Philosopher argues for guided evolution: Guided by technocrats

According to Anjana Ahuja’s “Enhancing the Species in Timesonline”:

The whiteboard in John Harris’s office declares: “John is cool.” Many hold a different opinion of one of the most controversial philosophers in Britain. Here are some of his views: abortion and euthanasia are both fine, desirable even; parents should be allowed to create designer or cloned babies; there’s nothing wrong with a drug-fuelled Olympics; scientists and medics should strive to make us immortal, even on a crowded planet; our bodies should be routinely plundered after death for organs, even if the dead and bereaved do not wish it; it is morally justified to compel people to participate in scientific trials, just as we compel them to do jury service.

Well, read it for yourself and see what you think. I think it’s theatre of the absurd. We are living in a world where we can’t prevent people from dying of malaria or getting murdered by terrorists. This stuff would only make things worse.

Interesting ideas: Evolution, purpose ... and the devil?

Greg Boyd, a Minnesota megachurch pastor, found himself at a Scniece and Theology conference in June with Jeffrey Schloss, professor of biology at Westmont University in Malibu, California, who was presenting on evolution:

He is a leading expert on competing models of Evolutionary Theory. With a breathtaking encylopedic command of the material (the man seems to have read everything by everyone on every topic related to evolution!)

Schloss presented a mass of evidence of direction and purpose in evolution, arguing,

There IS "progress," and at the apex of this progress are beings capable of choosing love (but also capable of choosing hate).

Stephen Jay Gould, wherever you are, check your e-mail for an important message from Rick Warren ...

But what about the waste and evil in nature? On the way to the airport, Schloss told Pastor Boyd,

"I'm hestitant to admit it in academic circles because no one seems to take it seriously, but I think there is absolutely NO WAY to adequately account for the carnage in nature unless you accept there's an evil destructive force that pervades nature -- the one the New Testament calls Satan." He said that he believed that God is always working for life, even through the evolutionary process, while Satan is always working to destroy life, even through the evolutionary process.

Why does this approach remind me so much of producing Hamlet in modern dress? I guess every age reinterprets tradition in the language it can accept and understand.

(Note: For a more conventional look at critical evidence for evolution as a non-random, and perhaps purpose-driven process, go here.)

Mother nature is a bitch files: Primate ancestor had SMALL brain

Many people, loosening their belt after a good dinner, can tell you the fine old materialist folk tale about how the primates were naturally selected for survival and increasing intelligence because they happened to have developed large brains, undoubtedly to control vision or something. According to a recent report in New Scientist , the earliest cat-size primate had a small brain:

This finding - based on a newly described fossil skull - means that large brains evolved independently in new- and old-world primates. It also suggests that evolutionary anthropologists may have to rethink some cherished theories about why such big, powerful brains evolved.

[ ... ]

... diurnality, acute vision and group living - have often been advanced as reasons why primates evolved their large brains. However, Aegyptopithecus, which has all three while still having a tiny brain, argues against these theories, says Simons.

Few, if any, will reflect on the significance of the fact that previous theory depended on the primate ancestor having a large brain - but it apparently didn't. They will simply announce a new theory according to which it had to have a small brain.

If you follow current science and society controversies, you will often hear people say that the Darwinian interpretation of evolution (Darwinism) - the interpretation on which the original primate story depended - is "massively confirmed". And therefore why dissenters from it are completely misguided.

This incident helps explain why Darwinism is massively confirmed - because no evidence ever counts against it.

After a significant disconfirmation, adherents simply regroup around a Darwinist interpretation that has not yet been disconfirmed. No one asks whether a better explanation might be found outside the paradigm.

For example, if the intelligent design theorists are right and evolution is guided, the development of advanced brains in primates would not require that the original primate happened to have a superior brain to its fellow creatures, only that it had a suitable platform on which such a brain could be built. And that suitable platform needn't be an accident either.