Secular humanists on the real planet of the apes
Posted: August 25, 2011.
Print: salon.com
excerpt:
On Thursday, Aug. 18, Jon Huntsman tweeted: “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” On the same day, campaigning in New Hampshire, Texas Gov. Rick Perry described evolution as “a theory that’s out there” and one that’s “got some gaps in it.”
How times have changed. During his successful campaign for the presidency in 1912, Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., the former president of Princeton University, was asked whether he believed in evolution. He replied, “that of course like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised.” Theodore Roosevelt, his predecessor in the White House, wrote in “My Life as a Naturalist” about his childhood reading: “Thank Heaven, I sat at the feet of Darwin and Huxley.”
The rise of creationist Protestant fundamentalism in America has been paralleled by the decay of liberal Protestantism, which supplied much of the moral energy for the progressive movement, the New Deal and the civil rights movement.
First of all, regarding Perry idiotic statements about evolution and Wilson’s and Teddy’s intelligent views, it is no surprise to me that educated men and women were more accepting of the truth of evolution before the McCarthy/Cold War era. During this era, American pride became how the everyday citizen fought back; glorifying everything that we were that the Soviet Union was not - one major characteristic was that the USSR was largely atheistic, while America was god-fearing. So these god-fearing American’s turned the jesus amp up to 11 and ushered in the faster, stronger rising of christian fundamentalism and conservatism. Men and women of this era (Perry) are rooted in jesus and the bible and are quite effectively… ...brainwashed (for lack of a better term) - misguided? Whatever…
Michael Lind should know this.
Secondly, I quite agree with Kurtz over Hume (and Lind) in that scientific reasoning (The GPS analogy) will, in many cases, tell us how to get there, and where we should go.
One example: Population and finite resources.
In the centuries to come, we may need to implement some form of birth law to curb population growth (for any fans, think of Larry Niven’s birth laws in his Known Space universe). Is this scientifically reasonable? Absolutely. Is it emotionally reasonable? Well, only a sadistic individual would delight in telling a family or population that they may not procreate due to a congenital disorder, or an intelligence level, or a financial lacking, etc. Emotionally, it is not “reasonable,” but reason, just like scientific fact, must override an emotion when the consequences of ignoring reason might be very detrimental.
Lind cites sociopaths, heroes and tyrants as those who may use emotion to best their reason. Well, that example is kind of ridiculous because if someone is chemically imbalanced or deluded due to a cause they feel strongly about, or genuinely an evil person, then their reasoning wouldn’t be any more trustworthy or useful to an anyone than their emotional state.
The emotions of one man or woman, sociopath, hero, tyrant, or everyday normal Dick or Jane will very rarely, I think, override the reason of a group of men and woman, or a population, or a scientific committee, etc.
Now, this sociopath or tyrant may be in a position to enforce his emotions onto a population, but that is getting a little too specific.
Whew… coffee and a day off due to hurricane Irene will make me get all thoughtful… I’m done
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