March 2, 2004
THE SUICIDAL GENE (via Bruce Cleaver):
Bountiful Nonsense (Gene Callahan, Lew Rockwell)
One of the most dangerous intellectual currents of the last several centuries has been the project to deny any importance to consciousness in scientific and philosophical thought, through a relentless insistence on materialist, reductionist explanations for all human activities. To the extent it succeeds, the project both drains individuals' lives of meaning, and encourages the view that human society is merely a collection of mechanical devices, along the lines of an enormous factory, the output of which should be planned and optimized through the systematic control of the machines' behavior. (Coincidentally, the reductionists often seem to discover that, for some reason, they happen to be best suited for the role of one of the planning machines at the top of the heap.) The success of the project depends on reducing – this is the "reductionist" part – any explanations of human action involving the ideas or states of mind of the actors involved to physical cause and effect relationships in which consciousness plays no part.Rejecting materialist reductionism does not imply the acceptance of any other single doctrine or worldview. It is rejected by Christians and by Buddhists, by Objectivists and by "New Age" spiritualists, by scientists pursuing research into complex phenomena and by semioticians, and by philosophical dualists and philosophical idealists. If there is a common thread running through such diverse groups, it might be the view that regarding humans as mechanical devices is both damaging to people and a poor scientific explanation for social phenomena. However much Objectivists criticize Christianity and Christians are put off by Objectivists' atheism, their views of human nature are much closer to each other's than either's are to that of a hard-core reductionist.
I recently came across a particularly egregious example of reductionism in the February, 2004 issue of Scientific American. It is worth discussing because it makes plain the reliance of the reductionist project on what we might call an "anti-faith": the devout belief that consciousness is an accidental phenomenon, perhaps even an "illusion," that must be eliminated from any scientific explanation. The article also unintentionally lays bare the unscientific nature of reductionism and its disregard for empirical evidence.
The article is "A Bounty of Science," written by Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine. It appeared in his regular Scientific American column, "Skeptic." (Are you detecting a theme running through Shermer's work?) It opens by briefly describing a new book by Caroline Alexander, The Bounty, which offers a revisionist version of the events involving the famed British ship, its captain, William Bligh, and the successful mutiny of some of the crew.
I will immediately confess that I have only a passing familiarity with the history of the Bounty. I have no knowledge of or opinion about whether Alexander succeeds in defending her central thesis, which is that Bligh was really the hero of the story while Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutiny, was a coward. Nevertheless, I can confidently assert that the alternate explanation proposed by Shermer is utter rubbish. It is not the least bit "scientific," and it utterly fails to grasp the fact that biology and history are different disciplines, requiring different modes of explanation in dealing with their different subject matters.
First, the notion that Christian was the problem rather than Bligh is pretty non-controversial at this point. But what's more interesting is that if we choose to view these events from a pure material reductionist/evolutionist viewpoint, Christian's actions are inexplicable. He and a handful of his men ended up on Pitcairn's Island where they founded one of the least successful populations in the history of selfish genes. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 2, 2004 3:53 PM
When I discovered this article, I immediately thought of Peter B, who was recently introduced to Phil Johnson's essays. This essay has a very Johnsonian flavor to it, and Peter might enjoy reading it as much as I did. Callahan makes Shermer look ridiculous with ease.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at March 2, 2004 7:46 PMSo you're making Christian a premature Darwinist, like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were premature antifascists?
I know Schermer's work slightly and would not spend any time on his thoughts about HMS Bounty.
But Callahan and Rockwell have not been paying attention. They allude glancingly at antireductionist scientists, as if there are hardly any.
There are many, including, notably if you're going to drag Darwin into it, Ernst Mayr.
Steven Weinberg has a grownup discussion of the kinds of reductionism and their place in research science in chapter 2 of "Dreams of a Final Theory."
Orrin, you need to get out more. Meet some actual scientists.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 2, 2004 8:12 PMHarry:
If it is your argument that Darwinism did not effect Christian because he hadn't read him or something, I'll accept that. I'd thought that you believed that Darwinism existed before Darwin revealed it.
Posted by: oj at March 2, 2004 8:37 PMHere is the best quote from Callahan's article:
"Far from proposing a possible "cause" of the mutiny, Shermer has merely restated what happened, but in biological rather than historical terms. He offers no reason why, in this particular instance, the "evolutionarily adaptive emotions" were "expressed nonadaptively," while thousands of other times, all of them apparently quite similar to the Bounty mutiny from a biological perspective, the emotions were expressed adaptively. Shermer's "cause" is no more an explanation of the mutiny than would be a model by a physicist showing how the atoms composing the rebels moved in such a way that the atoms composing Captain Bligh were ejected from the ship."
