Telos and Social Darwinism

Populist resistance to the concept of darwinism takes at least two forms: 1) skepticism, as seen in the writings of William Dembski and Michael Behe, and 2) moral opposition, as seen in Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled.” These two modes of attack often go hand-in-hand, but taken together they entail a contradiction. Before I launch into why this is, let me give some some brief definitions:

A summary of darwinism. Darwinism is improvement via natural selection. “Natural” in this context means non-teleological, undirected, blind, etc. “Selection” means that some things survive while others die.

A summary of the skeptical argument against darwinism. The skeptical argument emphasizes the “natural” aspect of natural selection. Natural processes are blind, lacking the foresight necessary to build the diversity and complexity of life.

A summary of the moral argument against darwinism. The moral argument emphasizes the “selection” aspect of natural selection. Darwinian evolution entails a morality of progress via the destruction of the weak, ultimately leading to a Holocaust situation.

So with that groundwork laid, consider these two scenarios: 1) A goat-herder selects the fattest goats to breed, and then slaughters the others. 2) A herd of wild goats gets thinned out during the winter, leaving only the most hardy to survive and mate. Both of these scenarios involve selection, but only scenario #2 involves non-teleological selection, a.k.a. natural selection, therefore only scenario #2 is a darwinian scenario.

Here are two more: 1) A person murders another person. 2) A person dies due to a congenital heart defect. The first scenario is teleological and therefore immoral, the second is non-teleological and therefore amoral. Because morality can’t exist independently of teleology, darwinism is by definition amoral. If a doctor had ended that person’s life because of the congenital heart defect, it would have ceased to be a darwinian scenario and become an immoral scenario. The two are mutually exclusive.

Okay, so back to the afore-mentioned contradiction. When someone wants to cast doubt on darwinism, they’ll emphasize the non-teleological nature of darwinism. Terms like “blind,” “mechanistic,” and “undirected” are used to great effect. “The blind laws of nature couldn’t have produced life,” etc. But when it comes to the moral implications of darwinism, this emphasis vanishes. Hitler planned to kill the Jews. Eugenics intends to kill the mentally challenged. Therein lies the contradiction: darwinism fails because it contains no telos, but darwinism fails because it contains telos. This is a disingenuous form of equivocation. It’s juggling premises to support a desired conclusion.

Let me drive the point home. Whether you know it or not, you, the reader of this essay, are very likely a proponent of social darwinism. You may think you’re opposed to social darwinism, but what you’re really opposed to are socialism and eugenics, which are forms of artificial selection. A government body chooses who lives and dies. A government body chooses how to distribute wealth. What’s the opposite of that? Natural, non-teleological selection. Laissez faire capitalism. Competition in the marketplace. Live and let live. Equal opportunity. In a nutshell, darwinism playing out in society. America is one big experiment in social darwinism, and its success speaks to the power and pervasiveness of the darwinian concept.

Evidence For Evolution

It’s not unheard of to find Christian Theists working in the biological sciences who don’t see a conflict between evolution and their faith. One of them, Francis Collins, lead the Human Genome Project. Another one, Kenneth Miller, is a professor at Brown University. These people don’t see evolution as devaluing human life. Rather they see it as expressing the grandeur and wonder of God’s ultimate plan. Kenneth Miller also happens to be a passionate defender of the theory of evolution. Here are some nice, bite-size excerpts from a talk he gave in the aftermath of the Dover trial. He gives quite compelling arguments about why modern Intelligent Design theory is false and why Darwin’s theory is true.

Regarding “Missing Links” in the Fossil Record

Demonstrating Common Ancestry Between Humans and Other Apes

Deconstructing Irreducible Complexity

(Also, here’s a more detailed written account of the evidence falsifying irreducible complexity.)

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

That’s a quote from Albert Einstein. Here’s a thoughtful essay about Einstein and his religious views. From the essay:

“Although Einstein was not always consistent in what he said about God, there is a consistent theme running through his thoughts on religion—a theme that he called “cosmic religion”. He used this term to reflect the awe he felt when confronted with the universe and our ability to begin, at least, to comprehend it.”

Response to Thor’s Comment (Science & Theology)

Thor, I hope you don’t mind if I respond to your comment in a new post. I don’t want interesting threads to get buried in comments. Here’s what you wrote:

The word “theology” comes from two Greek words meaning “God” and “word.” Combined, the word “theology” means the “study of God.” Christian theology therefore is the study of what Christian believes the Bible teaches about God.

For the Christian, the basis of “knowledge about God” comes from “reading” the Bible. The Bible itself is a presupposition book (Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning – GOD”), it assumes that a God that is transcendent time and space exists. It describes a God that spoke and where there “was nothing,” the universe, with all the stars, planets, comets, etc. leapt into existence. It goes on to tell a story of God’s relationship with mankind, fashioning the first people from the very soil of their home. It also describes God’s faithfulness toward and interaction with mankind on the very assumption He exists.

Science refers to any system of acquiring knowledge “based on the scientific method,” as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research. The sciences to which this is referred (natural and social), are empirical, asserting that knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions.

The presupposition is therefore, since God is the author of all truth, having created the universe and everything therein, all truths, Biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else.

Truths presupposed in the Bible must be consistent (not contradictory) with those in nature, and vice versa, though the former may be the more difficult to work out using the scientific method. If the God of the Bible created everything there is, we would expect no less (many of us Christians that is).

“everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort”. (Einstein – 24 January 1936)

You’re essentially saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that theology and science lay claim to the same set of truths, or perhaps that theology is a superset of science. I want to explore this in future posts, but I’ll comment a bit now, because this doesn’t seem to address instances where theology and science conflict, which by all accounts they do.

I’ll start at the concept of the supernatural. This idea seems intended to rope off certain areas of truth as off-limits to empirical study. Why can’t we see spirits? Are angels made of atoms? Not only do we not know, but the concept of “supernaturalness” makes such questions inherently unanswerable. If theology can say things about both the natural and the supernatural, but science can only say things about the natural, then theology must be a superset of science.

The problem is, science is a bit of a maverick. The scientific method wants to prevent theology and other belief systems from informing empirical study, otherwise discoveries are tainted. In other words, theology doesn’t inform science. Science will discover what’s really out there, not what politics or religion dictates. This is all well and good as long as science doesn’t ruffle theological feathers, but as soon as that happens everything goes haywire.

Typically, when scientific study reveals something that upsets long-held theological traditions, the church digs in its heels. At best, they intellectually marginalize themselves, at worst, the church uses political force to suppress the theories in question. History bears this out all the way up to the present day.

Maybe theology isn’t a superset of science after all? Maybe it’s a heuristic that exists while science evolves toward something more complete? Maybe the attrition of theological notions in the face of scientific advancement is actually part of God’s plan? I’m just thinking out loud here. Whatever the case, it seems extremely dangerous to just let theology trump science whenever they conflict.