DARWIN
Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin are frequently spoken of as the three seminal thinkers of the 19th century. Freud’s stress on the importance of the unconscious mind and his focus on sexuality as a major driving force in people’s behavior set him apart as a revolutionary in promoting a new understanding of the the human psyche. However, the effectiveness of his therapeutic approach, called psychoanalysis, was seriously questioned even before his death in the 1930’s, and pure Freudian techniques are rarely used in therapy today.
Marx’s belief in class struggle, resulting in the inevitable triumph of the working-class and the establishment of a classless, communist system of government, grew in importance after Marx’s death in the 1880’s. His ideas resonated with many liberal thinkers who were tired of the crude excesses of the capitalist system at that time. However, the great communist experiments in Russia and its surrounding satellite countries, all avowedly Marxist, were disastrous for human freedom and workers’ rights. As a result, Karl Marx’s ideas – perhaps unfairly, because he never advocated terror and repression to achieve his utopian state – are now viewed negatively by most historians.
Darwin’s theory of evolution has stood the test of time much better than the ideas of either Marx or Freud. His masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago, revolutionized biology, stripping man of his perceived central uniqueness from the rest of life on the planet. Darwin did not invent the idea that, over millions of years, higher forms of life developed from simpler forms. This evolutionary theory was discussed widely in academic circles, especially in Europe, before Darwin wrote along the same lines.
What was different about Darwin’s thinking was his espousal of natural selection as the driving force behind evolution. He argued that blind forces within nature determined the evolutionary process. What he called “natural selection” postulated that, usually, only the strongest members of each species thrive and reproduce. Thus, the weak offspring in every species are systematically eliminated, and only the aggressive ones can drive evolutionary development. This is a simplified description of what he called “the survival of the fittest” in the natural selection process.
Darwin’s support for blind evolution ran completely counter to the most common argument for the existence of God. Most theists, then and now, point to the order in nature as proof that, in the final analysis, there must be an orderer. Complex design calls for a sophisticated designer.
The creationist movement, especially in the United States rejects all, or most, of the Darwinian evolutionary beliefs. They see this mechanistic view of man as running completely contrary to their religious beliefs, which center on a personal omnipotent creator. Every year, we hear of school boards insisting that creationist beliefs be given equal time in biology classes. They seem to be confusing the theological query of why human life is the way it is with the how question, which is the only domain of the scientist.
Richard Dawkins, the eminent and popular scientist, who wrote The God Delusion in 2006, asks the core question about evolution: “Are mind and consciousness an unforeseen and unintended product of basically material processes of evolution?” Dawkins’ answer to this crucial question is in the affirmative. This, it seems to me, is where the big division takes place among scientists and, indeed, in the wider academic community. Is it possible that blind and undirected forces in matter somehow developed into a complex, conscious, reflective being? What confluence of inanimate forces could generate intelligent activity?
My imagination cannot stretch to affirm that a series of blind evolutionary accidents, encompassing millions of years, somehow resulted in human consciousness. On the other hand, thinking of an artisan god, who operates like a potter, changing and designing his artifacts, is also unsatisfactory. We are dealing here with the mystery of life in a universe that is complex, beyond our comprehension.
These are spiritual questions that have to be explored, far outside the realm of biology. The mystics in all traditions repeatedly tell us that their central insight into human existence is that all life is one, that the various forms of life are not really separate, that we are all, animate and inanimate, part of the one Life Force, which as the poet, Wordsworth, said “breathes through all things.”
I finish with a quotation from Albert Einstein which addresses the issues raised by Darwin and Dawkins. “Everyone who is seriously interested in science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble.”
Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin are frequently spoken of as the three seminal thinkers of the 19th century. Freud’s stress on the importance of the unconscious mind and his focus on sexuality as a major driving force in people’s behavior set him apart as a revolutionary in promoting a new understanding of the the human psyche. However, the effectiveness of his therapeutic approach, called psychoanalysis, was seriously questioned even before his death in the 1930’s, and pure Freudian techniques are rarely used in therapy today.
Marx’s belief in class struggle, resulting in the inevitable triumph of the working-class and the establishment of a classless, communist system of government, grew in importance after Marx’s death in the 1880’s. His ideas resonated with many liberal thinkers who were tired of the crude excesses of the capitalist system at that time. However, the great communist experiments in Russia and its surrounding satellite countries, all avowedly Marxist, were disastrous for human freedom and workers’ rights. As a result, Karl Marx’s ideas – perhaps unfairly, because he never advocated terror and repression to achieve his utopian state – are now viewed negatively by most historians.
