FROM THE ARCHIVES

Here's a post from February where John Gray (see below) points out how Daniel Dennett, despite his supposed "brightness", is forced to retreat to theology to justify his supposedly evolutionary views. The argument will be familiar to anyone who's been amused by the way modern Darwinists maintain that our ability to make rational choices has essentially freed us from the functioning of natural selection pressures:

EVOLVED OR FREE?:
-REVIEW: of Freedom Evolves by Daniel C Dennett: Does human evolution move onwards and upwards towards liberty and progress? (John Gray, The Independent)

If natural selection had been discovered in India, China or Japan, it is hard to imagine it making much of a stir. Darwin's discovery signalled a major advance in human knowledge, but its cultural impact came from the fact that it was made in a milieu permeated by the Judaeo-Christian belief in human uniqueness. If - along with hundreds of millions of Hindus and Buddhists - you have never believed that humans differ from everything else in the natural world in having an immortal soul, you will find it hard to get worked up by a theory that shows how much we have in common with other animals.

Among us, in contrast, it has triggered savage and unending controversy. In the 19th century, the conflict was waged between Darwinists and Christians. Now, the controversy is played out between Darwinism and humanists, who seek to defend a revised version of Western ideas about the special nature of humans.

In Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett has produced the most powerful and ingenious attempt at reconciling Darwinism with the belief in human freedom to date. Writing with a verve that puts to shame the leaden prose that has become the trademark of academic philosophy, Dennett presents the definitive argument that the human mind is a product of evolution, not something that stands outside the natural world.

Making full use of his seminal writings on consciousness, he contends that we do not need to believe in free will to be able to think of ourselves as responsible moral beings. On the contrary, moral agency is a by-product of natural selection. In that sense, it is an accident; but once it has come about, we can "bootstrap ourselves" into freedom. The evolution of human culture enables us to be free as no other animal can be. "Human freedom," Dennett writes, "is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species, us."

The ringing tone of Dennett's declaration of human uniqueness provokes a certain suspicion regarding the scientific character of his argument. After all, the notion that humans are free in a way that other animals are not does not come from science. Its origins are in religion--above all, in Christianity.

This may be the rock upon which Darwinism finally falters, the too slow recognition that to accept it is to deny our own uniqueness and the very idea of free will.

MORE:
-REVIEW: of Freedom Evolves by Daniel C Dennett (Kenan Malik)
-ESSAY: Conscious objector: The ultra-modern view of consciousness turns science upside down (Colin Tudge, January 30, 2003, The Guardian)
Genetics: why Prince Charles is so wrong: Genes work just like computer software, says this writer - which is why the luddites don't get it, but their children probably will. (Richard Dawkins, January 28, 2003, Checkbiotech) Posted by Orrin Judd at July 16, 2003 9:59 AM