Letters

From the November 1997 issue

(Page 3 of 4)

As Hayek explained in The Fatal Conceit, "an evolutionary theory of morality is indeed emerging and its essential insight is that our morals are neither instinctual nor a creation of reason, but constitute a separate tradition between instinct and reason...a tradition of staggering importance in enabling us to adapt to problems and circumstances far exceeding our rational capacities. Our moral traditions, like many other aspects of our culture, developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product."

Furthermore, Hayek suggested: "We owe it partly to mystical and religious beliefs, and, I believe, particularly to the main monotheistic ones, that beneficial traditions have been preserved and transmitted at least long enough to enable those groups following them to grow, and to have the opportunity to spread by natural and cultural selection. This means, like it or not, we owe the persistence of certain practices, and the civilization that resulted from them, in part, to support from beliefs which are not true or verifiable or testable in the same sense as are scientific statements, and which are certainly not the result of rational argumentation."

But this does not mean that humanity must blindly follow tradition. Hayek also wrote that "reason may, although with caution and humility, and in a piecemeal way, be directed to the examination, criticism and rejection of traditional institutions and moral principles."

Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are beginning to shed considerable light on the sources of human morality. For an excellent popular account, I recommend Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue (reviewed on page 56 of this issue). What I objected to in my article is the wrong-headed attack on science by some neoconservatives that they apparently believe will bolster popular morality. But I must add that I share the neoconservative concern that some people will illegitimately try to argue from the facts of evolutionary biology to ethical conclusions about how society should be ordered, or even make the claim that biology shows that there is no such thing as morality. This is just as illegitimate as arguing that evolution must be wrong because you think it undermines your notions about human dignity, religion, and morality.

I largely agree with John Povejsil's comments, but believe that more science will eventually drive out pseudoscience.

As Alan E. Johnson points out, Leo Strauss does not acknowledge that "revelation is a myth." Of course he doesn't. To do so would undermine whatever salutary effects that he thought religious belief would have on society. And of course Plato can only be used for "philosophizing," since Strauss believed that public morality is grounded in religious beliefs, particularly divine revelation. In Strauss's view philosophizing is an activity which by its nature tends to undermine public morality.

With regard to Eric Anderson's comments, I did indeed focus on the motives of the neoconservatives like Kristol. After all, that was what my article was about: Why are these political thinkers so eager to attack evolutionary biology? But I did not question the motives of Berlinski, Denton, and Behe. In fact, I believe that they sincerely believe that they have found good evidence against evolutionary biology. Consequently, I took a brief look at the nature of their arguments against Darwinian theory and why they fail.

Probably the only way that "a linear progression" of DNA sequences of the sort demanded by Anderson or Denton could exist is if all of the ancestral species that gave rise to today's current species were still alive to be tested. Since at least 98 percent of all species that ever lived are now extinct, this is, of course, impossible.

With regard to the supposed lack of "transitional species" in the fossil record, Anderson should take a look at the fossil sequence that paleontologists have developed for horses. Based on morphological characteristics, paleontologists generally conclude that fossilized species A appears to be ancestral to fossilized species C. Anti-Darwinists then demand to know where is the transitional species B? When paleontologists find species B, the anti-Darwinists then demand to know where's the transitional form between A and B? When paleontologists find transitional species Aa, the doubters then demand to see the transitional species between A and Aa and so on. Ultimately, the only way to satisfy their demands for transitional forms would be to have fossils for every individual ancestor for species C.

It appears that I gave Professor Behe too much credit when I concluded that he was dealing largely with the origin of life problem. I based that conclusion on his statement that he "believe[s] in descent of life from a common ancestor." If this doesn't mean that Behe "more or less concedes that Darwinian evolution occurred," I don't know what it could mean.

In his letter, Behe dismissively lists all of the things that evolutionary biology has yet to explain completely. What the heck, as he says, biologists have had 138 years since On the Origin of Species was published; almost a hundred years since the basis of heredity was dimly beginning to be understood; 44 years since DNA, the substance that makes up genes, was unraveled; 25 years since recombinant DNA techniques were developed, making it easy to probe; and a little more than a year since the first complete genome of any organism (a bacteria) was decoded. What's keeping them? Why haven't they solved all of the problems in biology?

Behe is engaging in what has been called a "God of the gaps" argument--God is smuggled into the gaps of our knowledge. The plain fact is that as evidence is gathered, it all points toward "descent with variation" as the mechanism for the development of species. For a thorough treatment of outstanding issues in both macro- and molecular evolutionary theory, I recommend Evolution by Mark Ridley (no relation to Matt).

Finally, no, I am not allowing my philosophy to interfere with my judgment about scientific theory.

The New Yellow Peril

In "MFNemies" (July), Rick Henderson attempts to defend the indefensibly immoral act of financing the economy and state-owned businesses of Red China, thereby propping up the military of a totalitarian nation with a nuclear capability that is indisputably hostile to the United States and most other free nations.