Intelligent Design On Trial NOVA

hitmonInfinity 21 Sep 2011 5:23 PM
More people might find purpose in their lives.
Tsathoggua 21 Sep 2011 1:14 PM
Biology would be a chaotic mush of description. Paleontology, ecology, population bio and genetics would be floundering. Comparative anatomy would be sense-free. Biochemistry would be full of "This shit is weird and makes no sense, but memorize it anyway." Taxonomy would be completely unrecognizable.
afrobatcat 21 Sep 2011 12:22 PM
Was anyone else aware that Darwin didn't come up with the general idea of evolutionary theory? I read yesterday it was in fact his grandfather who published poems detailing, in one poem at least, some ideas Darwin later touched on.
promoted by bakana
morpheuse @afrobatcat
oh hi fellow cracked reader! =P
bakana @afrobatcat
And there were other, less correct, but thematically similar theories that preceded Darwin's, like Lamarckian evolution.
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Anodos 21 Sep 2011 11:36 AM
Wait, where does the Holocaust come in? If we didnt discover natural selection, Hitler would not of hated the people who practice Judaism? Im pretty sure races and religions were at war with eachother BEFORE we discovered biology....
V 21 Sep 2011 11:16 AM
This is ridiculous: if anything, don't religious groups state that our current form is what God wanted us to be, and its the pro-evolution scientists saying that we're always in flux and evolving?

Yes, Darwinism was *stolen and perverted* into Social Darwinism, which the Nazis really latched onto as a eugenics program.

But again: is this society he images as secular as ours? Wouldn't there still be the same religious stigma against "improving" the human race?
skywalker993 @V
Agreed. The summary of his concept seems totally backward to me. I feel that the ideas of might-makes-right and survival-of-the-fittest are inextricably and fundamentally tied to Darwinian evolution, and if our minds have reached the point where our scientific explorations can improve our biological (and sociological, but I'm not going into that) state, we have the exciting right to use the fruits of such science.

In other words, we better have Deus Ex augmentation capabilities within the next 2 decades! :)
promoted by Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
skywalker993 @V
Then again, one major pillar of Christianity is that Man is a fallen creature. We are as far from Perfection (or "God") as an ant-hill is from Everest, and it takes Christ's intervention to redeem us, as long as we agree to follow Him back.
Edited by skywalker993 at 09/21/11 12:03 PM
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Strakus 21 Sep 2011 11:14 AM
I was going to get ahead of myself and suggest that made no sense, but then I sustained a massive headwound and it all became clear.

Really, though, there isn't a single causal link in this chain- no discovery of natural selection, ergo no Holocaust, ergo no fear of human tinkering, ergo massive biotechnology capabilities- that makes any godsdamn sense. To begin with, natural selection was a pretty glaring fact- it was, after all, codified by two different ecologists examining separate ecosystems within a few years of each other- that really just managed to overlay hundreds of years of noticing that life fitted into hierarchical classifications with thousands of years of watching humans breed animals, at the same times as geologists got around to noticing the Earth was really old. I can imagine presents with wildly different social norms, or deployed technologies, or where there's a nuke on every corner in the Antarctic medina and Australians on the moon, but there's no bath through the age of scientific observation that doesn't have someone figuring out the most foundational fact in all of life science.

Then the next stop- I'll just let a few thousands years of pogroms and rambling about racial supremacy and "improving the stock" speak for themselves. And next? Might people have concerns about massive changes to the bodies of their children and their place in a society of changed people, just because, perhaps, such things are worrisome to the conservative human animal?

The whopper, though, is the last one. You're doing big intervention biotech, you've figured out that DNA is the hereditary material, and if you've found it, you certainly know how it behaves, and what else has it, and how similar things are, and you've watched cell lines mutate in a dish. There's no way around it.

So...the wings are pretty, I guess.
bakana @Strakus
I say this as an artist with a generally positive attitude towards contemporary, challenging, and avant-garde art, but sometimes it feels like "art" often translates to "doing [x] badly." Where [x] can be anything from 'science' to 'community outreach' to 'engineering' to 'building' to...etc. etc.

Like, "I'm not a scientist, and don't want to rigorously think about this scientific idea, so I'll half ass it. Boom! Art project!"

