Next time some one wants to tell you evolution isn't real

[_mikwut]

Hi Steelhead,

Even Richard Dawkins sees the incredibly, awe inspiring fact of evolution (a chicken from an egg). The wonder involved is almost just obvious. I don't know what your missing?

mikwut

[_Lemmie]

So, if I were Ceeboo I would just learn how enchanted evolution is and keep telling his interlocutors what makes them so certain naturalism is so boringly benign?

I'm missing your point too, mikwut. People haven't been objecting on the basis of how he feels about his interpretation, but rather that his interpretation involves bad science or no science.

We cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a princess can turn into a frog.

Yes we can.

He calls this, “This elementary wonder,” He argues that enchantment, wonder, the magic of appearing in this world is a metaphysical reality. The atheist calls an egg turning into a chicken benign and a princess turning into a frog magical. But naturalism isn't benign and it isn't conceptually different than the princess and the frog no matter how much time is added.

I disagree, it is absolutely conceptually different. Also, what does it matter how one feels about it? I'm an atheist and personally I think the world of nature is amazing, wonderful, and enchanting, but if another atheist is maybe closer to Monk who can't abide 'nature in my shoe' and prefers indoor amazements, it wouldn't change the science underlying the process.

[_EAllusion]

Mikwut is hinting at, but not actually spelling out an exotic argument he is fond of. In truth, I don't think he ever really spells it out. He sorta flirts with a few distinct philosophical arguments that require some background knowledge to understand. Usually they are attempts at sneaking God in through a difficult philosophical problem associated with justifying some commonly thought thing. But if you engage those instead, I don't think it ever really comes into focus what he's actually saying. If I were ya'll, I'd ask him to spit it out.

[_honorentheos]

Atheism views evolution from the benign naturalist lens, looking at all of natural life as if it were just brute fact. G.K. Chesterton made the observation in his brilliant essay, Ethics of Elfland, (For the skeptics, who might find Chesterton’s reasoning unscientific they might find it interesting that it was included by Martin Gardner, the former editor of Scientific American, in his anthology, Great Essays in Science, along with essays by Darwin, Eddington, Fermi, and Einstein.

His point boils down to, is naturalism benign? Trees bearing fruit, flowers being beautiful, love existing aren't logical truths or mathematical brute facts, they are existing things that aren't logically necessary, they could be imagined otherwise. They don't have to be the way they are like 3 is greater than 2. We cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a princess can turn into a frog. He calls this, “This elementary wonder,” He argues that enchantment, wonder, the magic of appearing in this world is a metaphysical reality. The atheist calls an egg turning into a chicken benign and a princess turning into a frog magical. But naturalism isn't benign and it isn't conceptually different than the princess and the frog no matter how much time is added. To make his point in reverse he argues that if a benign naturalist were to find himself in a magical filled world consisting of trees that bear burning candlesticks, plants that can sing enchanting songs, a princess that turned into a frog, fairies and enchanted creatures the naturalist would benignly pursue his methodological naturalism in the same way as our current world. Nothing would be different to him. But to the one who doesn't give in to the benign the magical is emphasized.

I take offense to the argument that a person with naturalistic views, i.e. an atheist, must be closed to viewing the miracle of existence and the universe with wonder, awe, and deep appreciation. That we are here, and the incredibly unlikely events occurred that allowed any one of us to be in a state to recognize and appreciate it is wonderful, miraculous and fully internally so without need to impose supernaturalism onto those words in order to give them any meaning. In fact, I'd argue that the person who inserts the unnecessary, i.e. a theist, is effectively a graffitiing defacer imposing on the wonder of it all to try and assert themselves in much the same way a vandal puts their own importance above that of the world as they find it. It's painting a cock and balls on nature.

