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Darwin->Rassenhygiene
#125840
04/23/07 12:19
04/23/07 12:19
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Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,010 analysis paralysis
NITRO777
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IN Darwin's Autobiography he stated " man can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are strongest or which seem to him the best one. " This statement, along with the rest of evolutionary theory, sent shockwaves among the science community.
At the time, morality was founded in divine revelation or Kant's enlightenment thinking rationality.
Darwins theory changed morality to a relativistic philosophy which translates in todays modern vernacular to:
"Whatever you think is best for you, do that."
Disagree or not, how do you think Darwinism effects morality? As a hypothetical creature of evolution processes what moral obligations, if any, do you feel you have, and how do you justify them based upon your belief that you are an evolved creature?
For example, evolution leads to the belief that sex is merely a bodily function, so therefore you should be able to have sex with anyone at any time you deem it is safe and appropriate.
Whereas morality which is grounded in Christianity prohibits sex outside of marriage because of the so-called sanctity of sexual union and the spiritual connotations which accompany it.
So do you see sex as a simple function of the body, in a purely scientific way, or can you see any other meaning to it? If so, what do you base your opinions upon?
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Re: Darwin->Rassenhygiene
[Re: NITRO777]
#125841
04/23/07 14:49
04/23/07 14:49
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177 Netherlands
PHeMoX
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Quote:
Darwins theory changed morality to a relativistic philosophy which translates in todays modern vernacular to:
"Whatever you think is best for you, do that."
Why do you believe this theory has changed morality and more so why do you think it 'justifies a 'whatever you think is best for you, do that' kind of moral? Darwinism definitely hasn't changed my moral, just like the Bible didn't change my moral back when I first was introduced to it. Both did have some influence perhaps, but you don't need either one of them to 'get a good understanding of morality' or however you wish to call that learning process.
It has probably been said a thousand times before, but Darwinism doesn't teach that some human races are superior to others, people who believe that usually don't know much about Darwinism and evolution. Sure, it mentions 'survival of the fittest' in the assumption that some are fitter than others, that's true, but that's within species, within races. You can't compare 'superiority' between or cross species, that's not how it works. Sure, some species might be able to survive longer, but that doesn't make them superior. It just turned out that for that particular species the 'filter of selection' was just about right to survive. Don't forget that among that very same species there could have been many individuals that didn't survive either. Again, being able to survive says nothing about 'superiority', especially as there is no way of measuring objective 'superiority'. I would even go as far as to state that real superiority doesn't exist.
Cheers
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Re: Darwin->Rassenhygiene
[Re: NITRO777]
#125844
04/23/07 16:12
04/23/07 16:12
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177 Netherlands
PHeMoX
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So you are saying that you dont believe that there are any defective people, or any unfit?
No, I'm not saying there aren't people who are defective or unfit, however what I am aiming at is the fact that those people deserve a life too. That's the moral issue here unrelated to how evolution works. Without our modern medical advancements clearly most of those people wouldn't have stand a chance. That's however, because those people are defective, not because other people are superior, if you understand what I mean.
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sure it did, you just dont recognize it. According to evolution, morality is nothing more than an adaptation to a changing environment. Therefore it has no fixed reference point, therefore it is relative. It is called moral relativism.
Okey, perhaps it did, perhaps it didn't, however I've always been a 'relativist'. I don't believe in absolutes, I'm pretty sure those don't exist, but are just artificial ideals. The morals as projected in the Bible aren't absolute either, they relate very much to the time those events took place. I'm not saying they are irrelevant now, since that's not true at all, but I wouldn't call them 'absolute' either.
Evolution doesn't say what 'morality' should be. Or at least, I'm still not quite sure what you mean. If you meant facts like, lions eating their prey to survive at the cost of the weak and things like that, well take a close look at humans and you will see we all do indeed the same. That's exactly the relativity in life I'm talking about when it comes to moral, however you can't deny that the Bible ultimately propagates the exact same. The Bible doesn't say 'don't eat because in order to eat you've got to destroy or take away lives'. There's a difference between killing (for the killing) and killing in order to eat, all animals do both by the way,
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And make no mistake, it takes a lot of faith to believe that we came from apes.
No, it doesn't require faith, you simply have to take a look at the fossils, the similarities, in short the evidence that clearly supports this fact. That we came from apes isn't a theory, but a fact,
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Rassenhygiene
I had slightly missed the fact that this thread was based upon Hitler's idea of Darwinism, don't forget that those two are really far far from the same. Darwinism doesn't promote racism,
Cheers
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Re: Darwin->Rassenhygiene
[Re: NITRO777]
#125846
04/23/07 16:47
04/23/07 16:47
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Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,205 Greece
LarryLaffer
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man can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are strongest or which seem to him the best one.
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which translates in todays modern vernacular to:
"Whatever you think is best for you, do that."