Sometimes it's a little disheartening.
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Neener 21 Sep 2011 10:47 AM
The only way evolutionary science could have not come to be is if we banned science all together.
There were sooo many scientists that were contributed to the conclusions written in Darwin's work. Discovery is only avoidable when parameters against those discoveries are in place (which still requires discovery of something by someone in order to determine something should be banished from the public eye)

I guess the alternative future could be full of mindless, blind, deaf individuals.
enteecee 21 Sep 2011 10:34 AM
"does the scientific method act to eliminate the effects of historical chance, and our present state of knowledge is somehow necessarily true?"

Almost right. Our present state of knowledge is merely the closest we've yet come to truth. But yeah- the entire purpose of science is to eliminate from our considerations of truth the influence of historical chance, culture, prejudice, and astigmatisms inherent to the human perspective.
corpore-metal @enteecee
Excellent point this!
enteecee @corpore-metal
This happens quite frequently. People get in their heads about their own concepts, and when trying to articulate the awesomeness of what they thunk up, they end up elaborating away the purpose of said awesomeness. This has even happened >gasp< to me. Luckily only very rarely at a a meeting or presentation.
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i.boskone 21 Sep 2011 9:49 AM
Not to pile on but here's an artist with IMO a FAR firmer grasp of science, technology, genetics, and the implications of genetic engineering:

[www.patriciapiccinini.net]

In fact she may deserve a full-on io9 feature...
promoted by Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz @i.boskone
Yes, we've featured her work before!

io9.com/patriciapiccinini
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Stephan Zielinski 21 Sep 2011 9:37 AM
"Designer" is a very useful shorthand. It's far quicker to say "I am a designer" than "I cannot get away with describing myself as any of `architect', `artist', `clothier', `craftsman', `engineer', or `scientist'-- I don't have any of the relevant skills-- but I do like to draw stuff."
electric gravy boat @Stephan Zielinski
This is, sadly, often true - though not universally so.
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corpore-metal 21 Sep 2011 9:35 AM
Sigh. I really doubt most of the confusion over this will ever be cleared up.

1) If it we accept the premise that organisms are machines, it follows that:

2) Highly complex machines of the right form can be alive and can have consciousness.

3) Highly complex machines can arise from blind selection and variation given enough time.

4) Highly complex machines can be designed but are not required to be so.

AI, artificial life and all of biology and cognitive science are pretty much based around all these assumptions being true. It all ties together. We can have emergent life or designed life. We can have emergent minds and designed minds.

The concepts of evolution are simple to state but staggeringly powerful in their implications.

It's just sad that many people still don't get it.
Edited by corpore-metal at 09/21/11 9:40 AM
∞Gîmmî∞Sagaŋ∞ðm∞Drakeŋ∞ @corpore-metal


promoted by Azethoth
ampersands @corpore-metal
Just to clarify: by "this" in the first sentence, do you mean evolutionary theory? and your 1) as a premise of evolutionary theory?
corpore-metal @ampersands
Yes, to the first question.

No, to the second. Viewing organisms as biochemical machines wasn't really firmly established until the 19th century when chemistry became rigorous to dismiss the four humors of Galen. Germ theory also played a part ending the doctrine of vitalism. But speculations that living things were actually machines stretch back much earlier to at least Descartes.

So the statement in number one is actually an idea in biology that emerged seperately from evolution but is still nonetheless deeply connected to it. Darwin showed us how it was possible to get great complexity from blind selection and variation. If organisms are machines, all the rest of what I say follows.
ampersands @corpore-metal
Thanks!
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Philip Kahn 21 Sep 2011 9:24 AM
No evolution yet science where it is? With genetic engineering and the whole nine yards? Does not compute. As EO Wilson said, "Nothing in biology makes sense but in the light of evolution".

Really, how do you do GENES without GENETICS? And if you have genetics, how can you miss the relationship of living things to each other?

Hell, how do you get drugs spat out of E. coli and such without evolution?
Krail @Philip Kahn
I don't think he's actually talking about genetic engineering.
If you read the second quote box, he's talking about things more like surgical procedures and hormone therapies to control kid's height and arm length as they grow up.

Still don't know that it makes any sense, but at least he's not proposing genetic engineering without evolutionary theory.
promoted by Philip Kahn
Philip Kahn @Krail
I'm not sure hormone therapies make sense without genetic engineering (things like recombinant DNA...)
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mordicai 21 Sep 2011 8:55 AM
I mean-- okay, it is art-- but it seems kind of goofy to take out Darwinism & include...genetic engineering? I'm thinking you don't get to "genetic modification" without...genes, without...Mendel, without...you know, someone ELSE discovering a theory of natural selection.