[_EAllusion]

I take offense to the argument that a person with naturalistic views, i.e. an atheist, must be closed to viewing the miracle of existence and the universe with wonder, awe, and deep appreciation. That we are here, and the incredibly unlikely events occurred that allowed any one of us to be in a state to recognize and appreciate it is wonderful, miraculous and fully internally so without need to impose supernaturalism onto those words in order to give them any meaning. In fact, I'd argue that the person who inserts the unnecessary, i.e. a theist, is effectively a graffitiing defacer imposing on the wonder of it all to try and assert themselves in much the same way a vandal puts their own importance above that of the world as they find it. It's painting a cock and balls on nature.

No, what he's saying is something more along the lines of, "Belief in God is like wonder, so if you experience wonder and find it meaningful, then you understand my belief in God is justified. If you don't, then wonder is cut off from you too." Your natural reaction to that is probably, "wtf?" There's a few bad ways he might try to get there, but they are clever-bad arguments that take some knowledge to understand why they suck. I'd advise to be be careful in asking him to explicitly make the argument with detail.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I was watching BBC's new 'nature' series today, and was absolutely stunned and amazed by the variety, wonder, and resiliency of life here on our small globe. There was one particular shot of krill, underneath the antarctic ice sheets, nibbling at some microbes, and I was struck by the shot. Knowing that us simians have evolved over time to develop the curiosity and wonderment to eventually develop a suit, a breathing aparatus, and technology not only to get someone to that location to take that shot, but to comprehend the sheer impossibility of how life has adapted to survive and flourish under virtually incomprehensible circumstances.

Instead of saying goddidit, why can't us humans embrace the brotherhood of life that this planet has welcomed us into? The fraternal order of glory that is nature and natural processes? There's no need to ascribe to a designer that which nature bears witness. Life is enough. The universe itself is enough to feel humility, gratitude, and now that we know better, a sense of stewardship.

I'm Doctor CamNC4Me. And I'm a grateful atheist.

- Doc

[_subgenius]

I was watching BBC's new 'nature' series today, and was absolutely stunned and amazed by the variety, wonder, and resiliency of life here on our small globe. There was one particular shot of krill, underneath the antarctic ice sheets, nibbling at some microbes, and I was struck by the shot. Knowing that us simians have evolved over time to develop the curiosity and wonderment to eventually develop a suit, a breathing aparatus, and technology not only to get someone to that location to take that shot, but to comprehend the sheer impossibility of how life has adapted to survive and flourish under virtually incomprehensible circumstances.

Instead of saying goddidit, why can't us humans embrace the brotherhood of life that this planet has welcomed us into? The fraternal order of glory that is nature and natural processes? There's no need to ascribe to a designer that which nature bears witness. Life is enough. The universe itself is enough to feel humility, gratitude, and now that we know better, a sense of stewardship.

I'm Doctor CamNC4Me. And I'm a grateful atheist.

- Doc

humility and gratitude are virtues to you because of western Christian indoctrination in your life, culture, and education. You value these because of "goddidit" and not because of some imaginary atheism, because atheism can't rationalize these as being virtuous without...western Christian indoctrination.
But i get ya, you think "random coincidence" makes sense because it maintains your self as center of universe.
You should get a kick out of the difference between a domed space and cathedral space. Prime cause be damned!

eta: "nature has no virtue dood"

[_Res Ipsa]

If I were Ceeboo I would take the recommendations of his interlocutors but I would add a few things as well.

First, one of the philosophical questions that often gets ignored in these skeptic believer evolution debates is the nature of naturalism itself. Let's say Ceeboo does as Chap requests and reads up on evolution and actually says like he has in the past on other issues, you know what I was wrong - the evidence for evolution is very strong? I don't understand what that would have to do with his belief in God? Because an attitudinal or perspectival question still remains. Is naturalism itself benign? Or, yah I'll use the term here for emphasis, magical? There is a rational impasse respecting this philosophical question, because it is attitudinal and perspectival, not narrowly evidential toward one way of thinking.

Hello mikwut. I think the philosophical questions you raise get ignored because the believer isn't just defending belief in God: he or she is defending specific beliefs in a specific God that the existence of evolution threatens. If you simply look at a more general belief in God, then I don't see how accepting the theory of evolution impact belief in God at all.

