Dhruval Patel #9
Philosophy and Evolution
One of the most significant problem that people have
with regard to evolution has nothing to do with religion, but rather it is philosophical
in nature. If the theory of evolution is accurate and true, these individuals
think, then we are virtually at sea, as nothing is determinate, or even fixed,
and that all the coherence in life is gone, just like it was famously lamented
by Donne regarding the death of physics and two-sphere universe. In the past
five decades many topic and debates have been raised and reviewed, with respect
to evolutionary ethics, naturalism, teleology, and many other relating to the creationism.
Philosophy and evolution can arguably be said to have a relationship dating
back to the origin of the evolution idea itself. This may partly be due to the
fact the philosophy and science came to be separated just about the era when
the first proposal of evolutionary theories took place, and may also be based
on the fact that evolution, from the context of the Darwinian model, was
opposed to the doctrines that were highly cherished by philosophers (Boag). The
very first solid criticism against evolution was based on the notion that species
were eternal in nature, and therefore through this definition, the species
could not be changed. In recent times, the raised criticisms have been based on
the science itself, implying that the principles of true science have not been
met by evolution. These views were also expressed by Darwin himself earlier on
in his development of the evolution theory. For anyone to understand any form
of criticism and evaluation of the evolution and its related fields of study,
one has to understand the philosophy of science into details.
Evolution has always found refuge through the
scientific researches that are steered towards proving its accuracy in
explaining the origin of humans. On the other hand, philosophy and science have
always learned from one another. Philosophy is always drawing fresh strength
from the scientific discoveries, and its material for the wide generalizations,
whereas it imparts to the sciences the world-perspective and methodological
instincts of its general values. Most general guiding standards that lie in the
contemporary science, particularly the evolution principles, were for the first
time articulated by the view power of the philosophical thought. For instance,
the notion or model of the atomic structure of matter and most conjectures regarding
the theory of natural selection were developed from the ancient era by Lucretius,
a philosopher, and later on by Diderot, a French thinker (Boag). Theoretically
it can be argued that his anticipations were transformed into a scientific fact
some centuries later. In this context, it is sound to say that any form of a
scientific theory that may be proved through experimental methods or not, has a
deeper origin which is usually tied to philosophy.
Sources
Boag, Simon, et al. Philosophy, Science, and
Psychoanalysis. Karnac Books, 2015.
Murphy, Nancey C. and William R. Stoeger. Evolution
and Emergence: Systems, Organisms, Persons. OUP Oxford, 2007.
Trueba, Gabriel. Why Does Evolution Matter? :
The Importance of Understanding Evolution. Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2014.
Zilhão, António. Evolution, Rationality and
Cognition: A Cognitive Science for the Twenty-First Century. Routledge,
2005. Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
"If the theory of evolution is accurate and true, these individuals think, then we are virtually at sea, as nothing is determinate, or even fixed, and that all the coherence in life is gone" - to the contrary, evolution via natural selecction lends coherence and unity to all of nature. It is, as the late Prof. Stephen Jay Gould said, the central meaning of our lives at least to the extent that science can shed light on the question of meaning. Being "at sea" just means we're on a journey whose outcome is insecure but may possibly be wondrous.
ReplyDeleteEvolution is, in a phrase which is the title of a little book I strongly recommend, "everybody's story." https://books.google.com/books?id=YDHbgWYBOqwC&pg=PA135&dq=everybody%27s+story&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTvf3sgfnXAhXjx4MKHYTxCOoQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=everybody's%20story&f=false