Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Darwin Day
LISTEN
"Darwin argued that humans are closely related members of a single species with a common ancestry, that all peoples have "savage" origins, that the mental capacities of all races are virtually the same, and that the races blend into one another..."
“As we care about more of humanity, we’re apt to mistake the harms around us for signs of how low the world has sunk rather than how high our standards have risen.”
“To the Enlightenment thinkers the escape from ignorance and superstition showed how mistaken our conventional wisdom could be, and how the methods of science—skepticism, fallibilism, open debate, and empirical testing—are a paradigm of how to achieve reliable knowledge.”
There is a mystery surrounding Darwin: How did this quiet, respectable gentleman, a pillar of his parish, come to embrace one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought? Darwin risked a great deal in publishing his theory of evolution, so something very powerful--a moral fire--must have propelled him. That moral fire, argue authors Desmond and Moore, was a passionate hatred of slavery. They draw on a wealth of fresh manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and even ships' logs to show how Darwin's abolitionism had deep roots in his mother's family and was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle as well as by events in America. Leading apologists for slavery in Darwin's time argued that blacks and whites were separate species, with whites created superior. Darwin believed that the races belonged to the same human family, and slavery was therefore a sin. g'r Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution by Adrian J. Desmond, James R. Moore
Happy Darwin Day https://t.co/3NPIqCzT68— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) February 12, 2020
International Darwin Day will inspire people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin. It will be a day of celebration, activism, and international cooperation for the advancement of science, education, and human well-being.
Local and state governments will close in commemoration of the Day, and organizations and businesses will celebrate by engaging in community outreach centered around science as a tool for the betterment of humanity.
Darwin Day will be observed by the United Nations and its members as an opportunity for international partnerships through the common language of science for the common good of all.
On the Origin of the Celebration
Ever since Charles Darwin published his radically insightful book, On the Origin of Species, Darwin has been the focus of commemorations and tributes by scientists, artists, scholars, and freethinkers throughout the world. From the early gatherings after his death at his own Downe House, to bicentennial events all over the globe, celebrating science and humanity within our various cultures internationally has been a resonant and transcendent pursuit.
In 1909, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, large celebrations honoring Darwin’s contributions to science and humanity were held in Cambridge, New York and New Zealand. The University of Chicago commemorated the 100th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1959 with a series of notable events from November 24 through the 28th. The 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth saw an entire season of BBC programming on Charles Darwin himself as well as evolution and natural selection. Salem State University has successfully held an annual Darwin Festival since 1980. DarwinDay.org"Darwin argued that humans are closely related members of a single species with a common ancestry, that all peoples have "savage" origins, that the mental capacities of all races are virtually the same, and that the races blend into one another..." “As we care about more of humanity, we’re apt to mistake the harms around us for signs of how low the world has sunk rather than how high our standards have risen.”
“The first step toward wisdom is the realization that the laws of the universe don’t care about you. The next is the realization that this does not imply that life is meaningless, because people care about you, and vice versa.”
“The ideals of the Enlightenment are products of human reason, but they always struggle with other strands of human nature: loyalty to tribe, deference to authority, magical thinking, the blaming of misfortune on evildoers.” g'r Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress By Steven Pinker
There is a mystery surrounding Darwin: How did this quiet, respectable gentleman, a pillar of his parish, come to embrace one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought? Darwin risked a great deal in publishing his theory of evolution, so something very powerful--a moral fire--must have propelled him. That moral fire, argue authors Desmond and Moore, was a passionate hatred of slavery. They draw on a wealth of fresh manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and even ships' logs to show how Darwin's abolitionism had deep roots in his mother's family and was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle as well as by events in America. Leading apologists for slavery in Darwin's time argued that blacks and whites were separate species, with whites created superior. Darwin believed that the races belonged to the same human family, and slavery was therefore a sin. g'r Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution by Adrian J. Desmond, James R. MooreReal wisdom
LISTEN
(The Hitchhiker's Guide includes an ingenious "proof of the non-existence of God," btw... See below*)Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is “packed with so much good philosophy,” says Yuval Noah Harari. Don’t panic, bring your towel, let improbability drive you, 42 (ask better questions)... But it DOES matter what we do, we DO need to care. https://t.co/TlqGMdyu3u— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) February 12, 2020
...“Sapiens,” while acknowledging that “history teaches us that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialise,” suggests that our species is on the verge of a radical redesign. Thanks to advances in computing, cyborg engineering, and biological engineering, “we may be fast approaching a new singularity, when all the concepts that give meaning to our world—me, you, men, women, love and hate—will become irrelevant.”