Shermer's analysis is a total misuse of evolutionary reasoning. At best, evolutionary scenarios are ways to explain how broad, general behavioral characteristics came to be associated with a species. You can't use it to explain why a single man committed a single act in a single point in time.
I read a book on the Bounty several years ago after watching the Lon Chaney/Clark Gable movie version of the story on late night TV. The movie was a hatchet job. Bligh was an excellent captain who was very concerned with the health and welfare of his crew. He was rather brusque, and even sarcastic in his demeanor, which is probably what got under Christian's skin. It was more wounded pride than lust that pushed him over the edge.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 2, 2004 9:37 PMDarwinism isn't a force, it's an accounting tool.
We can imagine that Christian thought his moves would turn out better than they did. It's hard to figure, even in Orrin's view of Darwinism, how it would prevent people from making bad decisions.
There was another, less famous example of mutinous sailors storming an island, Ngatik. They killed the men and mated with the women.
Same motives, more or less, as Christian's, but better from the point of progeny. All the current inhabitants of Ngatik are descended from the raiders.
You never can tell in advance whether your decisions will be regarded, in the light of Darwinism, as sound.
This drives some people nuts, but that's the way of the world.
Taking the longer view, occupying a small atoll (I'm aware Pitcairn's is not an atoll) is a bad move Darwinically. Until recently, roving bands of warriors would overrun an island, mate with the women and stay there until the next roving band showed up.
The inhabited small atolls of the Pacific have a very shallow history, not much more than a century in many cases.
Perfectly consistent with Darwinism.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 2, 2004 9:56 PMRobert
Of course if Shermer had read his Mayr he'd know that Darwinism is just a historical narrative anyway.
Posted by: oj at March 2, 2004 10:32 PMHarry:
You are entirely missing the point of the essay. Your ilk holds that it has nothing to do with Christian and "decisions", but with material processes.
Posted by: oj at March 2, 2004 10:34 PMRobert
Charles Laughton ? instead of Lon Chaney maybe.
Thank you, Bruce. It truly is astounding that anyone would think evolution could explain this story when any fool can see it was all because of the repression of Christian's superego.
Posted by: Peter B at March 3, 2004 10:37 AMYes, I think you're right h-man.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 3, 2004 11:38 AMI have no particular opinion about the mutiny. Long ago I reviewed "Mr. Bligh's Bad Language." It is pretty clear that Bligh was an incompetent manager of men, given the bizarre system in which he worked.
He demonstrated that later, on land.
Mutinies were common, most fizzled.
The fleet's mutiny in 1797 makes an interesting study.
Higher up today, there's a pitch for hierarchy.
Close study of the Royal Navy in the 18th and early 19th century will be enough to persuade anyone that rigid hierarchies are a bad idea.
That's not what I read Harry. Bligh was a strict disciplinarian, he had the men cleaning the ship constantly, but it was to keep his men healthy and free from disease. The hierarchy in the Navy of the time reflected the hierarchy in society generally. The circumnavigational voyages that they carried out in those days, with the state of technology as it was, are probably the equivalent of our Moon landings. I don't think that you can compare management techniques between then and now, the societies and environments are too different.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 3, 2004 2:38 PMHarry:
You condemn the British Navy at its apogee and Jeff thinks Spain was in decline during its primacy. What books are you guys reading?
On hierarchies, I spend time arguing with my compatriots that Canada's privileged and peaceful history, out realatively minor influence and our lack of defence commitment should make us appreciate what is owed to the U.S. and lead us to ground our foreign policy in respecful and grateful support and deference to the reality of their burden and the fundamental values that join us. Some agree, but many often tell me that is just medieval fealty and we should be out there proudly and defiantly doing and saying exactly what we think and feel, as befits an independent nation. I guess you agree with them.
Posted by: Peter B at March 3, 2004 7:04 PMPeter:
The book I was reading was "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by David Landes. Spain, in its primacy, had all the viability of a dissolute trust fund child. When the precious metals ran out, so did Spain.
An outstanding depiction of the Royal Navy, in all its various faults and glories is Patrick O'Briens Aubrey/Maturin series.
