What did Darwin Regret? An “enfeebled” moral and emotional character

Faith & Science Conversation
61

[hah!] of course. Only love has anything to do with God. In so far as we align with Him, we love, we are good. In so far as we don’t, won’t, can’t, align, love, we are evil. I have no idea what good and evil could otherwise mean. I don’t understand how the religion or lack of it of those in religious studies departments is tragic, although the deeper the cultural experience, immersion the better and any religious studies department with breadth and depth should therefore have orthodox adherents of course. As long as they can communicate and assess students disinterestedly.

As for Darwin, he did us the service of removing clericalism as a prerequisite for rational inquiry, which had precluded both faith and reason. Love is devoid of doctrine, dogma, and sacrament that frustrate it, block it, that are an opportunity cost which obviate it, that are a meaningless substitute for it.

62

It is rather amusing how hard you struggle to project your own beliefs onto others in order to discredit them.

1 Like
63

You can call the Moon a big chunk of cheese, but that doesn’t magically turn the Moon into cheese.

1 Like
64

What ideology???

2 Likes
65

I don’t know that it had a name. The connection between poetry (and art more generally) and virtue was a commonplace of European thought at least since the Roman era. You can find it in Horace, in Sidney’s A Defense of Poetry, in Johnson’s criticism of Shakespeare and at all points in between.

Where did you get that idea?

66

I wonder if the Greek ideal of Arete would come close to the ideology you’re referring to. But I don’t imagine it would have been referred to that way in the culture of Darwin’s time.

Arete is a philosophical term with deep meaning first used by Greeks . It roughly means moral virtue, and refers to an innate excellence in all things, and the striving toward that potential or purpose as a way of life. Ancient Greek Olympians strove to emulate the valiant traits of Homeric warriors.

https://www.arete22.com/what-does-arete-mean/

3 Likes
67

I agree with your conclusion that almost always each human remains the same person from infancy to old age. But what about the small minority who, at nearly middle age, are afflicted with Huntington’s disease? Their “personhood”–their personality–changes for the worse. They often lose the characteristics that enable them to exist in a human society. Since it is almost certain that person possessed a faulty HD gene from the moment of conception, should we consider them as never being ‘fully human’? Surely not!

Am I using a red herring to deflect a reasonable debate on what constitutes ‘true humanity’? What are your thoughts on this?
Al Leo

68

I do not equate a person with his brain, so I would insist that this is the same person and what we see are the difficulties that person is having in communicating and expressing himself. I would see it as a challenge to the rest of us to go beyond the superficial aspects to see the person beneath, behind, or beyond such things.

I thought the discussion was regarding Darwin and evolution and that was simply a metaphor used in an argument against the suggestion that there is more than one evolutionary theory.

69

Welcome back, Gregory.

Without dismissing the many insights that Darwin gave us about the evolution of life over the ages, there is a problem with his understanding of Natural Selection, and the more I discuss it with others the more The Survival of the Fit(test) does seem to have become an ideology.

As to whether Survival of the Fittest caused this change in outlook that Darwin regrets is hard to say, but the materialist basis upon which he tried to place his science seems to rule out the reality of spirituality and I think that poetry and art are closely aligned with spirituality. The subtitle of the Origin of Species is “The Preservation of Favoured Species in the Struggle for Life,” which is not a poetic statement. Maybe it is fitting that the aphorism that he is best remembered for is not his as well as untrue.

70

How is a rational, and further, scientific fact an ideology? Can one be a political gravitationist? Or anti-gravitationist?

1 Like
71

Nicely written. I could not agree more.

72

A scientific fact ceases to be a scientific fact when it is discovered to be untrue.

Newton’s understanding of how gravity works ceased to be true when Einstein’s view was found to be accurate. By the way Darwin does not own evolution any more than Newton owned gravity.

Newton’s understanding of gravity depended on time and space to be absolute, while Einstein discovered that they are relational, therefore an absolutist view of the world is no long rational and scientific, but ideological. The people who support Donald Trump have an absolutist or Newtonian understanding of the world.

73

And what isn’t symbiosis again? And that’s a complete misapplication of Newtonian even as a metaphor.

74

The thread seems to have run into an issue that there are two natural scientists, I believe both working in or related to the field of biology or genetics, who simply have put their feet down to deny ideology exists at all. Where can the conversation go with them, folks? Any suggestions are welcome, as for me it feels like trying to talk about the weather with people who deny sunshine and rain.

One says with disbelief, “What ideology???”, while the other doesn’t think ideologies have names.

That’s like saying when people sing birthday songs to people, and get to the part where they sing “Happy Birthday to ___________”, they just leave out the name. No name birthdays and no name ideologies? What’s up with this scenario? It doesn’t seem right.

“I don’t know that it had a name.”

Then please, don’t say there “was” an ideology, certainly not “a very particular ideology”, as you claimed above, if it didn’t have a name. Respectfully, thanks.

Sorry if this sounds curt, Steve, but I work in the closest fields that deal directly with “ideology”. And part of my academic training is from the former Soviet Union. I’m not a biologist as you are, and don’t wish for any biology lessons here. I’m talking about ideology and ideas, and relating them to “Darwin’s regret” as stated by himself in the OP above.

With that said, please, for the love of your Creator, don’t try to “teach” me about “ideology”. Stop doing it when hints of doubt start. Just ask nice questions instead. Aim to learn about a field and topic that you aren’t trained in. I’m a fairly nice guy, I’ll answer you as justly and politely as I can, even if I disagree with you. Deal, Steve?

75

Though it doesn’t seem Roger is suggesting it, Darwin’s regret wasn’t symbiosis. He didn’t know what that was by name.

76

No, he’s refusing to acknowledge that he contradicts himself, adding two more failings to his rhetorical methods.

77

Hello again Roger,

May the peace of the Lord be with you!

Well, to be fair, he regretted “natural selection”. I’m not sure what you capitalise it or “survival of the fittest”. I guess something like the people who capitalise “invisible hand” … of the market.

It looks though, like you might also have “a problem”, Roger, indeed a major one, much bigger than Darwin’s or Wallace’s. Everyone who’s posted here for not very long knows what that problem is called: e-c-o-l-o-g-y. Right?

The point is whether Darwin’s ideology acquired from Malthus, which now takes the name Malthusianism (watch the deniers deny it and the haters make excuses for it!), could have been part of his above stated regrets or not. How about this? I don’t think it can or should be left out. Those who do are merely uninterested in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, in this case related to Darwin’s expressed ideas. Indeed, the closest field of study for this topic would be the subfield of “psychology of science”. Anyone based in that area here?

78

I meant Darwin didn’t know what “symbiosis” was by name. Roger is another story, right?

79

What ideology?

80

Malthusianism