genes are not always selfish but may be unselfish. So if "researchers" discover that fairness and empathy are pretty deep drives rather than merely superficial impulses, we can count this as evidence that the selfish theory is wrong or at least incomplete. And in this conclusion the uninitiated reveals his innocent state.
When Darwinists say that a theory like the selfish gene is provisional, they don't mean that it can ever possibly be overthrown by empirical evidence. What they mean is that the precise manner in which any behavior may be accounted for in terms of selfish genes, is provisional. You are more than welcome to propose differing theories as to how sacrificing your life to save a man from a burning car is really selfish, but are never welcome to wonder whether the act might count as evidence against the theory of selfish genes itself. In fact, the latter thought is a dangerous attack on science that has the potential to bring down Western Civilization if it is pondered too long. This goes for evolutionary theory in general. You are more than welcome to speculate how material forces produced the eye, the ear, and even the human mind, but not welcome to wonder whether it is even possible for the human mind to have been caused by purely material causes at all. Again, such questions are a threat to civilization.
If this sounds a lot like how Marxist dogma works, it sounds that way to me too. You are more than welcome to speculate different ways that the capitalist dogs are exploiting the workers (maybe just their selfish genes at work?), but never welcome to wonder whether there might be something more and other going on than simple exploitation.
"Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment."
Derbyshire overlooks the hilarity of Brooks's appeal to "researchers" who have, just now, discovered that people actually like to to be fair, empathetic, and become close to others. Apparently neither Brooks nor the researchers ever had a mother. Instead, Derbyshire and his correspondent treat the statement with deep scientific seriousness that makes them look even more foolish than Brooks.
With respect to Darwinism and materialism in general, Brooks has the naivete of the uninitiated. It is clear that he thinks he is writing on the side of the "good guys", that is, the scientific materialists, but he is charmingly innocent of just how difficult it is to stay within Darwinian orthodoxy. For example, we are regularly told that scientific theories are provisional and always subject to potential revision, evolutionary theory no less than others. What the nasty creationists do is take this reasonable scientific development and distort it into an attack on science itself. Fair enough, the uninitiated thinks. If the scientist tells me that he has a scientific theory that genes are "selfish", and scientific theories are provisional, it is possible that the theory will be revised in the future and we will conclude that genes are not always selfish but may be unselfish. So if "researchers" discover that fairness and empathy are pretty deep drives rather than merely superficial impulses, we can count this as evidence that the selfish theory is wrong or at least incomplete. And in this conclusion the uninitiated reveals his innocent state.
When Darwinists say that a theory like the selfish gene is provisional, they don't mean that it can ever possibly be overthrown by empirical evidence. What they mean is that the precise manner in which any behavior may be accounted for in terms of selfish genes, is provisional. You are more than welcome to propose differing theories as to how sacrificing your life to save a man from a burning car is really selfish, but are never welcome to wonder whether the act might count as evidence against the theory of selfish genes itself. In fact, the latter thought is a dangerous attack on science that has the potential to bring down Western Civilization if it is pondered too long. This goes for evolutionary theory in general. You are more than welcome to speculate how material forces produced the eye, the ear, and even the human mind, but not welcome to wonder whether it is even possible for the human mind to have been caused by purely material causes at all. Again, such questions are a threat to civilization.
If this sounds a lot like how Marxist dogma works, it sounds that way to me too. You are more than welcome to speculate different ways that the capitalist dogs are exploiting the workers (maybe just their selfish genes at work?), but never welcome to wonder whether there might be something more and other going on than simple exploitation.
Empirics and the Selfish Gene
It amazes me how frequently Darwinists insist that their theory is just simple science, then straightforwardly and without embarrassment make anti-scientific pronouncements in its name. A clear case, from the corner at National Review Online, is here. The key quote is the last sentence from the reader:
"The blind, selfish gene is paramount. Always. No matter how much it doesn't look that way here on the outside."
No matter how much it doesn't look that way. Can there be a more anti-empirical statement than that? There is nothing a human being can do, no possible empirical state of affairs, that can count as evidence against the theory of the selfish gene. Because, no matter how unselfish any behavior may appear to be, we know, we just know, that down deep, it is a product of the selfish genes at work. The more altruistic a behavior, the more fiendishly clever those damnable selfish genes must be to hide their work so thoroughly.