But again, it is art, & that is fine-- just seems like sloppy worldbuilding.
dikdiklikesickick. @mordicai
If it's any comfort, it seems like sloppy art making also.
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99TelepodProblems 21 Sep 2011 8:55 AM
In a present where no Darwinian revolution took place, the idea that medical science can and should intervene to direct human evolution wasn't sullied by the horrors of eugenics and genocide

In the absence of Darwinian theory I would argue that eugenics and genocide are far more likely to occur. Biological "abnormalities" and the broad spectrum of racial traits would only be viewed through the prism of religious beliefs, nationalist or tribal ideologies, and idealized forms would crystallize out of one's core cultural values as they have for millennia. It is important to remember many of the genocidal ideas and eugenics theories of the Nazis formed around a quasi-mystical mythology of an Aryan uber-race. Evolution was simply twisted to bolster this notion.

Were we to be able to tamper with biology without the framework of evolutionary theory it is pretty much certain the moral imperative and justification to weed out undesirables would, in fact, be enhanced.
Edited by 99TelepodProblems at 09/21/11 9:05 AM
Lightice @99TelepodProblems
Agreed. In fact, the whole deal of eugenics was thought out long before the evolutionary theory caught on in the form of the polygenesis-theory under which the Biblical story was considered to only apply to the people of European and Middle-Eastern descent, with other races as "placeholders" of some sort, as well as the Cain-theory, under which the people living in the "edges of the world" were descendants of Cain, and their distinctive appearance was supposed to be due to the curse of his mark.
promoted by 99TelepodProblems
Daveinva @99TelepodProblems
Except, of course, history happened: we DO have knowledge of evolution, and we DID get eugenics, and the Nazis used eugenics to create the most efficient mass-murder system ever invented, one supported by a populace convinced by the science (or, pseudo-science) sprung from the corruption of Darwin's work.

You're arguing an opinion; fair enough, but the facts are facts: humanity's always been for killing the "other," but we only got *really* good at it when we had the "scientific" theories of Marxist-Leninism and Nazism to enable it and obtain popular support from a society eager to endorse it ("Why, the scientists say that Jews are inferior, just like we always knew it!")
Edited by Daveinva at 09/21/11 10:32 AM
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Jumbleconchires 21 Sep 2011 8:39 AM
I think he's taken on a task similar in scope to taking Christiandom out of our history and saying the Puritans still came ashore; it's just not that simple.

I really, *really* like what he's doing, but soooo much of it rustles my jimmies. As someone else said evolution developed independently in various different fields. It's integral to the biological truism of non-directed change over time. I acknowledge the potentiality of each incident of evolution emerging being interpreted differently or not existing, but not with the same sort of developments in fields like genetics or microbiology where they've actually documented such a change over time in E. Coli bacterium. Because *so* much of modernity is dependent on these innocuous advancements over time, the burden of sufficient explanation is on him to justify better, if only slightly, how we could possess current technology.

At best, he's bitten off more than he can chew. At worst, I can't help but think this stinks of an unpleasant agenda.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if I was wrong though.
Edited by Jumbleconchires at 09/21/11 8:40 AM
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horgworm @Jumbleconchires
At best, he's bitten off more than he can chew.

Agreed, That about sums it up for me. I see this a lot when artists create a straw-man argument of science-vs-humanity when they take on scientific subjects they know nothing about. As an idea for a thought experiment, it's a neat idea. Reminds me a bit of the novel "Darwinia", where scientists in the 1800's are confronted with an alien ecosystem invading earth's. But this artist's vision reveals how little he actually knows about science and history.
Jumbleconchires @horgworm

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B 21 Sep 2011 8:35 AM
This seems backwards to me. I think if anything, evolution would encourage gene tinkering. It's the idea that we're perfect beings created by some sky fairy that gives resistance to genetic engineering.
Dirk Anger @B
Which is just another way to show how absurd is the non-belief in evolution. Do they also deny the existence of genes? If they do, what do they care what we do with things that don't exist anyway? If they do, do they think that the ones who have more offspring pass less genes than the ones who have more?

I still can't grasp how can anyone who is exposed to even the most basic explanation of genetics can still say "that's not so". I just can't wrap my head around it
sui generis @B
Exactly.