How exacly does it translate like that? The guy made an observation. Since we've evolved our instict and senses and subconcious mind to react a certain way through millions of years, then you should trust that feeling.
We've eventually evolved to feel a negative reaction when getting close to fire for example(probably because the population that was born with a positive feeling when touching fire all burned to death ), so it's reasonable to listen to that feeling.
You may argue that your insticts could tell you to sit on a couch all day stuffing your face, but lazyness is also there for a reason. If we didn't feel fatigue, we'd all be so obsessed with working to get money, fame, chicks..., and we'd all overwork ourselves to death.
In the same effect, jealously is a good feeling(makes you competitive), hatred is a good feeling(makes you hostile when you need to... increase of adrenaline etc will help you on your evil ways to kick some ass) and pride is a good feeling(makes you confident).
But likewise, we've also developed insticts and feelings that are not about our well-being at all(or at least, not directly). There's love, there's sympathy, there's compassion. In our days, people considerate of other people tend to live great lives, so positive feelings like that have emerged and survived as well.
Is sex meaningless or not? It's not meaningless, we procreate with it, and because it's so important to our survival, our organism tempts as into bothering to go through all that in-out-in-out fuss by making it feel sooo damn good! And in response, we've found ways to get that feeling without even pro-creating at all! ha! body-mind 0-1.
But should we blindly trust our hormons and go pussy-after-pussy-after-pussy? Well, again, hormons is not the only feeling that's affecting us, is it? Dawrwin didn't tell you to trust only your hormons, he told you to trust all the insticts you've developed. Personally, some times i sleep with complete strangers that I never get to meet again and it feels just great. Other times it feels shallow and emotionless, and I get the urge to go find me a long-term relationship with someone that I'll grow to love and care. So what Darwin said does make a lot of sense, we should listen to our body, and our feelings. But our mind is also part of us, so we should listen to reasoning and logic as well.
I won't lie thought, I've had that Darwin moral dillema myself once, but it was only because i didn't had a full understanding of Natural Evolution.
If you believe in Survival of the Fittest being the only rule of your life, you'll start wondering things like... "Let's kill all ethiopians, cause they're barely struggling to survive any way, and by helping them, we go against Natural Evolution and help a weak specie survive, when it shouldn't".
That's false though. You can't go against Natural Evolution. By aiding ethiopia, we effeciently change the environment setting! Prior to that, the criteria for an ethiopian was "If you're too poor and not strong enough, you die". Now, the "poor" criteria is a less important factor towards survival. The evolution result would be that ethiopians will continue to be poor (whereas without any aid from other countries, they would improve in this area since the poorest ones would die), but even poor ethiopians now have the chance to evolve to something great by improving some other genetical or social factors/traits.
Here's another example. 5% of the human earth population has immunity to AIDS. So wouldn't it be cool to kill off everyone else, let those 5% reproduce and effectively evolve to a 100% population with immunity to AIDS? No, Natural Evolution will take care of that. If AIDS becomes that dangerous, we'll all die from it anyway(apart of the 5%). However, since measures our found to prevent it, and hopefully even a cure later on, we've effectively changed the environment criteria, and Selection will now effectively change to represent that.
Last example, which is not that morbid as the other two. Boobs. We love em.. NE works for us to reflect that, flat chested women will find no-one to score and eventually all perish and take their chest-flattness with them.. (I know my words are a bit cold, but that's nature for ya..). But what's this? Girls now take plastic surgeries, so flat chested women get pretty, find husbands, and give birth to more flast-chested women! damnit! they broke Natural Evolution! No they didn't. The fitness criteria has been changed again, so having big boobs is not that important to survive in our ages, since there will always be plastic surgery to fix that!.. Once plastic surgery gets banned or something (republicans may decide it's unholy perhaps), Selection criteria will again change to reflect that too... Continuous evolution, according to the current Environment.
So in sort, don't worry about Darwins theory when it comes to living your life. You've been evolved to feel and to think the way you do by the hundred generations before you, and the people surrounding you. Trust yourself, and continue to improve by listening to both your feelings and reason. That's what Darwin says.
Aris
(The first three people that post "TLDR" get negative haikus written about their nicknames.)
Last edited by LarryLaffer; 04/23/07 18:39.
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Re: Darwin->Rassenhygiene
[Re: PHeMoX]
#125848
04/23/07 17:21
04/23/07 17:21
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Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,010 analysis paralysis
NITRO777
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No, I'm not saying there aren't people who are defective or unfit, however what I am aiming at is the fact that those people deserve a life too. That's the moral issue here unrelated to how evolution works.