I think you're using "benign" as a stand in for something else. Are you perhaps asking "Is naturalism natural or magical?" If that's it, I think it would be more productive to just ask whether naturalism is magical or not magical.

Atheism views evolution from the benign naturalist lens, looking at all of natural life as if it were just brute fact. G.K. Chesterton made the observation in his brilliant essay, Ethics of Elfland, (For the skeptics, who might find Chesterton’s reasoning unscientific they might find it interesting that it was included by Martin Gardner, the former editor of Scientific American, in his anthology, Great Essays in Science, along with essays by Darwin, Eddington, Fermi, and Einstein.

I'd say that Chesterton's reasoning has to stand on its own.

His point boils down to, is naturalism benign? Trees bearing fruit, flowers being beautiful, love existing aren't logical truths or mathematical brute facts, they are existing things that aren't logically necessary, they could be imagined otherwise. They don't have to be the way they are like 3 is greater than 2. We cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a princess can turn into a frog. He calls this, “This elementary wonder,” He argues that enchantment, wonder, the magic of appearing in this world is a metaphysical reality. The atheist calls an egg turning into a chicken benign and a princess turning into a frog magical. But naturalism isn't benign and it isn't conceptually different than the princess and the frog no matter how much time is added. To make his point in reverse he argues that if a benign naturalist were to find himself in a magical filled world consisting of trees that bear burning candlesticks, plants that can sing enchanting songs, a princess that turned into a frog, fairies and enchanted creatures the naturalist would benignly pursue his methodological naturalism in the same way as our current world. Nothing would be different to him. But to the one who doesn't give in to the benign the magical is emphasized.

OK, now I am completely confused by your use of the word "benign." Would you please define how you are using it? It's difficult to see how the fact that most of what we encounter in every day life is contingent rather than logically necessary leads to what he goes on to argue.

And maybe it's the age of the book, but the bit about not being able to say why an egg becomes a chicken spoils the argument.

Finally, his use of the word "magic" isn't clear. If by being "magic" he simply means that this hypothetical world has laws that permit and explain why plants can sing and a princess turns into a frog, then, yes, a methodological naturalist would study and experiment to discover what those laws are. But would that be magic?

So, if I were Ceeboo I would argue so what to the evidence of naturalism and evolution in the benign view, what is wrong you guys that you don't see the magic of the natural world and what it can imply? There exists a wealth of evidence that evolution isn't only supported by historical contingency, adaptation and chance mutation but also by natural law. Physicist Jeremy England has proposed that life may be the result of law and inevitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka8573QQKW4 So we don't necessarily have to accept the happy accident idea of life, but that it was inevitable. Self organization is a law built into nature, the very laws of physics themselves help for life to inevitably arise. Many molecular and chemical processes necessary for life are just law, self organization, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12468283. These inevitable processes of evolution can rationally be viewed in more than one way, again benign or enchanted?

I'm a methodological naturalist, so I don't think that life on earth was created by magic. That doesn't keep me from feeling a sense of awe and wonder when I'm out hiking or reading a book on evolution. I'm afraid you might be swapping meanings of "magic" around: magic as a non-natural occurrence vs. magic as something that generates a feeling of awe and wonder.

This is an interesting twist for me. Up above, you just got done stressing the contingency of life. Now you're jumping to the inevitability of life. Certainly its possible that the laws of the universe make life inevitable, but we've actually seen no evidence of that. They certainly don't make life inevitable everywhere and we've had no chance to investigate a planet similar to ours.