He's taken a potentially interesting premise and drawn all kinds of disjointed, unrelated conclusions from it.
ampersands @Dirk Anger
I think the disbelief in evolution is actually a disbelief in the theory of natural selection as the primary mechanism by which evolution occurs. It's crazy, but for different reasons than a disbelief in genes.
Dirk Anger @ampersands
So, there are people who know that traces are inherited (something we have known since before we knew how to speak, otherwise we wouldn't have dogs, cats or bananas) but they don't believe that the traces that are inherited by more individuals lead to having more individuals with said traces.

That's not crazy, it's worse, it's insane.
I prefer to think that people don't stop to think for ten seconds about any of this and just repeat what they hear. It's better for my mental health.

I feel that way about evolution and entropy: they're so obvious consequences of things that are so common sense that it's impossible to have them explained to you and not understand them, unless you start by saying "I'm not believing a single word of what I'm being told".
Edited by Dirk Anger at 09/21/11 11:33 AM
ampersands @Dirk Anger
That's also a kind of oversimplification of the theory of natural selection. The sticking point for many people (especially the religious) is the random mutation/variation of genes being the primary mechanism for a species to adapt to a certain situation (and that this mechanism led from single-cell organisms to us). This actually isn't obvious at all; I think it's scientifically accurate, but it's not very intuitive. The opposing theory would hold that even though traits are inherited, mutations don't make a significant change in the way species change as a whole). This is the old Darwinism vs Lamarckism debate about whether the changes that occur in the next generation are due to genetic inheritance or due to the parent(s) adapting to the environment; this debate has come back in a small way with recent developments in epigenetics.
Dirk Anger @ampersands
Well, what I meant is the "survival of the fittest" concept is tautologic, once you define fittest as "the ones who survive for longer".

I don't know about that being the sticking point being that... pretty much every time I've talked to someone who doesn't "believe in evolution" and who was smart enough to understand that in science you need empirical evidence to back any claims, they've talked about this or that experiment in which the researchers found a small detail that didn't fit, as a proof that the whole theory of evolution is false (yeah, like any theory even claims to represent anything at 100%).

I mean, would it be so hard to say "yeah, evolution works that way but it's such an amazing system that can't have come about randomly"? You don't need to deny obvious facts to support your claim that God created life. I know that argument raises questions that can only be answer by circular logic, but still, they could at least leave the miracle thing in "God didn't need to be created because he's eternal, omnipotent and benevolent and created evolution so that we could become the masters of the creation", without need to deny that some things work, to a huge extent, the way we know they do.

Epigenetics are very interesting, but they don't contradict natural selection at all, they just add another layer to the survival of the fittest. We don't learn to get shorter living children when there's a famine, we're just hard-wired to do so, so they don't compete too much with their younger brothers who are more likely to spread the genes more effectively than them (it's either that or we're simply not able to give them enough of whatever they need). Not sure whether it's a bug or a feature, but it runs on the same machine, by the same rules.
ampersands @Dirk Anger
Epigenetics doesn't contradict the theory of natural selection; it does, however, raise the possibility that natural selection is not the only mechanism by which evolution occurs.
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johnrhoward 21 Sep 2011 8:35 AM
I don't think it's evolutionary science that's keeping people from trying to give their kids wings, I think it's more because it's a stupid idea, and people love their children and don't want to hurt them.

Also, if evolutionary science were the only thing keeping people from doing that, then you'd see it happening a lot anyway, since there are way too many people who "don't believe" in evolutionary science.
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Malkyre 21 Sep 2011 8:23 AM
It's a fine thought experiment. Thought experiments by their very nature can be anything. But this one is a bit abstruse. The scientific method does, by it's very existence and implementation, essentially normalize the swings of chance in scientific inquiry. If anything, it increases the chances that we find new things, simply by forcing us to document our approaches and determine what works and what doesn't in light of our hypotheses. When these hypotheses prove untrue, the next logical step is to determine why.

This often leads to the 'accidents' we hear about in scientific history. Something unexplainable happens, which is then explored further, and something new is discovered. Without the scientific method, there would be no system to standardize that approach that others could then pick up and say "yes, you failed there, but look at this data you collected. I think there's something more here, we should check it out."