Careful, though, it is hard to put down.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 3, 2004 8:52 PMThe Royal Navy endured two great mutinies, in 1797 and 1931.
You'll recall that I said Bligh was an incompetent manager of men in his own time. Royal Navy captains were expected, even required by statute, to be brutal. But there are ways and ways.
Bligh seems to have lacked the common touch that allowed a man like Jervis to hang men without a trial and get the survivors to think it handsome of him.
Cook, greatest of all English explorers, was notably lenient, almost never flogged. But he was a civilian at heart (originally a civilian in fact, a surveyor) and a rare genius.
I'll let Orrin list all the triumphs of the Spanish Empire. I listed all two that I know of yesterday.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 3, 2004 9:06 PMLike the British Empire, nearly all its former possessions are democracies.
Posted by: oj at March 3, 2004 10:26 PMOJ, so they are, but you of all people ought to be aware enough to put in that their democracy has as much to do with US influence as it does with their status as former Spanish possessions.
Somehow they neglected to become democracies until they were a couple of centuries removed from direct contamination with the Empire.
Anyhow, your point would be? Which of its policies, at the time, did the mighty Spanish Empire ever put over?
It sure didn't make much of California while it had it.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 4, 2004 1:32 AMIt made them Christian, which made liberal democracy inevitable.
Posted by: oj at March 4, 2004 7:02 AMMust require something else. There were an awful lot of Christian societies that lasted an awful long time without any hint of liberal democracy.
Ethiopia comes to mind.
I'd say that liberal democracy is impossible in any Chrisitian society that has not been infected with secularism and skepticism. At least, there never has been an example yet.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 4, 2004 2:12 PMSecularism is a Christian idea.
Posted by: oj at March 4, 2004 2:15 PMOJ:
That's kind of like saying that the IRS is the taxpayers' idea.
You could say that. It would be grammatically correct.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 4, 2004 6:18 PMJeff:
It is also factually correct. I must have missed something.
Posted by: oj at March 4, 2004 6:27 PMSecularism was originally a Greek idea, which was strangled in its cradle by religion.
It's a reasonable hypothesis that practical political democracy could only have grown out of secularism on a substrate of Christianity. I don't think that can be proven.
But it is obviously the case that religion -- any kind -- without secularism always leads to despotism. No secularism, no freedom.
At least, so far.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 4, 2004 8:46 PMConversely, wholly secular states (Nazism, Communism) always lead to despotism too, since folk have no internal restraints. No religion, no freedom.
Posted by: oj at March 4, 2004 8:52 PMPretty small sample there. That might be correct, but it is easy enough to imagine a secular state based on a less malignant view of human society than Naziism or Communism.
If Communism was just Marxism plus electricity, then Naziism was just Lutheranism plus tanks.
That gets us down to one example. Hard to generalize from one example.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 5, 2004 11:44 AMHarry:
No it isn't, because the secular view always dismisses the basis of a decent society, recognition that man is Created by God and so has rights that precede the State.
Posted by: oj at March 5, 2004 12:30 PMThere is more than one secular view, including one that says society precedes the state.
This is, arguably, a better starting point than God preceding, because, at least with the Bible God, individuals get the short end of the stick most of the time.
In a social state, they at least have a chance of being in the majority and benefitting from that.
Your state is not all that far from Hobbes's, except that expect every man's hand being raised agaisnt every other's, God's hand is raised against every man. Grim.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 5, 2004 8:22 PMYou live in a state where God given rights come first--is it really grim? I know you'd prefer a Stalinist one where rights come from the State, but America seems okay.
Posted by: oj at March 5, 2004 9:06 PMI thought I lived in a state where individual rights come first, no matter how you thought they got that way.
And the reason we live like this is because that arrangement works better than previously tried alternatives. God just might prefer socialism--plenty of the Bible would substantiate that. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work well enough.
Ever thought you might not be on God's side?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 6, 2004 8:38 AMJeff:
That's because you're ignorant. The only reason our system has worked best is because rights precede the State.
God is indifferent to our mere political arrangements and, as you say, this one is not required, in fact, not the ideal.
Posted by: oj at March 6, 2004 8:47 AMOJ:
You are far more blinkered than I am ignorant. The reason our system has worked best is because is has worked better than all the others.
That is what has happened.
Why that happened is an open question. Human nature precedes the state. Since human nature is a result of evolution, then our system works better is because of its net correlation with human natuure.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 7, 2004 3:43 PM