Human Nature, another thing the Discovery Institute knows little about!

In a post I read this morning, little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer, one of the more prolific Discovery Institute (DI) talking heads, says something incredibly foolish. Here's his post "Intelligent Design and Human Exceptionalism" and here is the quote:

"Here's an analogy. Let's say you know two very wealthy people. One came by his wealth via a lottery, a blind process, and he sees no purpose or intention behind it. It was the luck of the draw. The other, whether he inherited his wealth or came by it through enterprise, perceives it as a gift motivated by an underlying design. His fortune is not by the luck of the draw. It was given to him on purpose.
Both individuals are exceptionally wealthy. Which is likelier to use his money to advance good causes, to share it with others, to see himself as, in some sense,deputized to put his fortune to noble uses?"

I underlined the two interesting phrases.  My comment to klingy it simple, isn't he making an awfully wild assumption here?  Does someone who wins the lottery required to see no purpose?  Is someone who inherits, or gains though enterprise, going to perceive it as a gift motivated by some underlying design?  Really?

Now I am not yet addressing the purpose of the article, I am focused on his statement.  It's an analogy klingy is using the try and force a square peg, Intelligent Design (ID), into a round hole, Human Exceptionalism.  But just look at his analogy.  His answer to his own question is, of course, the person who inherited or came through his work through enterprise is much more likely to put his fortune to noble uses.  This way he can try and create a relationship between ID, as he characterizes as inherited/enterprising, and evolution, which he characterizes as blind process.

Now here comes the human nature part of the equation that klingy ignores.  Do you agree that someone who inherits money, or comes to it through enterprise, is more likely to put that money to noble purposes?  And do you also agree that a lottery winner would be selfish and not share his money?

See what I mean?  I don't have statistics to support either answer, and I am sure that klingy doesn't either or he would have been spouting them.  He's expressing a point of view as if it's reality in order to spin things the way he wishes.  Think about it, how many spoiled, self-entitled brats have you read about who inherited their fortune?  We have names for them, 'trust fund babies/brats/bums'.  We read about them in the paper all the time.  Rich kids who flout the law because of their entitlement and wealth -- even self-made people who are horrendous examples of human beings.  As tempting as it would be to name a few names, I'm pretty sure you can think of a number of your own examples.  It is a pretty big leap to assume they are more likely to be using their fortune 'to noble uses'.

On the other hand, can you think of lottery winners who donates part, a majority, and even all of their winnings to charity?  That one is easy to Google and you see hundreds of examples.  Some people didn't need the money, others used a small part and donated the rest to avoid the issues that have been popularized by reports in the news and on TV of how 'The Lottery Ruined My Life.".  There were several examples of people donating their entire winnings away to one or more charities!  So, to me, it's an equally big leap to assume someone who won a lottery is more likely to not use that money for anything noble!

One a personal note, I am not wealthy, in the terms of money in the bank.  I have neither won the lottery nor inherited any great wealth.  While it might be interesting to win a lottery and see if it actually ruins my life, regardless, I am a donor to a number of charities.  I donate to charities that have affected myself, my family, and my friends personally.  For example charities related to heart, cancer, MS, diabetes, and Parkinson's diseases.  I also donate to some organizations like Goodwill, Vietnam Vets, Boy and Girl Scouts, Special Olympics and my local PBS/NPR station.

Do I give a sizable percentage of my income?  I'm not sure of the exact amount, but in all honesty, I doubt it.  I would be shocked if I even hit 10%, let alone anything sizable.  But then, I don't have a great deal of disposable income.  Like many people my most sizable expense each month is a mortgage and car payments and they take up a pretty big chunk.  After that its living expenses, like food, utilities, insurance, and retirement.  Followed by savings and a small emergency fund.  While you may or may not agree, I place those things well ahead of any charitable donations.  Does that make me 'noble' in some way?  I never thought of it that way . . . and I still don't.  I know that I don't feel 'deputized', I just behave in the way I was raised, and that included my charitable donations.

It's not based on the source of your money, donating is a personal decision and one I believe is more based on who you are than what you have.  Yes, a wealthy person can give more than I can, but they give not because they got it from a particular source, they give because of who they are!

As for the rest of the article, it's nothing more than another effort to make the idea of human exceptionalism into something more than it is.  It is a belief, most often based on religion (man is made in the image of one deity or another . . .).  Of course klingy tries to use such beliefs as justification for ID.  He also mis-characterizes ID as:

"On the other hand, against a backdrop of intelligent design, which is a scientific not religious argument for purpose behind nature . . ."

His misspelled 'science', when used in conjunction with ID, the correct spelling is 'pseudo-science'.  But then, this is what the DI does, they spin!  How many times have I, and many others have, pointed out examples.  This is clearly another one!  I honestly think they could spin any subject and find a way to make it sound as if it support ID.  Look at how many they have already spun.  As long as the donations come in, the spin will continue to entertain us.

Another Discovery Institute Poll, how did we ever live without them!

Recently the Discovery Institute (DI) has been playing with a new way to make their pronouncements to the world, polling. We discussed this in "A New 'Poll' conducted by the DI says what the DI says, what a surprise!" and "Another poll from the Discovery Institute, oh boy, oh boy!"  If you recall the bottom line of polling like this is to ask questions in a 'certain' way and then slant your various announcements to try and justify your positions based on these polls.

Well, they are doing it again only this time things look even fuzzier.  "New Poll Reveals Evolution's Corrosive Impact on Beliefs about Human Uniqueness"  They don't release the actual poll data, just their own spin on the poll.  Now since I, and anyone with a functioning brain, do not trust anything the DI says, that does make it a little hard to respond.   Apparently only three questions were asked:

• "Evolution shows that no living thing is more important than any other."
• "Evolution shows that human beings are not fundamentally different from other animals."
• "Evolution shows that moral beliefs evolve over time based on their survival value in various times and places."