Without the theory of evolution, I really doubt people's reaction would be "Hey, this wacky science thing is neat, how about massive body modifications?" Questions of the direction of human evolution have rather caused exactly such discussions: cyborgs, artificial organs, replacement limbs, etc. Should we use technology to upgrade ourselves? Can I have cheetah legs? Is someone with replacement parts still human? These are questions that are asked and being answered.

I believe human 'purists' would have argued against heavy modification regardless of proof of our evolution. Such arguments are always based on some jaundiced view of the 'ideal' having already been achieved. Evolutionary theory, if anything, showed us we are a jumbled mass of sublimated parts, functions and diseases that has managed to keep moving. Far from ideal. Merely optimized with the parts at hand throughout our history.
promoted by 99TelepodProblems
Kishi 21 Sep 2011 8:23 AM
But would we have had Pokemon games?
Rumtum @Kishi
Yes, but with no concept of evolutionary diversity, the motto would be somewhat different:

"Gotta catch him."
Quouar @Kishi
"Congratulations! Bulbasaur magically turned into Ivysaur!"
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Julian Finn 21 Sep 2011 8:15 AM
See, I disagree with the assessment that genetic modification would be given free reign. In a wold without evolutionary theory, there would be one less thing to contradict religious theories on the origins of life. Without that contradiction, you'd have a mindset where the phrase "created in God's image" would make the idea of genetic manipulation even *more* abhorrent.
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tanbarkie 21 Sep 2011 8:15 AM
Without evolutionary theory, we would never understand genetics well enough to engineer bacteria, to say nothing of creating babies with wings. And if we somehow managed to develop basic molecular biological tools without having previously come up with the theory of evolution, the obvious commonalities in DNA sequences between closely related species (and the gradual decrease in commonality as you move to more distant classifications) would make the reality of evolution self-evident almost instantly.
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Daveinva @tanbarkie
THIS. I mean, this is an obvious failure point to the storyline, I can't really suspend disbelief that far.

Genetic modification without knowledge of evolution is like nuclear weapons without knowlege of physics. How the heck does it even happen?
Edited by Daveinva at 09/21/11 10:27 AM
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GeneralBattuta 21 Sep 2011 8:15 AM
This seems like an artistically interesting project with essentially no contrafactual integrity - the theory of evolution, rather like the adaptations it describes, arose independently several times and it seems incredible that it would not do so given how basic its initial postulates are.
evannewkirk @GeneralBattuta
Yeah, I don't even understand what Thwaites is trying to say here? If he's postulating a world where Charles Darwin wasn't working on the problem of diversity of species, there's still the fact that Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck had proposed the idea and an (incorrect) model for it half a century before Darwin published Origin, and the fact that Alfred Russell Wallace independently came to conclusions similar to Charles Darwin's while C.D. was marshaling his evidence and arguments (Darwin could have gone to press with Natural Selection years before he heard from Wallace, but was effectively procrastinating by trying to create an unassailable hypothesis: without pressure from his peers, Darwin might have gone on researching without publishing indefinitely). Or is Thwaites postulating a world in which "natural philosophy" is stuck in the mid-19th Century, in which case, how are we getting to genetic modification of children? Or is Thwaites postulating a world in which evolution by natural selection isn't true--in which case it seems he's either postulating a magical universe (and so why genetic manipulation, when wizardry works as well), or he's embracing an extremely Kuhnian perspective that's just untenable, ridiculous and frankly wrong.

And that nonsense about eugenics doesn't help, either. In fact, it's just absurd. While late-19th Century eugenicists were undeniably influenced by a gross misunderstanding of Charles Darwin's work, their efforts not only bear a stronger relation to Lamarck, but can also be related to artificial selection, i.e. selective breeding, which goes back all the way to, oh, I dunno, the invention of agriculture.