Darwin’s theory of evolution has stood the test of time much better than the ideas of either Marx or Freud. His masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago, revolutionized biology, stripping man of his perceived central uniqueness from the rest of life on the planet. Darwin did not invent the idea that, over millions of years, higher forms of life developed from simpler forms. This evolutionary theory was discussed widely in academic circles, especially in Europe, before Darwin wrote along the same lines.
What was different about Darwin’s thinking was his espousal of natural selection as the driving force behind evolution. He argued that blind forces within nature determined the evolutionary process. What he called “natural selection” postulated that, usually, only the strongest members of each species thrive and reproduce. Thus, the weak offspring in every species are systematically eliminated, and only the aggressive ones can drive evolutionary development. This is a simplified description of what he called “the survival of the fittest” in the natural selection process.
Darwin’s support for blind evolution ran completely counter to the most common argument for the existence of God. Most theists, then and now, point to the order in nature as proof that, in the final analysis, there must be an orderer. Complex design calls for a sophisticated designer.
The creationist movement, especially in the United States rejects all, or most, of the Darwinian evolutionary beliefs. They see this mechanistic view of man as running completely contrary to their religious beliefs, which center on a personal omnipotent creator. Every year, we hear of school boards insisting that creationist beliefs be given equal time in biology classes. They seem to be confusing the theological query of why human life is the way it is with the how question, which is the only domain of the scientist.
Richard Dawkins, the eminent and popular scientist, who wrote The God Delusion in 2006, asks the core question about evolution: “Are mind and consciousness an unforeseen and unintended product of basically material processes of evolution?” Dawkins’ answer to this crucial question is in the affirmative. This, it seems to me, is where the big division takes place among scientists and, indeed, in the wider academic community. Is it possible that blind and undirected forces in matter somehow developed into a complex, conscious, reflective being? What confluence of inanimate forces could generate intelligent activity?
My imagination cannot stretch to affirm that a series of blind evolutionary accidents, encompassing millions of years, somehow resulted in human consciousness. On the other hand, thinking of an artisan god, who operates like a potter, changing and designing his artifacts, is also unsatisfactory. We are dealing here with the mystery of life in a universe that is complex, beyond our comprehension.
These are spiritual questions that have to be explored, far outside the realm of biology. The mystics in all traditions repeatedly tell us that their central insight into human existence is that all life is one, that the various forms of life are not really separate, that we are all, animate and inanimate, part of the one Life Force, which as the poet, Wordsworth, said “breathes through all things.”
I finish with a quotation from Albert Einstein which addresses the issues raised by Darwin and Dawkins. “Everyone who is seriously interested in science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble.”
7 comments:
Gerald, your summmary of Darwin is above reproach, which is more than can be said for a prissy ignoramus who once, apparently, cast doubt on your ability to think scientifically.
One of the problems with Darwin and his theories and in particular the "rise" of creationism is that scientists have become over-protective of the Englishman and regard any deviation from his teaching as sacrilege. When someone declares, for example, that immunity acquired during one’s lifetime may be passed on to offspring, he is regarded as a crank to be treated with the same disdain as creationists. The French scientist Lamarck, a contemporary of Darwin, proposed that genetic legacy is affected by what is going on in the body of an organism, including its response to its environment. Darwin's followers regarded this as flat-earth heresy and still do.
The re-evaluation of Lamarck and the re-examination of his science has taken place only in the last 30 years or so, led by an Australian named Ted Steele.
In a delightful irony, Steele, the son of an Irish mother and a social activist father - a “commie” in the lexicon of the day - was born in Darwin. He earned his PhD in Adelaide, and while doing postgraduate research in Canada he developed his ideas about evolution.
I recommend "Lamarck’s Evolution. Two centuries of Genius and Jealousy," by Ross Honeywill. And for consciousness, read "I Am A Strange Loop," by Douglas Hofstadter.
Fran
Was the Australian monk, Mendel, writing along the same lines as Lamarck? By the way, Fran, where do you come down on the Darwinian contention that consciousness can be explained as part of his blind process?
You'd better make him Austrian, Ger! The only famous Australians are cricketers and tennis players.
