A Summary of Michael Ruse's Darwin and Design

Michael Ruse's Darwin and Design: Science, Philosophy, Religion explains the history and philosophical arguments of the design metaphor of evolution. It recounts the historical uses of the metaphor from Plato to twentieth-century American science. Ruse explores the criticisms of the design metaphor and ultimately concludes that it is a beneficial term. The chief contribution of Darwin and Design is that it offers a clear understanding and comparison of the argument from design and the argument to design.     

Darwin Puzzled? A Computer-assisted Analysis of Language in the Origin of Species

The aesthetically optimistic view of life in the last paragraph of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species contrasts with the evidence in his autobiography of a supposed perceptive colour blindness to the magnificence of nature. Accepting the theory of evolution as one of the scientific theories that has contributed to disenchantment, my aim is to delve into the Darwinian perception of natural beauty and solve this contrast of perceptions within the framework of the Weberian concept of “disenchantment of the world.” To do this, I have carried out a computer-assisted study of Darwin’s language focusing on the frequency of aesthetic-emotional and religious adjectives and adverbs in the six editions of the Origin. A semantic analysis of the lexicon shows that, although disenchanted, Darwin perceives nature as aesthetically enhanced. I arrive at the conclusion that Darwin’s alleged colour blindness does not come from a loss of his capacity to aesthetically perceive nature, but from his loss of religious belief.

     

COULD GOD CREATE DARWINIAN ACCIDENTS?

Abstract Charles Darwin, in his discussions with Asa Gray and in his published works, doubted whether God could so arrange it that exactly the desired contingent events would occur to cause particular outcomes by natural selection. In this paper, I argue that even a limited or neo‐Leibnizian deity could have chosen a world that satisfied some arbitrary set of goals or functions in its outcomes and thus answer Darwin's conundrum. In more general terms, this supports the consistency of natural selection with providentialism, and makes “theistic evolutionism” a coherent position to hold.     

CHARLES LYELL,UNIFORMITARIANISM, AND INTERPRETIVE PRINCIPLES

I examine the development of Charles Lyell's principle of uniformity and its influence on the development of modern geology and biology and argue that distinguishing between philosophical starting points and empirical findings is essential for clarity in the discussion between science and religion. First, I explore Lyell's arguments against catastrophism and how these were both empirically and religiously motivated. I then consider how David Hume's empiricism, theory of causation, and rejection of miracles influenced Lyell. Using these insights, Lyell formulated his principle of uniformity, which he believed was based on current empirical findings, and rejected explanatory hypotheses that used the biblical Flood or other catastrophist accounts as violations of uniform causation and introductions of theological concepts into empirical science. I next examine the influence of Lyell's principle on Charles Darwin. Although Lyell opposed Darwinism for most of his life, Darwin relied heavily on Lyell, as is evidenced by references throughout The Origin of Species. I contend that the most important aspect of Lyell's principle for Darwin is that it makes natural evil (the struggle for survival) a process that has always been occurring rather than something introduced after the Fall as recorded in Genesis. Finally, I discuss the role that uniformity plays for Lyell, Darwin, and modern science as an interpretive principle rather than as an inference from empirical data, and I conclude by noting that keeping the distinction in mind between interpretive principles and empirical findings will help clarify debates between science and religion.     

The paradox of evolution

In the second (and expanded) version of Origin of the Species, Darwin introduces the term “advanced progressive development” in an attempt to describe the development of the more complex species from the simpler ones. More than 100 years have passed since Darwin tried to qualify and conceptualize the directional question of evolution, and very little progress has been made regarding the subject. The appearance of the species, from the simple to the more complex, is today an empirical fact, one which is no longer dependent upon any theory, including that of Darwin. This work examines the subject of advanced development in evolution by attempting to answer a few basic questions: What parameters may be used to evaluate complexity? Can any rules or order be identified as to the development of the species? Is the mechanism of “natural selection” sufficient to explain the direction or ‘purpose’ of evolution? Can the human race be included within the “rules” of Darwin's evolutionary theory?

The purpose of this essay is to develop and represent a new conceptual framework. Through this, it will be possible to offer a principle answer to all four questions.     

Beyond the Sociobiological Dilemma: Social Emotions and the Evolution of Morality

Is morality biologically altruistic? Does it imply a disadvantage in the struggle for existence? A positive answer puts morality at odds with natural selection, unless natural selection operates at the level of groups. In this case, a trait that is good for groups though bad (reproductively) for individuals can evolve. Sociobiologists reject group selection and have adopted one of two horns of a dilemma. Either morality is based on an egoistic calculus, compatible with natural selection; or morality continues tied to psychological and biological altruism but not as a product of natural selection. The dilemma denies a third possibility—that psychological altruism evolves as a biologically selfish trait. I discuss the classical treatments of the paradox by Charles Darwin ([1871] 1989) and Robert Trivers (1971), focusing on the role they attribute to social emotions. The upshot is that both Darwin and Trivers sketch a natural‐selection process relying on innate emotional mechanisms that render morality adaptive for individuals as well as for groups. I give additional reasons for viewing it as a form of natural, instead of only cultural, selection.     