It's just a mess. Neat wings, though.
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damien1310 21 Sep 2011 8:13 AM
I fell like they have missed a crucial point.
If no evolutionary science existed, we would all be religious in some way.
Many religions say God created us in his image, so why would we alter ourselves?
If we were all religious, why would we go against Gods plan and change our images?
promoted by artiofab
artiofab @damien1310
In a present where no Darwinian revolution took place, the idea that medical science can and should intervene to direct human evolution wasn't sullied by the horrors of eugenics and genocide.
Is Thomas Thwaites blaming eugenics and genocide on evolutionary science? If so, he's being stupid.
Shai-Hulud @damien1310
Belief in evolutionary science need not conflict with religious convictions. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
for example re: evolution, Pope John Paul II has been quoted as saying "truth cannot contradict truth"
lorq @artiofab
I doubt that's what he's doing, but the sentence is conceptually muddled. In "a present where no Darwinian revolution took place," "the idea that medical science can and should intervene to direct human evolution" wouldn't have arisen AT ALL -- since there would've been no concept of "evolution" in the first place. (To say nothing of the idea being sullied by eugenics.)
damien1310 @Shai-Hulud
But in his reality there is no Evolutionary science at all, that would surely create more religious people who see the bible (or other religious text) as the utmost truth. As humans we are always looking for answers, so if the evolution answer is unavailable, religion is all we got left.
clarkjosephf @damien1310
In the US, most people *are* still religious, at least in "some way." (Unfortunately, even a lot of people who list "none" as their religious preference aren't scientific materialists, but subscribe to a vague belief in "something out there," and woo like reincarnation, ghosts, and auras.)
Even in Europe, the irreligious only account for about half the population--though admittedly, this is enough to push social mores of even believers in more secular directions.
Furthermore, irreligion as a movement was never dependent on Darwin. The Epicureans, many Enlightenment thinkers, and early Positivists (to say nothing of religious believers like Buddhism or Jainism that deny a creator) rejected divine explanations for natural complexity, even if they could offer no convincing account as to how that complexity came about.
But I agree with your point; I don't think anyone has ever opposed body modification because "We evolved that way." They oppose it on the grounds that "We weren't made that way!" or "It's unnatural!", though in this case, the nature they appeal to is goal-oriented, and therefore anti-Darwinian.
If anything, belief in evolution reenforces the belief that form's value is in function, and that we should feel free to increase functionality in proportion to our capacity to do so ethically.
justvisiting @artiofab
I don't think he's blaming eugenics and genocide on evolutionary science- but eugenics and the genocide linked to those ideas used evolutionary theory as a justification- however flimsy. Not saying that no Darwin=no holocaust, just that the people pushing those sorts of ideas would have framed their arguments differently.
Dr. Opossum @damien1310
There were plenty of intellectuals who doubted God and religion before evolutionary theory developed in the Enlightenment and beyond. And there were developments not related to evolution that encouraged secularism (academic criticism, general scientific distrust of the supernatural, sociological factors). It might make some difference, but I doubt very much that everyone would be religious in this alternative world.
clarkjosephf @clarkjosephf
Gah! Fifth sentence should read "...(to say nothing of religious believers like Buddhists and Jainists" that deny a creator)..."
Daveinva @artiofab
No, he's being accurate. No Darwin = no social darwinism = no eugenics = no Holocaust (let alone "New Soviet Man").

Would the Germans have found another reason to kill the Jews? Sure, probably; just as people have always found reasons to kill people they dislike.

But facts are facts, and history happened. That's why we call these "alternative histories."
Edited by Daveinva at 09/21/11 10:24 AM
carbon14 @damien1310
If scientific method acts to eliminate the effects of 'historicality' I argue that it is not scientific method.
I think scientific method is something to strive for rather than sit upon. But somehow we have a culture that barely accepts the ideas of evolution! I mean- 'evolution is open for debate', a recent ex-president has stated, (I paraphrase there a tad).
Maybe the details aren't important. I'm sure anyone could live a perfectly happy and adjusted life never even contemplating the subject Meanwhile actual pseudoscience is accepted like mad. When evolution is accepted it is way too often misunderstood or manipulated and too often has led to eugenics, genocide, and the misplaced value in a false idea of progression.
The ideas of evolution, natural selection and their implications are mere symbols for what is being described/experienced. While we can enhance our understanding of them, the ‘Laws’ of evolution exist despite our perception of them.

Besides, limits (edges- whether of a canvas or a law of physics, or our own minds contemplating these things) are the fundamental forces of creativity of which we have control.

I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist – life is dynamic and creative and there’s a lot more than we know.

I just hope his attempt at making a toaster from scratch isn’t an attempt to prove the inevitableness, absoluteness, and predictability of progression- reliance upon an arbitrary, and very relative, chain of being.) Trajectories are both creative and destructive. Think- Shiva via Nataraja.
What the idea of evolution should do is blast away old paradigms and dogma and refresh our insight towards the awesomeness of this dynamic, vibrant reality we finds ourselves in.
Hobbity @Daveinva
Your argument contains three equals signs. You thus expect me to make three logical leaps before I even get to your point. One step at a time.