I'm not terribly concerned with the results, since the DI would only release things that, they contend, support their ideas.  But take a look at the statements.  Talk about misleading!

First a brief discussion on 'human uniqueness', or as it is also known Anthropocentrism, homocentricism, human exceptionalism, or human supremacism.  We like to think ourselves to be special, in some fashion.  This is usually a cultural 'ism' rather than factual.  In many ways humans are unique, but when you examine any other species on this planet you can find things unique about them as well.  I've said before humans like to think we are somehow the pinnacle of development, but put one of us in the room with a hungry tiger and somehow telling the tiger that we are special isn't going to be much help.

So, as a cultural thing, it's nothing more than a belief that we like to see ourselves as somehow above the rest of the organisms on this planet.  Is that true?  Maybe!  In many ways we have certainly had more of an impact on Earth than any other single species.  We harness and use other organisms in ways few others can emulate.  But when it all boils down, we are talking a philosophy rather than a scientific viewpoint.  We even create religions to help us justify our perceived superiority.  Science can tell us what makes us different from other species, but does that automatically mean superior? Here is a conclusion about it that makes the most sense to me (I added the underlining)

"The 2012 documentary The Superior Human? systematically analyzes anthropocentrism and concludes that value is fundamentally an opinion, and since life forms naturally value their own traits, most humans are misled to believe that they are actually more valuable than other species. This natural bias, according to the film, combined with a received sense of comfort and an excuse for exploitation of non-humans cause anthropocentrism to remain in society."(Wikipedia: Anthropocentrism)

So, now back to the polls statements.  The first one: "Evolution shows that no living thing is more important than any other."  Before taking exception, look at the wording: "Evolution shows . . .".  If you understand evolutionary theory you know that this is not quite a true statement.  There is nothing in evolutionary theory that supports human uniqueness. . . because evolutionary theory doesn't address the issue!  Evolution doesn't show anything concerning importance.  It matters not where humans, or any organism, reside on some sort of metaphysical hierarchy, evolution still happens whether you think you are at the top or bottom.  Organisms still continue to evolve. Evolutionary theory doesn't address many things, but Creationists constantly blame many things on Evolution that are not addressed in the theory, such as Abiogenesis and Racism.

How about the second statement "Evolution shows that human beings are not fundamentally different from other animals."  This one is slightly truer!  But it's not Evolution that shows us this, but a host of sciences that show the similarities of humans to other organisms.  Evolution explains why we are so similar, but it's things like comparative anatomy and genetics that demonstrate the differences and similarities.  Whether you want to admit it or not, we are not very different from other animals.  We all have hearts, lungs, nervous systems, circulatory systems, brains . . . the list of similarities is tremendous.  However the DI wants this to be a negative for some reason as you can see from a partial quote from their press release about the 'survey':

" . . . leading scientists and other thinkers have insisted that human beings are just another animal . . ."

Note how they insert the word 'just'.  Is this true?  No!  Leading scientists have said that humans beings are animals, mammals to be more specific.  Does the DI refute this?  No because they know they cannot.  They don't like it, so they use the term 'just'.  I've said this is nothing more than taking a piece of information and turning it into a pejorative.

Think about the phrase 'Catherine is a woman'.  Nice simple and factual.  What you can gain from this sentence is that Catherine . . . a name I picked out of thin air . . . is female and one past the age where you might typically refer to her as a 'girl'.  Now, let's add in the word 'just', as in 'Catherine is just a woman'.  Do you get a very different meaning now?  Of course you do!  Now it's being said to present a woman in a negative light, usually revealing the speaker's prejudices.  That's what the DI did here.  In the survey they say one thing, but in the comments, they twist it to cast it negatively. Humans are animals in every sense of the word, scientists do not say 'just' animals -- that's just (pun intended) the DI's spin.

Now for the third comment: "Evolution shows that moral beliefs evolve over time based on their survival value in various times and places."  Like the others, this is a mix of truth and lies.  Have moral beliefs evolved?  Most certainly!    If you care to, read the Christian Bible and compare the morality of that time to modern times.  Morality has evolved, changed, and not just over time, but have also changed from one place to another.  Look at the moral beliefs in Saudi Arabia as compared to Japan or the United States.  Morality has changed, certainly.  But the real question is why did morals change?  Is it survival or something else?  We could spend decades debating this question, but look what the DI does to it.  They try and tie it to survival of the fittest . . . which is not even how biologists describe evolution.  Here is the partial quote:

" . . .morality evolves based on survival of the fittest . . ."

'Survival of the Fittest' is an archaic way of describing Evolution and one long disused by biologists because it doesn't fit Natural Selection well.  Evolution is not about individual survival but differentiating reproductive success rates.  Here, let me explain it a little better.  Suppose a trait offered an organism a reproductive or survival advantage.  All that means in evolution is that in subsequent generations that trait will become more prevalent in the population.  It doesn't mean organisms without that trait will die off, just that those organisms without that trait will become less numerous within the population.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia about how Creationists . . . and yes the DI are Creationists . . . like to use the phrase 'survival of the fittest':

"Critics of theories of evolution have argued that "survival of the fittest" provides a justification for behavior that undermines moral standards by letting the strong set standards of justice to the detriment of the weak.  However, any use of evolutionary descriptions to set moral standards would be a naturalistic fallacy (or more specifically the is–ought problem), as prescriptive moral statements cannot be derived from purely descriptive premises. " (Wikipedia: Survival of the Fittest)

 As you can see this whole poll is nothing more than the Discovery Institute trying to use some measure of opinion to support their religious ideas.  But then when you can't support it with science, you need something to convince your backers to keep funding you.