Friday, November 4, 2011
The Relevance of the Origin of Species
One important scientific development unavailable to David Hume or any of his fictional interlocutors is the theory of evolution. For many people today, both theists and atheists, religious believers, scientists and intellectuals, the truth of evolution is bound up with the truth of theism. So what is the significance of evolution for the design argument? Does is it provide evidence for either side of the debate? On this 152st anniversary of the publication of Darwin's seminal Origin of Species, it is fitting to ask: where might a discussion of Darwin have fit into Hume's Dialogues?
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Evolution is sometimes thought of as a major slap to the face for theists in the Judeo-Chrisitan tradition and for most people who believe in an intelligent designer. The theory of evolution makes it clear that the species we see today did not exist thousands of years ago. I think that it is hard to argue that an intelligent designer produced evolution. At the least, evolution shows that this intelligent designer cannot have been the traditional Judeo-Christian god. There are currently a few different ways people argue for an intelligently designed evolution. Certain groups of Christian scientists use evolution as a framework for a theory which hypothesizes that God created a set number of species, but those species changed over the years due to evolution. The problem with this idea is that science predicts that all species came from one origin, so maybe it is possible that God created the process and conditions for life to exist and set up the framework for evolution. This argument fits within Hume's reasonable cause theory. The only issue I can find with God creating evolution itself is the fact that evolution has created imperfect and sometimes plain broken designs. We already discussed the panda's thumb, but pandas have other issues. Their digestive system is the same as a carnivore, yet they are herbivores. For this reason, Pandas are forced to eat constantly, and their diet causes them some internal pain. If a perfect God created evolution, then all species to come out of the process should be perfect or at least more functional than pandas. Evolution also causes cancer and other terrible hereditary illness (or if you really want to see the horrors of mutated genetics and have a strong stomach, look up harlequin-type ichthyosis). How could a perfect being design a system so that it purposefully produced suffering beings? Unless there is some higher purpose to these issues, I cannot conclude that an intelligent being created evolution.
ReplyDeleteEvolution stumps almost every argument for theists and the design argument as it disproves the existence of a god and his wonderful creation that we call the universe. Darwin's theory of evolution describes different species as adapting over the years to the environment in which they live in. Such an idea would lead most to believe that evolution destroys the idea of a designer who is a perfect version of man and that the universe came into being out of pure chance. Due to the fact that scientists have been able to prove that the earth itself has changed tremendously over the years, the majority of people today disregard the design argument. Yet not all have given up on it yet, such an idea could be worked into the design argument in a way that would make evolution one of the first steps. One could argue that God had created a universe, the mot perfect machine, in which creatures could adapt to the environment that they are in to maximize their potential and efficiency over the years. Such an idea, although very unlikely, could be argued as if god had created such creatures that would adapt over the years to act almost as an update. Much like iPhones and computers have today, why could the universe not have its own update?
ReplyDeleteThe design argument is a comparison of humans to machines. It essentially claims that everything in the universe has a cause and can function perfectly with other parts because of this cause. However, this design argument is only true if you believe that there is a reason for things that exist and these things have a purpose. Evolution is the opposite of teleology. Things can’t be explained by the purpose they serve. Evolution claims that the strongest organism survives because it just happened by chance to be the surviving organism. Teleology would attempt to claim that the organism’s purpose was to survive and evolve. Evolution is hard to accept because it claims there is no purpose for human’s existence. Instead, humans happened to evolve into what we are today because we were stronger than other organisms. Evolution in Hume’s work would drastically change his arguments unless Hume rejected the evidence of evolution. Hume’s argument for the existence of God is all based on necessity. The universe needed a creator. God is necessary for existence. Yet evolution illustrates that the universe doesn’t need a creator. The world can start out in biomolecules and evolve into life.
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