OK but you say that those people "deserve a life" means that you place a high and equal value on every human life. I commend you for that belief, as it was established in Christianity a long time ago, but in the light of the fact that you believe we evolved, how can you place the value of the unfit on an equal pedestal with the fit? For evolutionary progress to occur, the unfit must be selected out. If you are a true rationalist and scientist you must forego emotionalism and sentimentalism over the lives of the unfit in order to advance the species as a whole.
The history that I am not sure you remember is that scientists in Germany well before Hitler began to look at how they could improve the human race as a whole. These initial ideas, which began with Darwin, were widespread in the late 19th and early 20th century throughout Germany.
The first idea was that because of Darwin's idea of "survival of the fittest", it no longer healthy to support the unfit. It demanded time and resources, and detracted from the race as a whole. To prevent reproduction from criminals, bums, alcoholics, mentally retarded, lazy and the handicapped would be to cull out the unfit.
Let me ask you a couple questions about what philosphical implications evolutionary beliefs will create:
1)You believe that when you die you will cease, your body will rot in the ground and become part of the environment, correct? Then I am curious as to what sort of purpose your life when it was lived had at all? Im not saying you have no purpose, Im just asking you what your purpose for living is, from the perspective of a person who believes that when they die they simply are gone.
2)Do you think that the following attributes are inheritable: laziness, alcoholism, addiction, and the tendency to committ crime?
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The morals as projected in the Bible aren't absolute either, they relate very much to the time those events took place. I'm not saying they are irrelevant now, since that's not true at all, but I wouldn't call them 'absolute' either
Well, perhaps not your or other's versions of the Bible. But the ideas of equality and freedom are well established, unchanged moral principles of Christianity. Just because they were not obeyed throughout history by Christians does not mean that they are changeable. People changed Jesus' morals for their own purposes, but Jesus' moral code was always the same, rooted in the belief that "all can be born again". Jesus ideas of equality were for "whosoever cometh" without any pre-qualifiers. Those ideas have been perverted throughout history, and some OT Biblical ideals have changed so you are partly correct. But the core values of Christianity are very absolute.
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Evolution doesn't say what 'morality' should be. Or at least, I'm still not quite sure what you mean.
Evolutionary morality could be defined in both historic and modern scientist views that evolutionary progress is the highest good , the golden rule was adopted by evolutionists to seek the better good of the society. The theory is that in order to survive it was found that man had to develop communities, and in order for communities to thrive, people had to follow the golden rule.
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I had slightly missed the fact that this thread was based upon Hitler's idea of Darwinism, don't forget that those two are really far far from the same. Darwinism doesn't promote racism,
Sure it does. The idea of Germany's final solution came from decades of racist thought in Germany which was all derived from Darwin initially. You can trace this history of ideas from Darwin to Hitler in a very linear, chronological fashion. Darwin published "origen of the species" in 1859, Carneri,Albert Schaffe,Georg von Gizycki, Freidrich Jodl, David Friedrich Strauss, Alexander Tille,Shallmayer, August Forel, Buchner, Ratsenhoeffer, Haeckel,Neitzsche and dozens more created and paved the path from Darwin to the Gas Chambers.
Darwinism does indeed promote racism in the de-valueing of human life, the needs of many are regarded above the needs of the individual. The German idea of preservation of race (Geschlecht) was their highest moral. Whomever sought to preserve the degenerate and the depraved will limit the space for the healthy and strong, which will suppress the life of the whole community. Therefore the death and suppression of the unfit was is embraced as the thriving power of evolution.
You can see this at work among a grove of trees competeing for rainwater, groundwater and sunlight. Any good forester will kill the valuless trees to make room for the strong. This is what the German eugenicist attempted to do, it was simply the fruition of evolutionary ethics.
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Re: Darwin->Rassenhygiene
[Re: Damocles]
#125849
04/23/07 17:21
04/23/07 17:21
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Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,205 Greece
LarryLaffer
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but the Selection part is taken over by (lower) Selection
Not lower. different!
It's true, by medicating ourselves we introduce a temprary 'fix to this problem, and we prevent Evolution to permantently deal with it. But why should it deal with it, if it's not as dangerous to your well-being anymore? Why kill-off all ,otherwise promising people, that could die from diabetes, when we can treat that? If at somepoint in the future, medication dissapears from the face of the earth, diabetes will be dangerous again, and Evolution will make sure all people that has it dies off until no one else does.
So, although we have stopped evolving towards a better immune system for some diseases, that's a good thing because we're ignoring this not-too important factor, to praise people that have other promising traits. Take Hawkins for example. I'm pretty sure, in his condition, without medical aid, he'd die before proving himself. But by making the Selection less biased towards perfect health and more biased towards everything else, Hawkins survived and lots of people will now try to immitate him(Evolution doesn't work only genetically, but socially as well. Unsuccessfull people try to imitate successfull ones).
So again, we can't 'break' Evolution. All we can do is change the current environment, and evolution simply adapts.
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