I will await comment(s) here, acceding to greater minds than mine. Am curious to see what may be offered, concerning the piece on paradox of evolution. Will frame my own remarks, accordingly. Thank you!
Dr Feser, I am grateful you are taking the time to discuss critiques of evolution. I'm Catholic but grew up Protestant, and this was a much bigger issue for us back then. My impression is that evolution is a bit of a third rail for Catholics. We don't want to be fundamentalists, and Catholic's hospitality toward reason and science makes us more like to seek a harmonization of evolution with Genesis than our Protestant neighbors.
However, and perhaps this is just my Protestant baggage, but I am much less sanguine about this. At least, the Darwinian explanation must be false as it totally defies common sense and simply makes teleology an illusion.
Whatever Catholics think of the hardcore "young earth" creationists (some of their theories are admittedly a bit nutty), I think being willing to criticize this theory using the superior firepower of Thomism would certainly be welcome.
Thank you, Dr. Feser. A nice article. I'm going to have to meditate longer on just why the admitted deficiency in explanation of natural selection for reproduction leads to *teleology* specifically. I'm not doubting that it does. Just saying I need to think this over more. (Do Haldane et al. discuss this more?)
One point that I could wish you had steered away from is Rothman's point about reproduction conferring no survival advantage. An evolutionary biologist would brush that point away -- correctly, in my view -- my simply observing that while, in popular and / or early accounts of evolution, "survival of the fittest" was used, it is really reproduction and *not* survival that drives the logic of natural selection. Traits are useful (evolutionarily) if they confer a survival advantage *up to the point of reproduction* (or allow more reproduction); but actual extending of life post-reproduction is of no obvious evolutionary value, a point that actually causes other paradoxes for evolutionary theory (why do humans survive long after reproductive age?). So Rothman's point seems a little irrelevant.
It seems that this argument pushes any evolution back into the pre-biotic realm. An organism that comes to life from non-living matter would have to have the ability to reproduce as one of it's original abilities or it would simply die, and another life form would then have to evolve. It puts the burden of evolution on chemistry instead of biology.
I will await comment(s) here, acceding to greater minds than mine. Am curious to see what may be offered, concerning the piece on paradox of evolution. Will frame my own remarks, accordingly.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Dr Feser, I am grateful you are taking the time to discuss critiques of evolution. I'm Catholic but grew up Protestant, and this was a much bigger issue for us back then. My impression is that evolution is a bit of a third rail for Catholics. We don't want to be fundamentalists, and Catholic's hospitality toward reason and science makes us more like to seek a harmonization of evolution with Genesis than our Protestant neighbors.
ReplyDeleteHowever, and perhaps this is just my Protestant baggage, but I am much less sanguine about this. At least, the Darwinian explanation must be false as it totally defies common sense and simply makes teleology an illusion.
Whatever Catholics think of the hardcore "young earth" creationists (some of their theories are admittedly a bit nutty), I think being willing to criticize this theory using the superior firepower of Thomism would certainly be welcome.
Thanks again for all your work,
JMM
OK. That was quite enough. Kirk, out.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dr. Feser. A nice article. I'm going to have to meditate longer on just why the admitted deficiency in explanation of natural selection for reproduction leads to *teleology* specifically. I'm not doubting that it does. Just saying I need to think this over more. (Do Haldane et al. discuss this more?)
ReplyDeleteOne point that I could wish you had steered away from is Rothman's point about reproduction conferring no survival advantage. An evolutionary biologist would brush that point away -- correctly, in my view -- my simply observing that while, in popular and / or early accounts of evolution, "survival of the fittest" was used, it is really reproduction and *not* survival that drives the logic of natural selection. Traits are useful (evolutionarily) if they confer a survival advantage *up to the point of reproduction* (or allow more reproduction); but actual extending of life post-reproduction is of no obvious evolutionary value, a point that actually causes other paradoxes for evolutionary theory (why do humans survive long after reproductive age?). So Rothman's point seems a little irrelevant.
Survival after reproduction is useful because parents help their children to survive long enough to be able to reproduce themselves.
DeleteIt seems that this argument pushes any evolution back into the pre-biotic realm. An organism that comes to life from non-living matter would have to have the ability to reproduce as one of it's original abilities or it would simply die, and another life form would then have to evolve.
ReplyDeleteIt puts the burden of evolution on chemistry instead of biology.