Thursday, September 15, 2011

Evolution as ideology?

There are no life-or-death consequences to denying evolution or global warming by individuals.  Your worldview may help you orient your life, comfort or intimidate you, or whatever.  But (in our country, at least) you don't go to jail for being stupid, for not accepting the truth of evolution (or for being too zealously deterministic about how evolution works).

Society may gain if people adhere to some coherent ideology, even if it's contrary to facts that are already known.  After all, society functioned up until 200 years or so ago, without any knowledge of evolution in the modern sense.  The Greeks did perfectly well before Christ was born, and the Christian world did perfectly well before Mohammed or Joseph Smith came along to claim to provide correctives.

Of course, 'perfectly well' means society functioned.   They had awful murder and mayhem, disease and unfairness and dishonor, as well as good things in life.  But there's no evidence that society does better with one ideology than another--on a general level.

Even in a purely religious state, that denies evolution of species, health care research on the 'evolution' of antibiotic resistance can go on, and so on.  Things might be a bit different in regard to global warming, because the future may well depend in various ways on whether we act according to warming warnings or not.  But even if we are climate ostriches, society will adjust to the disruptions and trauma.  We've always had disruptions and trauma.

So, if we're not just being tribal about our own ideology, what is the point of railing against those who don't believe in evolution?  That such is a  benighted way to view the world, even willfully so since the facts are there for anyone to see, shouldn't upset us....unless it's because we fell threatened by that particular tribalism (remembering, for example, witch trials and auto da fe, done in the name of religion).

When one takes a broader anthropological perspective, is railing against evolution any more harmful to people's lives than hating the Yankees?

Of course, for those of us who try, at least, to understand the real world as it actually is, including the fascinating facts of evolution, those beliefs are important to cling to, at least for personal edification.  And if we make our living that way, it's not so different from making a living as a minister....

11 comments:

Holly Dunsworth said...

Hey! I had an eerily similar post in mind for while you're away ... riffing on the benefits (like rooting for the Yankees!) of denying evolution and climate science, etc... and how you can live a perfectly fine life in complete denial of these things.

Ken Weiss said...

Well, as I've written separately to Holly, I inadvertently used her draft thoughts to make this post, thinking they were my own notes!

So, while we may think alike, this was a form of inadvertent plagiarism on my part, that I only realized after the fact.

Maybe Holly will want to express her thoughts (without my interference!) in another post.

Stuff does happen, but this one shouldn't have....and it was my mistake.

Holly Dunsworth said...

I've been told I should clarify my first comment. There are SOCIAL benefits to denying evolution, like rooting for the Yankees. I can't and don't claim either of those benefits ;).

Texbrit said...

I'm not sure if supporting the Yankees can be justified on any level ;)

Holly Dunsworth said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_%28Star_Trek%29#Mind_melds

Bjørn Østman said...

When one takes a broader anthropological perspective, is railing against evolution any more harmful to people's lives than hating the Yankees?

Railing against evolution is railing against science, as is abundantly clear in American politics. Denying evolution is not at al analogous to hating the Yankees. I dislike many things about evolution and what is has made us, but that is of course besides the point.

James Goetz said...

Well, Holly, Yankees deniers have no negative impact on the Yankees.:)

James Goetz said...

Anyway, I suppose we could argue that Yankees deniers have social benefits in Boston. And could anybody hate Mariano Rivera? Oops, I got off topic. :)

Ken Weiss said...

Our point was different, Bjorn. We think the US is a place of incredible demagoguery these day,s with its formalized denial of knowledge and embracing of ignorance. We don't like that at all.

But our point was different, which is that a human society can exist with any sort of belief system. Believing in evolution might make certain kinds of technical things more likely, but societies have existed for 100,000 years without such an understanding, and they could do so again. It's in that sense that we compared that kind of cretinous belief to liking the Yankees. We don't trivialize willful disbelief in science. But whether someone with even half an education would find that appealing is a totallly different question.

Ken Weiss said...

And, Jim, yes rooting against the Yankees has no effect on them (unfortunately). Lobbying against evolution has an effect (unfortunately). But society, even if unsavory, can function with the Yankees and without evolution (unfortunately).

James Goetz said...

Well, if we are going to look at the broader anthropological perspective, then we need to examine Yankees haters in Texas. :)