Neo-Darwinian Teleological Redundancy Sarah Crawford California State University, Fresno

Neo-Darwinian Teleological Redundancy Sarah Crawford California State University, Fresno The discoveries of modern science have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the world in many surprising ways. Science has increased our experience of the world. With modern technology the vast expanses of the universe as well as the smallest microcosms of space are within our range of experience. The explosion of new data produced in the last half century has tempted many to make claims about the origins of the universe and nature of God. This practice is not new, as David Hume, an 18th century philosopher generally thought to be one of the greatest thinkers of western philosophy, questioned his contemporaries who did the same. In more recent history a group of scientists and intellectuals united by an atheistic worldview have begun to utilize the discoveries of science to attempt to make claims about the existence of God and the creation of the world. These attempts are nothing more than a thinly veiled continuation of the skeptical enquiry born of enlightenment-era philosophical discourse. The self-proclaimed new breed of atheists is in fact doing nothing new at all: the scientific discoveries are new, but the framework of skepticism and reason has not changed since Hume's day. Below are a few major arguments from David Hume, Daniel Dennett, Victor Stenger, and Richard Dawkins that show how science provides us with exciting opportunities to study the world but cannot produce knowledge pertaining to the transcendent nature of the universe. David Hume is one of the most celebrated thinkers in Western history. While not an atheist in his public life and works, Hume's skepticism and espousal of rational enquiry as the best means of examining the world and deriving meaning kept him at odds with the religious establishment of his day. Many of his contemporaries found his writings to be subversive and even atheistic. Though his works appear antithetical to the majority of the religious writings of his day, Hume is guilty of no more than applying the principles of rational enquiry and empiricism to religious works and institutions. A firm believer in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity Hume, however, did not believe the teleological argument could cogently prove the existence or nonexistence of such a god in any meaningful way. In fact, Hume believed that the nature of the world is inconsistent with humankind's preconceived notions as to what a universe designed by a being of such characteristics would entail. Hume describes his doubts about the argument from design in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: "It must, I think, be allowed, that, if a very limited intelligence, whom we shall suppose utterly unacquainted with the universe, were assured, that it were the production of a very good, wise, and powerful Being, however finite, he would, from his conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it from what we find it to be by experience; nor would he ever imagine, merely from these attributes of the cause, of which he is informed, that the effect could be so full of vice and misery and disorder, as it appears in this life." (Hume 1998, 105) Hume admits that there is a fundamental problem with the benevolent and omnipotent nature of the creator and the state of the world. He finds that authors of Theodicy neglect to take into 18 Sarah Crawford account the incredible nature of God's mind when accounting for the evils, both natural and moral, in the world. We know from experience that flaws in design can be made better if a wholly new design is drawn up through superior skill and ingenuity. This is, of course, the nature of human progress on the macro level. "But still you would assert in general, that, if the architect had had skill and good intentions, he might have formed such a plan of the whole, and might have adjusted the parts in such a manner, as would have remedied all or most of these inconveniences." (Hume 1998, 106) The crux of the matter is Hume's deep mistrust of human nature and reliance upon skepticism and empiricism as means to transcend the ignorance of the true nature of the world that has been a problem for people since the beginning of thought. This is one of Hume's greatest gifts to philosophy and indeed Western thought, he states in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that "All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious; and not to admit of any hypothesis, whatever; much less, of any which is supported by no appearance of probability." (Hume 1998, 107) It seems that the ultimate negative response to an argument is one in which a person espousing the same worldview as that which the argument supposedly supports claims that the argument does only the opposite. As you can see, Hume believes that the teleological argument casts as much doubt upon the existence of a creator God as it provides for the existence of such a god; he states: "But let us still assert, that as this goodness is not antecedently established, but must be inferred from the phenomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference, while there are so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might so easily have been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on such a subject." (Hume 1998, 113) The matter at hand for Hume is thus: while it is perfectly reasonable to see analogous designs in the veins of a leaf and the blood-filled capillaries of a human being, therein lies the seeds of the argument's own destruction. For, if one can find clues that point to some cosmic creativity, that same person can also find flaws and ugly patches not readily indicative of a perfect creator, and in fact what one would expect to see from purely natural origins. Hume states: "What a noble privilege is it of human reason to attain the knowledge of the supreme Being; and, from the visible works of nature, be enabled to infer so sublime a principle as its supreme Creator? But turn the reverse of the medal. Survey most nations and most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing [sic] but sick men's dreams…" (Hume 1995, 32) Hume believes that ultimately one should be able to see the evidence of the creator God not just in the workings of nature but also in human societies and institutions. In doing so he delivers one final crushing blow to the teleological argument. It is telling that a great theist and believer in enlightened enquiry can cast so much doubt on an argument for God's existence which attempts to prove using those very same principles that God does in fact exist. Let us now move forward a few hundred years to our contemporary period. Modern science has taken human beings to new and fantastic places. Scientists have electron microscopes capable of taking pictures of individual atoms and molecules. Biologists cut and paste biological molecules containing genetic information into organisms large and small. Advances in nanotechnology have allowed scientists to manipulate individual atoms. On a grander scale physicists and cosmologists have used sophisticated equipment to see into the furthest reaches of Neo-Darwinian Teleological Redundancy 19 space and time. Pulsars, quasars, dark matter, up-quarks, down-quarks, strange quarks, and other such concepts have enriched the modern lexicon. Springing from this soup of new discoveries are a self-proclaimed new breed of atheists. These militant critics of religion have charged onto the public field of battle under the banners of reason and science in defense of a naturalistic worldview. These atheists have championed Darwin's theory of evolution and have used it to cast doubt upon religious institutions past and present. For clarity's sake I've labeled them neo-Darwinian atheists in contrast to pre-Darwinian skeptics like Hume. Daniel Dennett is one of self-titled four horsemen of atheism (Dawkins 2010), a group which also includes Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. Dennett is a philosopher currently working at Tufts University. In the last few years his research has been devoted primarily to studying cognition and how information in the form of 'memes', or the socio-cultural equivalent of the gene, are passed on from generation to generation and culture to culture. In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, published in 1991, Dennett develops the impact Darwin's theory has had upon the scientific and philosophical communities. Specifically he addresses early reactions to the Origin of the Species regarding the moral implications that the theory has for human beings. In the book he states: "In the wake of Darwin's publication of Origin of Species, Friedrich Nietzsche rediscovered what Hume had already toyed with: the idea that an eternal recurrence of blind, meaningless variation- chaotic, pointless shuffling of matter and law- would inevitably spew up worlds whose evolution through time would yield the apparently meaningful stories of our lives." (Dennett 1996, 181) He goes on to show that evolution represents a challenge to religious adherents because seeming proof of the natural origin of human beings appears to entail moral nihilism and the inherent meaningless of human lives. Now, Dennett spends much time later in his book showing that there is no conceptual relationship between the espousal of evolution and moral nihilism, but he accepts this view as a natural response to the theory.

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