Not sure about that. But here is an interesting quote about Mendel, taken from a book by Michael Fitzgerald, a professor of psychiatry at TCD. I found the quote in a book by autistic savant Daniel Tammet (google him): "Fitzgerald notes that for his experiments with peas, Mendel would have counted more than 10,000 plants, 40,000 blossoms and 300,000 peas. He concludes, 'virtually no one except a person with autism could do this.'"
Fitzgerald says that Newton, Einstein and Tesla were probably also autistic.
I could accept that consciousness is evolved - from that of worms who squirm from light to dogs who know when a beating is coming to dolphins who look out for each and probably have language to humans. Hofstadter in his book is not so sure. At the risk of cluttering your inbox, here are a few paras from my review:
Briefly, Hofstadter is fascinated by the idea that an animate being can arise from inanimate matter. The hadrons and leptons, the atoms and molecules that fill the inside of our cranium are no different from the same particles in rocks or cabbage. Yet somewhere between that atomic dust and the top level which we call brain, consciousness arises.
We have evolved to perceive entities, whether physical such as mice or motorcars, or abstractions like love, belief, ambition. The entities with which we are equipped to deal are several layers above the atomic level and even above the level of neurons and synapses of the brain. How is it, he asks, that “trillions of silent synchronised scintillations taking place every second inside a human skull enable a person to think, to perceive, to remember, to imagine, to create and to feel?”
The best way of thinking about the brain, Hofstadter argues, is to see the microstuff inside it being pushed around by impressions and ideas rather than the reverse. One example he gives is the way we can wake from a dream with a briefly-held image of a place or event or person, often involved in some impossibly convoluted activity – your late father, say, playing golf with you and your current foursome in a situation that morphs into a political meeting or some incident in your daily workplace.
He explains this by claiming that these concepts – golf, fishing, father, politics – are present in our brain and one of them acts as stimulus for bringing up the others. He concludes that “your brain is inhabited by other I’s, other souls, the extent of each one depending on the degree to which you faithfully represent, and resonate with, the individual in question.” In that sense, he seems to say, a person’s self or I or soul can continue to exist as a concept in the mind of others, long after it has ceased to exist in its own mind. He does not present this as a religious idea, though it happens to be close to the Judaeo-Christian concept of an immortal soul.
He explains our quandary as follows: either our consciousness, our soul, our I, is an outcome of physical laws or it is not. Either choice leads to confusion. A purely scientific view would accept the first option, though leaving many questions, not least the need to explain how I am different from You. The alternative view, as espoused by religions, is that at conception “a squirt of some unanalyzable Capitalised Essence [is] magically doled out, with each portion imbued with a unique savour permanently defining the recipient’s identity.” Put like that, it hardly sounds more reasonable.
Fran
Very interesting! My mind and imagination cannot really give credence to a multiplicity of materialistic accidents leading to the high level of consciousness needed, for instance, for this dialogue. The mystical perspective is very interesting because it affirms the unity of all life while delving into powerful spiritual forces that seem to defy rational definition.
Wow, I've a headache. Great stuff guys and I'm not even going to attempt contributing to this. Good to see you back Gerry - give us some low brow Anglo...Jimmy
For me the essence of your essay is in Paragraph 7 (“My imagination…”), which can be summed up as a sort of Bertrand Russell vs. Aquinas. When we get into these discussions, we tend to, depending on our beliefs, quote those who are considered authorities on our point of view. Which is fine, these guys did all the work. The path to knowledge however, is to read both sides of the divide; for indeed there is a divide, ultimately you are going to wind up in either the camp of the creationists or that of the non-believers. But you may ask what about those who believe that the belief in evolution can coexist with the belief in a supreme being, as long as you agree to a certain tenet? Unfortunately that doesn’t answer the question you pose in Paragraph 7. Ultimately you must pick a side or continue to puzzle. I have read Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza (what a struggle; I think he was a closet atheist), Hume. Also, Bertrand Russell, Mencken (a marvelous book, “Treatise on the Gods”), George H. Smith. Alas, I came away with all my preconceived beliefs intact.
An interesting quote from Einstein in your last paragraph. I thought the sentence (by Einstein) that followed that quote was also quite revealing: “In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is quite different from the religiosity of someone more naïve.” Einstein also stated that he believed “in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and doings of mankind.” Another time, Einstein said that he could be called an agnostic. What was he really?
"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and saint and heard great argument
About it and about
But evermore came out
By the same door as in I went."
(Fitzgerald/Khayyam)
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