Answer to an alleged creationist

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Le

>I read your short comment published by Gianni Riotta on La Stampa "Ciao Web" '(About the Silence of God)': you deem to be an "appreciable result" the fake consciousness, taught by our high schools, that we are the grandchildren of monkeys ? (Simon Le)

----------------------------
ANSWER:

What is your supporting evidence that the Darwinian evolutionary selection process gives us a "fake" consciousness ? What, in your opinion, is the TRUE consciousness of what we actually are?

First of all I want to reassure you that my Darwinian consciousness is not, regrettably, the result of high school teaching. It would have been much easier for me to understand a few important facts, if some basic Darwinian concepts had been brought to me in high school or somewhere else during my education; maybe instead of a period of Dante or one period of "religion".

I would like to be clearer. The consciousness of being the outcome of a Darwinian evolutionary selective process is more important than the simple knowledge that we may share common parents with the monkeys. It entails the consciousness to have common parents with all the rest of the living beings, to share with them the same chemical and physical processes.

The same consciousness also comprises other equally valid convictions:

• that complex present day living beings are the outcome of chemical and physical conditions of the universe as we now know it;
• that the mechanism is the non deterministic recurrent one as identified by Darwin and described by his natural selection evolutionary theory
• that the outcome of biological evolution does not need to assume the existence of a "Design" or of a "Designer"
• that the whole arrangement is void of any intention or any more or less transcendent goal.

The evolutionary theory through natural selection of living organisms very briefly can be summarized as follows. Living beings reproduce themselves originating similar but not identical beings. The diversity is randomly generated. The reproductive rate exceeds the rate of survival. Environmental constraints and limited resources determine selective pressure and induce lethal competition. The specifically, locally better and environmentally fitter individuals tend to survive and leave more descendants. Different environmental conditions (or conditions that become different for any given reason) favour the survival and the establishment of individuals with different features. So there is always somebody that slots into the easiest niche or into the least resistant environmental space. The degree of reproductive isolation controls the degree of diversification of different populations. The repeated and recurrent application of this pattern explains the continuous production of differences among the groups. These groups can progressively sensibly diverge, originating very complex and diverse organisms, even if they start from simple elements with simple aggregation rules.

In my opinion this consciousness also suggests that, if the living World operates according to Darwin's theory, there is no space for any ethical rule which is not the sole and exclusive consequence of conflicting desires and passions; thus only political and contingent. Alliances for survival and communities can be organized, but abstract concepts of justice, or of good cannot be stated. Within the limits of the Darwinian set-up no ethical proposition can make any sense. The categorical imperative, that Emmanuel Kant hoped for or proposed, does not exist. The ethical concept of "licit" is void in the Darwinian perspective; a kind of conceptual hallucination (very similar to some hallucinations of the senses); only what someone "wants" and can physically do in a world dominated by constraints, adversities and random chances. Each one of us is a biological experiment driven by what he can directly see, and the adequacy (goodness, value etc.) practically cannot be defined or determined "a priori" and depends solely from the behavioural interaction with the environment. Etology "ex post" is possible, but not ethics "ex ante".

I would like this to be clear, especially to those who, misinterpreting Darwin, pretend to know how to issue behavioural rules of Darwinian authenticity for the sake of Natural Selection for the "good" of the Species or to promote the best possible World. According to Darwin, selective pressure is a natural pattern (like gravity or thermodynamic phenomena) that living organisms try to deal with survival techniques. He who leaves the greatest number of descendants can be labeled, in due time, as the best suited in that moment for that environment. Natural selection is not an ethical rule: not the worthiest are selected. In fact our common notions of "better", "good" or "value" cease to have any sense in Darwin's description of the World. It is, in fact, Darwin who destroys the concept of species showing their shaping patterns.

I do not know if the results of Darwinian thinking are good or pleasant, nor if they can bring any comfort to those who seek the meaning of life. Those who seek comfort can look to myths, literary and religious fairy tales which men have always loved telling. Just believe them and you will have comfort. But those who agonize over the "Silence of God" or torture themselves on the "Concept of God after Auschwitz" (i.e. Hans Jonas, Dietrich Bonhoffer, etc.) do not seem to be sure of their credibility.

When I talk about the "appreciable results" offered by Darwinian thought, I want to say that the difference (which I appreciate) is the possibility of explaining biological phenomena without mystery, whereas rival theories have to assume God as the Designer of the World. That difference gives us the ability to knowledgeably control the machinery of life (cloning, DNA modification, immune system manipulation, production of prostheses that interact with neurons, simulation of parts of the neuron network to shed some light on the dynamics of the mind, etc).

All this is a clear sign that Darwinian thinking provides a reliable framework for whatever understanding we are able to gather about life. I deem this framework more reliable than anything else offered by any other theory based on the divine creation of the World and of life.

Such as the following

20. And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22. And God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth'.

23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24. And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26. And God said, 'Let us make man in our image after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

[Genesis 1,20-26]:

We must say though that sometimes literature provides some good antidote such as this one:

«Brother Cipolla promised to some peasants to show them the feathers of Gabriel's wings, what they found instead were chunks of coal. So he told them it was the coal that grilled Saint Lawrence.»
[Giovanni Boccacccio, Decameron Sixth Day, X]:

If you would like to get an idea about the line of thought originated by Darwin, I suggest you read some of the books that I list hereunder. But, unfortunately, I have the feeling that you would prefer to ban any teaching of Darwin, as they have done in parts of the US, and substitute it with Bible readings.

Darwin for Beginners; Jonathan Miller, Borin Van Loon; Pantheon Books. [An illustrated narrative tells, all too briefly, the story of Darwin the man and his revolutionary discovery of how the living world came to be. Thanks to its amusing, but informative, cartoon style exegesis, this little gem is a uniquely powerful antidote to creationist propaganda in the classroom. The best introduction to Darwin and his ideas you're likely to see. Peter Hynes (elek@netstra.com.au)] Dawkins, R., God's Utility Function, in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, November 1995 Mayr, E., 1991, One long Argument. Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist; Adrian Desmond, James Moore, W W Norton & Co. Charles Darwin; Giuseppe Montalenti; Editori Riuniti. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance; Ernst Mayr, Belknap Press, 1982. Chance and Necessity; An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology; Jacques Monod;   Le hasard et la nécessité; Le Seuil, 1973. Dawkins, R., 1995, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Dennett, D. C., 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life, New York: Simon & Schuster. Il cervello, la mente e l' anima; Edoardo Boncinelli, Mondadori. Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", London: Murray, 1859. [e-text here] Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex", London: Murray, 1871. [e-text here] Charles Darwin, "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals", London: Murray, 1872. [e-text here]

Further references may be found in these books.

 

--
Bruno CAUDANA
b.caudana@ieee.org