Naturalism and Race

Homework, eh?

No, I actually like this kind of stuff... sick, huh?

Before I would defend evolutionism from the charge it is equivalent morally to racism, you would have to make an argument as to why survival of the fittest (which does not require the social constructs of man and in fact does not require man at all) is the equivalent morally to racism. You have not done so.

Vellum, a little sick, maybe. Welcome to the club.

Good request, Chumly.

What Chumly said. It's not possible to defend against a charge when no charge has been made.

I am learning from you guys

It's just that some people's imagination is much greater than others. We just have to balance statements against reality, common sense and logic. If all three are missing, we know the original proposition has a missing link.

Defend apples against them being morally equivalent to oranges.

Right on, Dok.

There's a confusion in meaning of the word "superior." The word superior in your definition of evolution indicates the fitness of a phenotype in a certain environment, and has nothing to do with any notion of superior in terms of values. Thus, small can be superior in certain cases, and tall can be superior in certain cases.

I do not like any useage of the word "superior" in evolutionary literature. It creates confusion and may seem to imply a teleological basis in evolution, which is false.

I see your point, they are only plausibly "superior" in the context of a specific set of environmental criteria, and only from a survival perspective. They are not plausibly "superior" from the perception of purposeful development (teleology) because there is no purposeful development. Right?

Where is Vellum, did he survive his environmental criteria?

Is anybody familar with the book "the bell curve"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/bell-curve/

The Bell Curve, published in 1994, was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray as a work designed to explain, using empirical statistical analysis, the variations in intelligence in American Society, raise some warnings regarding the consequences of this intelligence gap, and propose national social policy with the goal of mitigating the worst of the consequences attributed to this intelligence gap. Many of the assertions put forth and conclusions reached by the authors are very controversial, ranging from the relationships between low measured intelligence and anti-social behavior, to the observed relationship between low African-American test scores (compared to whites and Asians) and genetic factors in intelligence abilities. The book was released and received with a large public response. In the first several months of its release, 400,000 copies of the book were sold around the world. Several thousand reviews and commentaries have been written in the short time since the book's publication.

No I have not read it but if you scratch my belly my leg will jerk!

I read a sci-fi book a long time ago on this theme.
A new ice-age made only the tropics inhabitable and the "white races" became subservient and beholden to the "black races" in terms of accommodation and employment etc.

Irrespective of whether there are or are not racial differences which have "evolutionary significance" themselves, IMO "prejudice" in the form of "tribalism" is a "natural trait". Sub-manifestations of "tribal prejudice" are variously named "racism", "religion" and "nationalism" and the boundaries are reified by linguistic/semantic convergence within groups. The manifestation of this trait is usually, but not always, inversely proportional to intelligence. By "natural" I mean that the trait seems itself to be "genetic" as evidenced by the behaviour of primates, but whether its transmission has "evolutionary survival value" is an open question.

I think "morality" is a separate issue about "contextual expediency".

I think I agree with you fresco but it will take me awhile to translate your post.

I read it again. Yes, I agree with you.

Not only is "morality" a separate issue, but it's all born of ignorance.

"Survival of the fittest" is a canard, which does not apply to individuals. Those individuals which survive are, by definition, fit--that is how "fitness" is determined. That is simply Spencer's perversion of the complexities of descent from common ancestors with modification. What matters is breeding opportunity, not simple survival. Any individual may survive without reproducing; any individual may survive and reproduce, without producing offspring who will dominate the ecosystem into which they are born--the permutations of the concepts of survival and reproduction are numerous, and can easily describe situations in which descendants of a common ancestor survive within the same ecosystem, as closely related as dogs and wolves, or as distantly related as chimpanzees and humans (the latter of whom are nevertheless very closely related genetically).

So the author of this thread, who attempts to discuss a scientific topic--evolution--in philosophy and debate, just as so many bible-thumpers attempt to discuss it in spirituality and religion, came here with an agenda. The author sets the definitions of terms in advance, thinking to thereby create a situation in which one can only agree with the author's thesis, or be irreparably flawed in the terms of debate.

However, whatever the author stipulates, there is only a single human race--all humans who are sexually mature and do not suffer from an irreparable deficiency can reproduce with all other humans of the opposite gender. Race is only a useful concept in debate when one discusses racism, and needs a context in which to define the racist. In biology, in science, the term "race" when applied to human beings is meaningless.

The term "evolutionism" is a construct of those who have, through their alarmed religious bigotry, opposed a theory of evolution from the outset. It is not a description of a field of scientific study, it is a term intended to imply an ideology. But it is only an ideology in the minds of those who wish to impose their ideology--to wit, theism--upon others and upon the teaching of science. Were there not hysterical theists attempting to destroy any concept of science instruction which includes reference to a theory of evolution, there would be no such thing needing definition as "evolutionism." It only exists in the minds of those who rant about it.

Altogether, a very pathetic effort here.

Re: Naturalism and Race

Can you cite an example of racist reasoning by evolutionary biologists? Something equivalent to the following example of racist reasoning by a creationist judge?


Source

Sorry, I don't see why it's the theory of evolution that needs defense against the charge of racism here.