John Derbyshire is at least consistent in his application of Darwinism. He steadfastly refuses to read any criticisms of Darwinism by the original authors (all of which he lumps together as "creationists"), and restricts himself to reading Darwinist responses to "creationists." There is a perverse but consistent logic in this. Just as apparently unselfish behavior is always and necessarily a mask for a more fundamental selfishness, so any criticism of Darwinism is always and necessarily a mask for religious fundamentalism, no matter how apparently secular and even reasonable a criticism might sound. The point I made in the first paragraph, for example, is generally not taken by Darwinists as a reasonable question deserving of an intelligent answer, but as evidence that the questioner has a secret creationist agenda that must be exposed and defeated as a matter of the greatest urgency, preferably before the theocracy takes control and banishes Darwin forever.
On just about every other subject John Derbyshire is a fount of wisdom, common sense, and common skepticism; on the issue of Darwinism, for some reason, he behaves as a True Believer.
"The blind, selfish gene is paramount. Always. No matter how much it doesn't look that way here on the outside."
No matter how much it doesn't look that way. Can there be a more anti-empirical statement than that? There is nothing a human being can do, no possible empirical state of affairs, that can count as evidence against the theory of the selfish gene. Because, no matter how unselfish any behavior may appear to be, we know, we just know, that down deep, it is a product of the selfish genes at work. The more altruistic a behavior, the more fiendishly clever those damnable selfish genes must be to hide their work so thoroughly.
John Derbyshire is at least consistent in his application of Darwinism. He steadfastly refuses to read any criticisms of Darwinism by the original authors (all of which he lumps together as "creationists"), and restricts himself to reading Darwinist responses to "creationists." There is a perverse but consistent logic in this. Just as apparently unselfish behavior is always and necessarily a mask for a more fundamental selfishness, so any criticism of Darwinism is always and necessarily a mask for religious fundamentalism, no matter how apparently secular and even reasonable a criticism might sound. The point I made in the first paragraph, for example, is generally not taken by Darwinists as a reasonable question deserving of an intelligent answer, but as evidence that the questioner has a secret creationist agenda that must be exposed and defeated as a matter of the greatest urgency, preferably before the theocracy takes control and banishes Darwin forever.
On just about every other subject John Derbyshire is a fount of wisdom, common sense, and common skepticism; on the issue of Darwinism, for some reason, he behaves as a True Believer.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Gods Are Here
The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world.
This line is from the story The Willows by Algernon Blackwood (from his Best Ghost Stories .) Without spoiling the story, it is uttered by a nameless character known only as "the Swede", a character the story describes as "an unimaginative man." He utters it when he and the narrator become stuck on an island in the Danube, in a section of the river they had been warned to avoid. If you have seen The Blair Witch Project, The Willows is a similar story, but one written by an author of great imagination, depth, and a supreme ability to evoke supernatural horror.
The line captures for me just the feeling I get (or hope I get) when I walk into a Catholic Church, especially one in the traditional style that has not had its beautiful artwork spray-painted over. Perhaps "feeling" is the wrong word, for it emphasizes the subjective. Perception is probably a better word, for perception refers to the external origin of a feeling, rather than the feeling itself. When I walk into a Catholic Church, I perceive that the gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world. Part of that feeling is induced by the ancient history of the Church. As I have remarked in other posts, the Church doesn't go away. Just as we would find disturbing a man who lived for two-thousand years, so I find a public institution that has survived for two-thousand years to be disturbing. What I experience is a feeling, but it is a feeling that is a proper reaction to a fact in the external world. The Church should have died many times in its long history (at least five times according to G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man), and yet it lives. If this isn't the makings of a true religion, it is at least the makings of a good ghost story. If the Western world is no longer Catholic in fact or spirit, it is still haunted by Catholicism; and this ghost is a lot more real than anything in Blackwood or M.R. James. It is as real as the old Romanesque Church down your street.
The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world.
Blackwood captures the ambivalent reaction of his characters to their encounter with the supernatural. They have ignored warnings about traveling down the river, blithely confident in their own ability to handle whatever comes. But as the unusual events begin to accumulate, the characters are simultaneously attracted and repelled. As adventurers, the unusual is just what they were seeking. The nature of the events, however, makes them wonder if they have encountered something more than they can handle. Their confidence slowly transforms into terror...