Getting started: Charles Darwin's early steps toward a creative life in science

Charles Darwin's original and important contributions to science resulted from commitment, persistence, and hard work throughout his adult life. How, when, and where Darwin developed these prerequisites for creative thinking is the focus of this paper. Using a cognitive case study approach to examine the rich record of Darwin's life and work indicates that the 1 &frac; years he spent in Edinburgh as a medical student when he was 16–18 years old was the major turning point in his transformation from a hobbyist into a scientist. Darwin first found hisvoice in science in Edinburgh during late adolescence.     

Woman as Metaphor1

Women's activities and relations to men are persistent metaphors for man's projects. I query the prominence of these and the lack of equivalent metaphors where men are the metaphoric vehicle for women and women's activities. Women's role as metaphor results from her otherness and her relational and mediational importance in men's lives. Otherness, mediation, and relation characterize the role of metaphor in language and thought. This congruence between metaphor and women makes the metaphor of woman especially potent in man's conceptual economy.     

Gratitude for small and large favors: A behavioral test

The effect of large and small favors on gratitude was tested using a behavioral measure. Participants were 149 undergraduates (120 female, 29 male). Half received raffle tickets for a US$100 prize, and half received tickets for a US$10 prize. Some received tickets from another (fictitious) student, and others received tickets by chance. Participants receiving a favor subsequently distributed more tickets to the other student; participants receiving a more valuable favor also distributed more (ps?<?0.05). Self-reported grateful motivation predicted distribution better than did indebtedness. Grateful motivation mediated the relationship between favor and distribution (p?<?0.05). Results provide validity for a behavioral measure of gratitude, tentatively support favor value as a determinant of gratitude, and further differentiate between gratitude and indebtedness.     

GOD EMBODIED IN,GOD BODYING FORTH THE WORLD: EMERGENCE AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

Abstract. I expand on Philip Clayton's application of emergence—in the context of a metaphysical position he calls emergent monism—to conceiving God's relationship to the world. Like Clayton, I adopt a panentheistic perspective, but in a way that I argue is consistent with classical philosophical theism and its grammatical analysis of Christian discourse about divine transcendence. In order to exploit further the analogical potential of an emergentist account of human mentality and agency, I argue that the standard panentheistic metaphor The world is the body of God should be complemented by the metaphor God is the body of the world.     

Emotional Memory,Metaphor, and Meaning

Advances in neuroscience make it possible to view the construction of meaning as a biological property. Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology in which emotion and memory form a seamless unified system is seen as an attempt to establish psychoanalysis as a neurobiology of meaning. In the unconscious construction of meaning, metaphor plays a salient role; metaphor is the currency of mind. I have suggested that metaphor functions unconsciously as a pattern detector and thus plays a dominant role in the organizing and categorizing of emotional memory. Consideration of the evolution of the limbic system enables us to make a functional distinction between unconscious emotional memory and conscious feelings. These observations should lead to a revision of our current psychoanalytic theory of affects.     

IS ALTRUISM GOOD? EVOLUTION,ETHICS, AND THE HUNGER FOR THEOLOGY

This essay pushes the discussion of biology and altruism in radical directions by highlighting the moral ambiguity of biology itself. The extent to which we draw positive moral implications from animal behavior, and even the extent to which we see positive traits in animals, is shaped by the preconceptions and the purposes one brings to the study. These preconceptions, when examined, involve worldview issues that are all related in one way or another to either a theological position or some nontheistic substitute for an account of ultimate reality. It is arguable that Darwin's own perceptions of nature were colored by the theological and social‐ethical context in which he worked. William Paley's natural theology, together with Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, led many theologians of Darwin's day to conclude that struggle, inequality, suffering, and death are basic features of the natural world and are the result of divine providence. No wonder, then, that Darwin was able to see competition as the major key to natural selection. The moral ambiguity of biology can be pressed further by contrasting contemporary attempts to find altruism in animal behavior with the conclusions reached by Friedrich Nietzsche, partly in response to his reading of Darwin. Nietzsche concluded that the standard, more or less Christian, morality of his day is best labeled “slave morality.” It is created by the weak in order to coerce the strong to provide for them. In this essay I contend that competing views of morality can be adjudicated only by turning to an account of ultimate reality. Whether Nietzsche is right in arguing against the morality of altruism depends on whether God is indeed dead.     

