Re: It begins

sinister wrote:
"Les Cargill" <lcargill@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:4809616a$0$3392$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjg1NDg2ZDM5YTMwMGFiZGNhNTU5M2MwOTQ2NGE1Mjc=

If Darwin cannot be understood, then all this ... article makes
sense, I suppose.

The guy is clearly a moron.


Very much so.

Note this passage:
"Like Hitler, Charles Darwin saw natural processes as setting moral standards. It's all in The Descent of Man, where he explains that, had we evolved differently, we would have different moral ideas. On a particularly delicate moral topic, for example, he wrote: 'We may, therefore, reject the belief, lately insisted on by some writers, that the abhorrence of incest is due to our possessing a special God-implanted conscience.' "

In the previous paragraph, he writes, "The key elements in the ideology that produced Auschwitz are moral relativism aligned with a rejection of the sacredness of human life..."


He clearly does not understand *anything* about the Third Reich. Even
a cursory examination of Shirer's "Rise and Fall" would debunk everything he says about them.

But the clear implication of the first paragraph I quoted is that at least the general outlines of human morality are _innate_. While not the same as saying that they're God-given, that morals have evolved via natural selection resulting in _homo sapiens_ equipped with a moral instinct is logically inconsistent with absolute moral relativism.


Taboo, the pre-civilization substrate for things like abhorrence
of incest, requires a social structure. It can't be considered innate.
The prevalence of ritual cannibalism should be sufficient to prove this.

He also clearly fails to understand the difference between "is" and "ought".


TO what extent is that just good old 19th Century Determinism? Which is
ironic - it is the principle which failed in Germany after you-know-who.

Still, I think people are predisposed to reject Darwin on merely
.... consumerist grounds.


<snip>



--
Les Cargill
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Darwins Paradox
    ... I think you misrepresent Darwin to a degree here. ... The Continuity of Man and Animals ... and therefore they have acquired these by natural selection. ... and individual habits in morals. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Darwin: Was he a Nazi
    ... >>> And what does Darwin's politics, or morals, or toilet habits, have to do ... Darwin was not really an axe murderer. ... >Yes, I've read these many responses, but I still find them rather ... The can of worms seems to be your substitute for a conscience. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: It begins
    ... If Darwin cannot be understood, ... the general outlines of human morality are _innate_. ... that morals have evolved via natural ... logically inconsistent with absolute moral relativism. ...
    (sci.econ)