Coyne on consciousness

Last week I commented on the penultimate chapter in Jerry Coyne’s highly praised (by his fellow Darwinians) Why Evolution if True, which deals with human biological evolution. Then I read the last chapter, dealing with the evolution of human morality. It’s unbelievable. There’s no there there. For example, Coyne blithely admits that genetic evolution does not explain civilized human behavior, he says that genes do not explain human moral choice. How then do we have moral choice? His answer: we can choose how we manifest our genes. But he said earlier in the same chapter that Darwinian evolution conclusively demonstrates that the only reality is material. How then does a strictly naturalistic, material entity exercise moral choice over what its material genes are determining it to do? He doesn’t address the issue. He’s not aware that it’s a problem. Coyne thinks he is presenting this totally satisfactory and conclusive case, but he’s blind to the fact that his argument has fallen apart.

Bottom line: this up-to-date, authoritative account of the truth of Darwinian evolution makes it plain that Darwinian evolutionary science doesn’t have the slightest idea of how human consciousness, human mentality, and human morality came into being.

The Darwinians cannot see themselves, because they are inside a paradigm which tells them they have it all together. The more confident they feel, the more naked they are.

Now I am reading the book from the beginning.

- end of initial entry -

June 1

Brian B. writes:

“Bottom line: this up-to-date, authoritative account of the truth of Darwinian evolution makes it plain that Darwinian evolutionary science doesn’t have the slightest idea of how human consciousness, human mentality, and human morality came into being.”

Don’t forget human origins!

LA replies:

You’re right. I dealt with that in my previous entry on Coyne, which is inked in this one.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 31, 2009 05:57 PM | Send