We further see in evolution the same morphology appearing separately, not by a one off mutation or chance process. Nature appears law given so the same features in biology appear although not related. For example, most of us are aware of the African cheetah, but most of us are unaware that there existed an American Cheetah that was almost identical in structure and form. These examples of convergent evolution are so numerous they can't all be listed, Life as we know it seems to be just the fabric of nature. Law like. A hypothesis that if you rewound the tape all over again life as we know it would inevitably arise. Alien planets would be inhabited by not some foreign imagination of life, but the inevitable life as we know it and has emerged. Where do those life giving enchanting law like abilities come from? That question just returns us to the benign or enchanted philosophical question that doesn't rationally allow for the one or the other to be eliminated.

Convergent evolution in no way shows that chance mutations are not involved. Likewise, it does not mean that "nature" or any other guiding force propelled the evolution in both lines. Actually, there is considerable doubt over whether the "American cheetah" should properly be called a cheetah at all. We only have a sample of one planet, so concluding that life is "the fabric of nature" substantially overstates the evidence. As does any claim that if we started the earth over we would end up with the same creatures today.

And all this leaves me with at the end is asking: why should I believe there is some entity that "created" the laws? I see no good reason, and so I don't.

So, if I were Ceeboo I would just learn how enchanted evolution is and keep telling his interlocutors what makes them so certain naturalism is so boringly benign?

mikwut

All that looks like is a false dichotomy: naturalism isn't boring at all, but is filled with awe and wonder.

[_Jersey Girl]

Cropping your post because I want to focus just on this one piece.

The universe itself is enough to feel humility, gratitude, and now that we know better, a sense of stewardship.

I'm Doctor CamNC4Me. And I'm a grateful atheist.

- Doc

I think that the gratitude (or thankfulness) implies a relationship. Those are inner qualities or emotions that we typically express via outward actions or words. So how do you express your gratitude for all the things in the Universe or do you feel any need to express what you feel via your actions at all? If you express them in words, who is the listener?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Cropping your post because I want to focus just on this one piece.

The universe itself is enough to feel humility, gratitude, and now that we know better, a sense of stewardship.

I'm Doctor CamNC4Me. And I'm a grateful atheist.

- Doc

I think that the gratitude (or thankfulness) implies a relationship. Those are inner qualities or emotions that we typically express via outward actions or words. So how do you express your gratitude for all the things in the Universe or do you feel any need to express what you feel via your actions at all? If you express them in words, who is the listener?

Voof. Those are profound questions that I'm sure most people could write books worth of sentiments on. Despite what our friend subgenius asserts, I think humility can be an innate human attribute that has arisen from cooperative relationships and existential needs being met. This:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humility

demonstrates that humility itself is emergent and expressed throughout a variety of cultures and philosophical thought.

To your questions:

"So how do you express your gratitude for all the things in the Universe or do you feel any need to express what you feel via your actions at all?"

I do feel the need quite often, and that can admittedly be because of how I was raised. It could also just be a part of my fundamental makeup. My mother, when I was a child, used to remark often enough that I had a kind heart and a good nature. Perhaps some people are just imbued with a predisposition toward gratitude and a lack of arrogance, which I think create a sense of humbleness. Not totally sure.

As to how I do it? Honestly it varies from moment to moment. I know it's founded in mindfulness and focus, though. Stopping to smell the roses, and then focusing in on the moment to observe the miracle of the rose creates awe and then is itself a catlyst toward humility. You do that often enough you realize soon enough how everything is essentially beauty and art, despite an absence of fundamental meaning. The universe is an endless expanse to be discovered and honored.

"If you express them in words, who is the listener?"

You know. Sometimes I think this reality is a simulation, and I talk to my mother who may be on the other side of it. Sometimes I revert to the sense there is a god and I discuss the moment with it. Sometimes I think the universe is a totality and I emote toward it or whisper something in case it's aware. Sometimes, well, most of the time, I think this reality is what it is, and I think think good thoughts or think good words and send them on their way into the ether. Whatever the case may be, and whatever the ultimate nature of this reality is, I still feel various virtues and I feel a need to act upon them in my own way.

Did this address your questions? I know get irritated when I ask specific questions from board members and they gloss over them, so I hope I gave you an adequate response.

- Doc