No Darwin=no social darwinism? Not really. Royal lines routinely wed each other to keep out "the riff-raff" long before there was any genetic imperative.

No social darwinism=no eugenics? Same argument. Extra argument= humans have been breeding animals for years, and human breeding would be pretty easy to do with the right military/industrial complex. Evolutionary science is unnecessary for Eugenics.

No eugenics=No Holocaust? Not touching this one.

Here's the skinny: without darwinian evolution, we would still ahve to stumble upon the human genome in order to screw with people as per the article's angelic thought excercise. The evidence for evolution is in the genome, so a retrofitting of the understanding evolutionary process would occur at that point, and we'd get right back to the same understanding we have right now, sans Darwin's name on it.
promoted by Daveinva
artiofab @Daveinva
@Hobbity takes care of your argument pretty easily, but I just wanted to point out that when you say
Would the Germans have found another reason to kill the Jews?
The answer is not "sure, probably", the answer is an emphatic yes. Tension between Jewish and Christian Europeans has existed for as long as Europe has been Christian. This tension has erupted into violence on multiple occasions, with small-scale genocides or forced exoduses of Jewish Europeans occurring in almost every century. Germany has the dishonor of being the home of Martin Luther, who had quite a few things to say about why Jews should not be tolerated by Christians.

Bottom line: eugenics and genocide existed before evolution, we just didn't give them those names before the 20th century, when pseudoscience was slapped onto them by assholes to give tyrants a "reason" why it was okay to kill or sterilize whatever the bad minority at the time was.
Daveinva @Hobbity
"Your argument contains three equals signs. You thus expect me to make three logical leaps before I even get to your point."

It's tough walking and chewing gum at the same time?
Daveinva @artiofab
Eugenics most definitely did NOT exist before evolution. I won't argue 130 years of factual history, I'd just suggest visiting a library.

As for genocide, of course it existed. Just ask the Native North and South Americans. But the 20th century brought scientific efficiency-- both in the means and justifications-- to genocide.

I think a more appropriate counterfactual is whether such genocide would have been possible any longer without Darwin. Meaning, the social pressures stemming from the concept of White Man's Burden were already in the air when Darwin's influence was growing, but it arose from the Christian missionary impulse, NOT from scientific reductionism. A 20th century dominated by cultural imperialism might have upset quite a few academics, but it would have been far more benevolent than the devastating scientific theories of organizing humanity that resulted in the twin catastrophes of fascism and communism.

We'd still likely have gotten World War I, and genocide would still have occurred along the periphery (the Turks in Armenia, and perhaps even the Japanese in China). But the easiest route to popular evil would have been removed.

(Again, not arguing against Darwin-- it's not his fault, nor is it the Theory of Evolution's; ideas have consequences, however, not always those intended).
artiofab @Daveinva
You say you're not arguing that either Darwin or evolutionary science intentionally led to eugenics, which is good, I agree with you on that. But the dual arguments you are pressing (that evolutionary science accidentally led to eugenics and 20th century levels of genocide) I can't agree with you on.

For the first argument, we definitely have a definition confusion. You seem to have a narrow definition of eugenics and are arguing that it did not exist until Galton started writing in favour of it, shortly post-Origin of Species. @Hobbity and I are arguing a broader definition (namely, being selective about who should be born and who should breed), which has existed for essentially all of human history.

If your argument is that part of the rationalization for post-1850s eugenics came from evolutionary thought, then, I'll agree. I'll argue that a lot of this was scientists acting in a non-scientific manner, but the stain on our profession remains.

For the second argument, which I think you summed up well as the easiest route to popular evil would have been removed., I strongly disagree. In the cases of one-party rule by fascists in Western+Central Europe and communists in Eastern Europe and East Asia, I don't see science (particularly evolutionary science) as being an organizing cry for any of these parties. I don't see evolutionary thinking in the planned or eventual rulership of Hitler or Lenin or Stalin or Zedong, and their accidental and intentional genocides had the lightest (if any) of scientific rationalization.

20th century technology allowed for genocide to be more methodical in its execution, but 20th century evolutionary science was barely used, if at all, to justify these genocides.
carbon14 @damien1310
Because we would be using our 'God given' minds with their creative intention.