Design and its discontents

The design argument was rebutted by David Hume. He argued that the world and its contents (such as organisms) were not analogous to human artifacts. Hume further suggested that there were equally plausible alternatives to design to explain the organized complexity of the cosmos, such as random processes in multiple universes, or that matter could have inherent properties to self-organize, absent any external crafting. William Paley, writing after Hume, argued that the functional complexity of living beings, however, defied naturalistic explanations. In effect he dared anyone to come up with an alternative to his inference to design, and hence a designer, outside of nature. Charles Darwin explained the apparent design of functional complexity by his theory of natural selection. Asa Gray, however, in essays as well as in correspondence with Darwin argued that natural selection allowed for a type of ‘evolutionary teleology’ in which design at most could be considered the result of universal principles. F.E. Hicks updated Hume by specifically objecting to the use of design arguments by Paley. Hicks argued that the apparent design seen in nature reflected order at a deep level in nature. The design argument was briefly revived by Lawrence Henderson early in the twentieth century but he ultimately concluded that design and teleology were not necessarily mutually entailing and he retracted his design argument in favor of one that he termed ‘natural teleology’. The current claims of ‘intelligent design’ have the same logical problems that have beset previous design arguments. If design is divorced from teleology and its discontents put behind us, then there is a possibility that the latter can have a place in the development of theories to explain the phenomena of emergent complexity.     

Deterministic probability: neither chance nor credence

Some have argued that chance and determinism are compatible in order to account for the objectivity of probabilities in theories that are compatible with determinism, like Classical Statistical Mechanics (CSM) and Evolutionary Theory (ET). Contrarily, some have argued that chance and determinism are incompatible, and so such probabilities are subjective. In this paper, I argue that both of these positions are unsatisfactory. I argue that the probabilities of theories like CSM and ET are not chances, but also that they are not subjective probabilities either. Rather, they are a third type of probability, which I call counterfactual probability. The main distinguishing feature of counterfactual-probability is the role it plays in conveying important counterfactual information in explanations. This distinguishes counterfactual probability from chance as a second concept of objective probability.     

ERNAN MCMULLIN ON CONTINGENCY,COSMIC PURPOSE,AND THE ATEMPORALITY OF THE CREATOR

This article reviews, and offers supportive reflections on, the main points of Ernan McMullin's provocative 1998 article, “Cosmic Purpose and the Contingency of Human Evolution,’’ reprinted in this issue of Zygon. In it he addresses the important science‐theology issue of how the Creator's purpose and intention to assure the emergence of human beings is consonant with the radical contingency of the evolutionary process. After discussing cosmic and biological evolution and critically summarizing recent solutions to this question by Keith Ward, John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, Alvin Plantinga, and others, who presuppose in different ways that God is subject to time, McMullin compellingly argues for the traditional position, that God is unconditioned by time, and this enables God to work purposefully through contingency, randomness, and chance just as easily as through law‐like regularity.     

A SUDDEN SURPRISE OF THE SOUL: THE PASSION OF WONDER IN HOBBES AND DESCARTES

Philosophy begins in wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. However, they did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion is important? What is its role in our thinking except to end as soon as one begins conceptually delimiting its nature? The thinkers Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes both expanded upon earlier brief articulations of wonder in natural, supernatural and practical ways. By means of an historical and philosophical examination of these two early modern thinkers, this article hopes to begin to answer the question: ‘What is wonder?’     

On noticing transparent states: A compatibilist approach to transparency

According to the transparency thesis, some conscious states are transparent or “diaphanous”. This thesis is often believed to be incompatible with an inner-awareness account of phenomenal consciousness. In this article, I reject this incompatibility. Instead, I defend a compatibilist approach to transparency. To date, most attempts to do so require a rejection of strong transparency in favor of weak transparency. In this view, transparent states can be attended to by attending (in the right way) to the presented world: that is, they are merely translucent. Here, I first argue that this understanding of transparency is too weak to qualify as a compatibilist view. Drawing on insights from Franz Brentano, I then describe a middle road between strong and weak transparency. The crucial idea is that, although transparent states cannot be attended to, they can be noticed (under suitable conditions). This view, I submit, allows supporters of inner awareness to commit themselves to a more interesting understanding of transparency—moderate transparency—that preserves the initial intuition underlying the transparency metaphor.     

论达尔文的最佳解释推理

科学研究需要正确的思维方法的指导,而最佳解释推理就是一种重要的思维方法。达尔文运用最佳解释推理论证通过自然选择而进化的理论最为成功,在《物种起源》中,达尔文以解释力、解释的一致性为基础,引用大量事实,充分比较了自然选择理论与上帝的独立创造说或神创论,符合最佳解释推理模型的评价标准。