The ambivalent reaction is, I think, appropriate when we attend Mass. God is not Someone to be trifled with. But rather than turning into terror, our apprehension should turn into joy. Thou art glorious in heaven, all-powerful on earth and terrible in hell; but in the Blessed Eucharist Thou art mild, consoling, sweet, and liberal. Yet , what if we never experience that feeling of apprehension? If I am not anxious at all, if I walk into church with an easy-going confidence, can I truly sat that I perceive that "the gods are here?" The primary icon in the Church, the Crucifix, a representation of God Himself suffering a brutal, bloody, humiliating execution, should be reminder enough that we should approach the Eucharist in some trepidation. God is the primary casualty in the spiritual war going on all around us, and in us, but we are subject to becoming casualties as well. In fact, we already are casualties, one manifestation of which is an easy-going approach to Mass. For in that insouciant attitude we reveal our disconnect from reality, our failure to perceive that the gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world. We should remember that, not only is God present in the Eucharist at Mass, but the gods may be hanging around as well; for the Eucharist is the primary weapon in our battle against sin and evil, and the gods have an interest in undermining it...
This line is from the story The Willows by Algernon Blackwood (from his Best Ghost Stories .) Without spoiling the story, it is uttered by a nameless character known only as "the Swede", a character the story describes as "an unimaginative man." He utters it when he and the narrator become stuck on an island in the Danube, in a section of the river they had been warned to avoid. If you have seen The Blair Witch Project, The Willows is a similar story, but one written by an author of great imagination, depth, and a supreme ability to evoke supernatural horror.
The line captures for me just the feeling I get (or hope I get) when I walk into a Catholic Church, especially one in the traditional style that has not had its beautiful artwork spray-painted over. Perhaps "feeling" is the wrong word, for it emphasizes the subjective. Perception is probably a better word, for perception refers to the external origin of a feeling, rather than the feeling itself. When I walk into a Catholic Church, I perceive that the gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world. Part of that feeling is induced by the ancient history of the Church. As I have remarked in other posts, the Church doesn't go away. Just as we would find disturbing a man who lived for two-thousand years, so I find a public institution that has survived for two-thousand years to be disturbing. What I experience is a feeling, but it is a feeling that is a proper reaction to a fact in the external world. The Church should have died many times in its long history (at least five times according to G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man), and yet it lives. If this isn't the makings of a true religion, it is at least the makings of a good ghost story. If the Western world is no longer Catholic in fact or spirit, it is still haunted by Catholicism; and this ghost is a lot more real than anything in Blackwood or M.R. James. It is as real as the old Romanesque Church down your street.
The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world.
Blackwood captures the ambivalent reaction of his characters to their encounter with the supernatural. They have ignored warnings about traveling down the river, blithely confident in their own ability to handle whatever comes. But as the unusual events begin to accumulate, the characters are simultaneously attracted and repelled. As adventurers, the unusual is just what they were seeking. The nature of the events, however, makes them wonder if they have encountered something more than they can handle. Their confidence slowly transforms into terror...
The ambivalent reaction is, I think, appropriate when we attend Mass. God is not Someone to be trifled with. But rather than turning into terror, our apprehension should turn into joy. Thou art glorious in heaven, all-powerful on earth and terrible in hell; but in the Blessed Eucharist Thou art mild, consoling, sweet, and liberal. Yet , what if we never experience that feeling of apprehension? If I am not anxious at all, if I walk into church with an easy-going confidence, can I truly sat that I perceive that "the gods are here?" The primary icon in the Church, the Crucifix, a representation of God Himself suffering a brutal, bloody, humiliating execution, should be reminder enough that we should approach the Eucharist in some trepidation. God is the primary casualty in the spiritual war going on all around us, and in us, but we are subject to becoming casualties as well. In fact, we already are casualties, one manifestation of which is an easy-going approach to Mass. For in that insouciant attitude we reveal our disconnect from reality, our failure to perceive that the gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world. We should remember that, not only is God present in the Eucharist at Mass, but the gods may be hanging around as well; for the Eucharist is the primary weapon in our battle against sin and evil, and the gods have an interest in undermining it...
Friday, May 2, 2008
Derb and Unnatural Thought
John Derbyshire has been going after Expelled with all guns blazing. Yet in this post, even in his attacks against the anti-Darwinists, he shows how hard it is to say anything at all about evolution without saying something problematic. I would like to focus on this passage:
"The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, and social. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the esteem of our peers. For most people, wanting to know the truth about the world is way, way down the list. Scientific objectivity is a freakish, unnatural, and unpopular mode of thought, restricted to small cliques whom the generality of citizens regard with dislike and mistrust."
