Re: [Fwd: [evol-psych] That Old Magic - Evolutionary Psychology,PartI]

> Phil Roberts, Jr. wrote:
> I'm cross posting a critique of evolutionary psychology by
> Bonnie Alba. I will follow it up with my own rebuttal to
> Alba's critique.

Bonnie Alba?

>
>
>
> June 01, 2005
>
> That Old Magic - Evolutionary Psychology, Part I
> Bonnie Alba
>
> Your answers to the following questions will show, partly at
> least, what you believe and how you think about yourself and the
> world around you.
>
> Door #1: Am I a material, physical body with an advanced animal
> brain? I respond to myself and the world around me solely from
> preprogrammed evolutionary-genetic makeup and environmental
> factors which influence how I react and behave in certain ways?
> My thinking life is part of the brain matter; and when I die,
> that?s the end?
>
> Door #2: Am I an immaterial mind-soul who lives in a physical
> brain-body? I have a unique self-conscious awareness? I think,
> imagine and doubt, my private thought pattern-life is unknown to
> anyone else unless I communicate it outwardly? My mind-soul will
> survive death?
>
> Depending on your basic worldview in accordance with your
> answers, if you see yourself in number one, then you will
> disagree with this article. If number 2, you mostly likely will
> see the merits of it.
>
> The old study of the mind and mental-emotional processes of man
> has now transitioned into what first was called Sociobiology (E.
> G. Wilson) to the modern term Evolutionary Psychology. Proposing
> to connect the dots between man?s natural selection, adaptation,
> and behavioral history, psychologists are postulating ever
> extravagant theories of behavior. Based on what? Not one single
> shred of genetic, chemical or other biological evidence has been
> shown to prove or disprove the existence of self-aware
> consciousness.
>
> Today?s scientists see no boundaries in proposing their singular
> unethical theories.

"unethical"?
By whose standard?

> An extreme example is Princeton University
> professor Peter Singer who publicly advocated sexual relations
> between humans and animals, otherwise called bestiality. By his
> own admission, he is attacking the ?Judeo-Christian tradition?
> that teaches that ?humans alone are made in the image of God.?
> He maintained that evolution has thoroughly refuted the biblical
> account and that ?We are animals.?

How gastly! :-)

> Therefore ?sex across the
> species barrier ceases to be an offense to our status and
> dignity as human beings.?

In his mind maybe! You don't need to be a Judeo-Christian to find this
behavior offensive. He is wrong of course! I think he is just being
vulgar to make his point however. Normally different speicies don't have
sex. Is that not (more or less) correct? I see a human female and, well,
hormones could flood my body. However, I see a grasshopper, or an ape,
and nothing happens (sex wise)!


>
> Another: Cornell biologist William Provine tells university
> students that the Darwinian revolution still has another
> frontier to conquer, all its moral and religious implications.
> He says, ?There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no
> ultimate meaning in life, and no free will.? I wonder how he is
> able to function in the real world?

He is wrong of course! Our rules of behavior come from our need to work
together as a group (they don't really come from religion or god). All
animals have "rules of behavior". All animals protect their young for
example. "You shall not kill my children". Almost all animals will
become distressed if their mate is killed or dies. Many things ...

Recently I was on jury duty. There were 12 of us. We were, I thought
during the trial, enforcing what it means to be human. We are of
different ethnic backgrounds, we were of different religions or of no
specific religion (one at least, me). We make the rules. We enforce the
rules. They are there, religion or no religion, god or no god.

>
> You see, the theory of evolution that some scientists hold as
> their mantra cannot explain in any shape or form the
> consciousness we all individually have.

I don't have troubles thinking that consciousness can be created. :-)
In fact I think that in the near future (in 100 to 200 years, maybe
sooner) we'll have created a conscious being ourselves (but we are not
gods!) and we will have made great progress in understanding how
consciouness arose naturally. This doesn't demean us in anyway of
course (as you seem to think).

> Atheist professor Colin
> McGinn noted: ?How can mere matter originate consciousness? How
> did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the
> wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical
> novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the aftereffects of
> the Big Bang. So how did it contrive to spring into being from
> what preceded it??

Consciousness is the result of the logical processes going on in your
brains. When our neurons die, the logical processes die, and so too does
our "consciousness". Why is this a problem?

That scientists don't understand it all makes it somewhat of a mystery
now, but there is no reason to claim that the quest is hopeless. Not yet
anyway.

>
> Even he made a mistake in his wondering. ?...how did ?it
> contrive?...?? As if somehow ?it? preceded ?itself? in order to
> arise at all. This in itself requires something intelligent in
> the preceding of ?it?.
>
> British evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane acknowledged that, ?If my
> mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the
> atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs
> are true...and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain
> [mind] to be composed of atoms.?

Well, he exaggerates and I don't know why. His logic is flawed. Mental
processes are not simply the "movement of atoms", but a complex
structure of atoms, molecules, chemicals and cells of various types and
they are based on a vast number of inputs from the sense organs
throughout the body (vision, sound, touch, smell, temperature,
chemical). These inputs _are_ true of course (more or less, there can be
error of course). They are not beliefs. Based on these inputs, logical
processes in our brains allows us to deduce things and take action (leap
out of the way of danger for example, or detect that a deer crossed my
(a cougar say) path so then I will track it down, kill it, and have it
for dinner for me and my family, ...).

>
> As Nancy Pearcey pointed out, there is a logical flaw in the
> theory of evolutionary psychology. ?For if all our ideas are
> products of evolution, then so is the idea of evolutionary
> psychology itself. Like all other constructs of the human mind,
> it is not true but only useful for survival.?
>
> Therefore, Darwin?s theory is also a produced-in-the-brain idea
> which threatens to overtake all of humankind to
> dissatisfactorily explain all things. Mechanical and physical
> evolutionism cannot explain man?s self-awareness, that conscious
> part of us which thinks outside the physical realm.

If you hold on to that _"cannot"_ then there no hope for the "maybe" or
even the "truth" ... How can you possibly _know_ that the answer is
"cannot"!!

>
> This is the giant question left open: Are we just matter, dust,
> water and chemicals; materialistic mammals with well-developed
> animal brains?

Of course we are.

> Or are we also endowed with an extra something,
> the mind-soul?

No one knows. It would be your belief to hold that to be the case...
Why must you so desparately hold that belief of a mind-soul? Why is it
so necessary? Are we less than human without a soul?

> Those who hold only to physicalism must still
> live in the real world of their own self-aware consciousness.
> Who has not experienced the knowledge of free will, ability to
> know and choose right and wrong, good and evil, morality and
> immorality, life and death. This is not an evolving mechanism
> and remains outside of the construct of material science.
>
> So who are you? When someone says ?Nature is all there is, was,
> or ever will be? what is your response? Door number one or two?
> My question is ?How is number one beneficial for the progress of
> mankind?? That is, ?with or without man seeking to interfere
> with natural evolution??
>
> [stay tuned]
> © 2005 Bonnie Alba
> balba2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Sources:
> ?Total Truth,? Nancey Pearcey
> ?How Now Shall We Live?? Charles Colson, Nancy Pearcy
> ?Discovery Institute,? www.discovery.org/crsc
>
> http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/balba_20050601.html
>

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