Re: More on the addled brain of Francis Collins...

On Jul 31, 8:18 pm, "Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
slothrop wrote:
On Jul 31, 10:59 am, "Spence..." <"Spence..."@garctec.co.uk> wrote:
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0614collins.shtml

Great choice.

Sp.

--
fnord

The article mentions Collins' "pointers to God": the "unreasonable
effectiveness of mathematics", the improbability of the Big Bang, and
the inexplicable fact that Mother Theresa existed at all.

Aren't there more compelling ones than this out there? Seems like
every one of them is an argument from incredulity. Worse, the moral
argument seems to me to be trying to say morality wouldn't evolve
without a supernatural involvement, that natural processes would never
bring about a Mother Theresa (Hitchens' picture of her
notwithstanding)?

I read a few times here of people defending Collins by saying he was
trying to say that morality cannot be justified by science, in other
words, science can't tell you which moral rules are superior to
others, there is not derivation of "should" in science. And I would
agree with that.
I must be missing something, though, it seems to me Collins is not
saying that at all, he is saying natural law cannot account for the
existence of moral behavior in the first place.

From the article:
"As another form of evidence for his belief in God, Collins pointed to
"the uniquely human moral law." Evolutionary principles suggest that
altruism is related to survival instincts. But, Collins argued that
the noblest human acts of altruism, such as Mother Theresa helping the
poor, for instance, are completely unrelated to any familial ties or
to the promise of a reciprocal payback."

Seems to me he's not all that interested in possible lines of study in
the behavioral sciences at all, the way I read that. The behavioral
sciences are still in their infancy in many ways, it seems ridiculous
to me to say at this point that moral behavior is something beyond the
ability of natural processes to produce, it's way too early to claim
"god of the moral gaps" here, isn't it?

If morality is hardwired by natural laws (presumably the laws governing
our biochemistries), then what accounts for the striking differences in
moral codes among different societies?

Some societies practiced human sacrifice.
Others practiced slavery.
A few even practiced cannibalism.

In the period 1935-1945, the United States, Nazi Germany, and Soviet
Russia all existed on earth, with strikingly divergent moral choices.
Today, the Declaration of Independence is more honored than Mein Kampf,
only because Germany lost World War II.  Not because moral philosophers
set about to prove that Jefferson had framed better arguments than Hitler..

Don't be so sure of the moral differences.
Soldiers of each of these nations were often willing to
sacrifice themselves for their fellow soldiers and
their country.

Soldiers of multiple nations ran prison/concentration
camps for people they considered subhuman. One part of
the "band of brothers" series I particularly liked was
how they clearly showed that US solder executed
German prisoners --- it did not just happen the
other way around. While the mythology of the war in
the Pacific tells many stories about the refusal
of Japanese soldiers to surrender, many who tried
were also executed.

We all want to believe we could never have been
nazi guards at death camps, at least I do, but
experience shows it doesn't take all that much
to get many people to fall into tribal mentality
of us and them. Civilization, as has been said,
is often a rather thin veneer.

So I don't agree with either Collins or you on this.
There is no one "uniquely human moral law."  Moral choices are set the
way they always have been:  The winners get to set the code down in
stone (or on papyrus, or on a hard drive, or whatever).  And winning
often depends on luck.

--
Steven L.
Email:  sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

.

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