If scientific objectivity is unnatural, how did it ever arise? Darwin's theory of evolution is universal and deep in scope; every aspect and fiber of our being has its origin in evolution and nothing escapes it. This includes our mind in thinking about evolution and conducting science in general. If evolution is true, then science is an evolutionary product as much as anything else. And it must be, in the end, as natural as anything else. The very act of distinguishing the natural from the unnatural, and pointing out certain acts as falling in the latter category, is an implicit rebuke to Darwinism, for Darwinism does not have the category of the unnatural.
Furthermore, if scientific objectivity is "freakish, unnatural, and unpopular" it is necessarily doomed anyway, isn't it? To be "freakish, unnatural, and unpopular" sounds a lot like being "unfit", and if there is one thing Darwinism assures us about the unfit, it is that it doesn't survive. Remember that Darwinism claims to bring all aspects of life under its purview, including all aspects of human life, and that means all its freakish, unnatural(?), and unpopular manifestations. Daniel Dennett has made a career out of insisting that people recognize the universal scope of Darwinian logic. Derbyshire goes on to say
"There is probably a sizable segment in any population that believes scientists should be rounded up and killed"
without thinking about it in the evolutionary terms he so champions. If a sizeable segment of the population desires such a thing, why don't they just do it? I'm not asking this question to make an ethical point about Darwinism but a scientific one. Isn't that what the competition for life, the struggle for survival is all about, the struggle that Darwin insists is going on all the time, all around us? If any population of organisms has the capability and desire to destroy its rivals, what in Darwinian logic would lead them to refrain from doing so? There is nothing, because the fundamental principle in Darwinism is that every organism acts to win the competition for survival. But it is just Derbyshire's point that a sizeable segment does see its interests in eliminating scientists. Again, I am not making a moral argument here, but an empirical one. The very fact that Derbyshire cites, that a lot of people desire to round up and kill scientists, and that they refrain from doing so, is a counterexample to the principle that organisms always act to win the competition for survival.
"The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, and social. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the esteem of our peers. For most people, wanting to know the truth about the world is way, way down the list. Scientific objectivity is a freakish, unnatural, and unpopular mode of thought, restricted to small cliques whom the generality of citizens regard with dislike and mistrust."
If scientific objectivity is unnatural, how did it ever arise? Darwin's theory of evolution is universal and deep in scope; every aspect and fiber of our being has its origin in evolution and nothing escapes it. This includes our mind in thinking about evolution and conducting science in general. If evolution is true, then science is an evolutionary product as much as anything else. And it must be, in the end, as natural as anything else. The very act of distinguishing the natural from the unnatural, and pointing out certain acts as falling in the latter category, is an implicit rebuke to Darwinism, for Darwinism does not have the category of the unnatural.
Furthermore, if scientific objectivity is "freakish, unnatural, and unpopular" it is necessarily doomed anyway, isn't it? To be "freakish, unnatural, and unpopular" sounds a lot like being "unfit", and if there is one thing Darwinism assures us about the unfit, it is that it doesn't survive. Remember that Darwinism claims to bring all aspects of life under its purview, including all aspects of human life, and that means all its freakish, unnatural(?), and unpopular manifestations. Daniel Dennett has made a career out of insisting that people recognize the universal scope of Darwinian logic. Derbyshire goes on to say
"There is probably a sizable segment in any population that believes scientists should be rounded up and killed"
without thinking about it in the evolutionary terms he so champions. If a sizeable segment of the population desires such a thing, why don't they just do it? I'm not asking this question to make an ethical point about Darwinism but a scientific one. Isn't that what the competition for life, the struggle for survival is all about, the struggle that Darwin insists is going on all the time, all around us? If any population of organisms has the capability and desire to destroy its rivals, what in Darwinian logic would lead them to refrain from doing so? There is nothing, because the fundamental principle in Darwinism is that every organism acts to win the competition for survival. But it is just Derbyshire's point that a sizeable segment does see its interests in eliminating scientists. Again, I am not making a moral argument here, but an empirical one. The very fact that Derbyshire cites, that a lot of people desire to round up and kill scientists, and that they refrain from doing so, is a counterexample to the principle that organisms always act to win the competition for survival.
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