Harari, who is slim, soft-spoken, and relentless in his search for an audience, has spent the years since the publication of “Sapiens” in conversations about this cliffhanger. His two subsequent best-sellers—“Homo Deus” (2017) and “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” (2018)—focus on the present and the near future. Harari now defines himself as both a historian and a philosopher. He dwells particularly on the possibility that biometric monitoring, coupled with advanced computing, will give corporations and governments access to more complete data about people—about their desires and liabilities—than people have about themselves. A life under such scrutiny, he said recently, is liable to become “one long, stressing job interview...”
...Hannah Hrabarska read “Sapiens” three or four years ago. She told me that she had previously read widely in history and philosophy, but none of that material had ever “interested me on my core level.” She found “Sapiens” overwhelming, particularly in its passages on prehistory, and in its larger revelation that she was “one of the billions and billions that lived, and didn’t make any impact and didn’t leave any trace.” Upon finishing the book, Hrabarska said, “you kind of relax, don’t feel this pressure anymore—it’s O.K. to be insignificant.” For her, the discovery of “Sapiens” is that “life is big, but only for me.” This knowledge “lets me own my life.”
Reading “Sapiens” had helped her become “more compassionate” toward people around her, although less invested in their opinions. Hrabarska had also spent more time on creative photography projects. She said, “This came from a feeling of ‘O.K., it doesn’t matter that much, I’m just a little human, no one cares.’ ”
Hrabarska has disengaged from politics. “I can choose to be involved, not to be involved,” she said. “No one cares, and I don’t care, too.” ♦
Nope.
"If someone like you doesn't care a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not." Thus spake the truly-sapient Lorax.
Don't panic, but...
*
The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best selling book 'Well That About Wraps It Up For God'.
Monday, February 10, 2020
Joker's "One Bad Day" Monologue
Inspired by Dr. Oliver's confession that he had not seen the latest Joker movie, I decided to bring another voice into our conversation: the Crown Prince of Crime himself! Of course, there's pretty of reasons to disagree with where Joker goes from his declaration that the world truly makes far less sense than we prefer to believe. The termination of his philosophical meandering is too nihilist for my tastes and, obviously, his actions are morally repugnant.
With that said, there is some value in his acknowledgement of just how much the messy reality of our world defies the meaning-making logic we impose on it. This is especially more acute, I think, for atheists because we have no supernatural guarantor of said logic, i.e. God, when things get dicey. I, for instance, stop short of saying what particular instances of human suffering are good for. Many feel like they can speak more confidently about why bad things happen, because the source of this reasoning is divine and therefore ultimate, universal, etc.
Of course, at the end of this clip, Batman reasserts human transcendence, the power of the human spirit to resist being crushed. That we don't have to be products of "one bad day," especially when being so would mean becoming cruel and hateful, is a consoling and inspiring conclusion, I guess.
Here's a Genuis transcript of Joker's monologue, with helpful exposition for those unfamiliar with the story:
https://genius.com/2058591
An interesting question to let hang around as we continue in the course is, in addition to the more general search for meaning, how do atheists handle suffering, evil, and the like? What are the traditions of wisdom for this? We're without many of the tools religionists have so I'm interested in hearing where we go (I've got some ideas; the Stoics are a favorite of mine).
Recommended Reading
Race Matters by Dr. Cornel West is one of the most insightful and constructive analyses of racial inequality that I have ever had the privilege of reading. Given that Dr. West is a Christian, it was a good reminder for me that excellent insight can come from religious thinkers and that ignoring them would be to my own detriment. Below is a link to the book, a summary, and a few reviews.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/643717/race-matters-25th-anniversary-by-cornel-west/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/643717/race-matters-25th-anniversary-by-cornel-west/
Anti-natalism, part 3
The corrective for speciesism is not misanthropic anti-speciesism, is it?
To save the planet, end the human race, professor argues https://t.co/bFwn2GPaxo via @collegefix— The College Fix (@CollegeFix) February 10, 2020
Not joking
Didn't see The Joker, and won't, but Joacquin Phoenix gave a nice speech last night.
Joaquin Phoenix: "That's when we're at our best—when we support each other. Not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption." abcn.ws/2UOQaVZ #Oscars
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