Trendsetters of the early 21st Century wil be remembered with disdain

I WOULD like to apologize to John Catt (Fossil sequence of evolution is not unreliable Echo June 7), for closing with Bryan Appleyard’s particular sentence.

Although Bryan was right in highlighting of the uniqueness of Man’s nature, beyond mere biological bricks and mortar, shared with other creatures, the word ‘consciousness’ was too simplistic. My choice did not do his book justice.

Perhaps someone else could provide more depth. “A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future actions or motives, and of approving or disapproving of them. We have no reason to suppose that any of the lower animals have this capacity. (Charles Darwin The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Reprint: Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 88-89.)

I make no apology however, for the age of the material in my letters. Foundational concepts are timeless.

The trendsetters of the early 21st Century will be disdainfully remembered for their preference of fashion over function, and style over substance.

Professor Mary Midgley is a prolific writer on our subject. “Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory.” (In Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Beliefs, edited by John Durant, Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1985.) Neither has she any faith in the supposed engine of evolution. “The idea of natural selection, which, as we shall see, is usually called in to account for this vast creative surge, is already looking increasingly inadequate to explain evolution. The main trouble is, I think, best explained in the analogy of coffee. Natural selection is only a filter, and filters do not provide the taste of coffee that pours through them. Similarly, the range of evolutionary alternatives between which selection takes place has to be already in matter. How it comes to be present there is the real mystery about creation. (Are You an Illusion? Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014). Keeping it simple: “Natural Selection can explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest”. (Jacob Gould Schurman, The Ethical Import of Darwinism (1887).)

Wikipedia says of another faith. “Scientism is a term used to describe the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or the most valuable part of human learning—to the exclusion of other viewpoints.”

Professor Midgley says; “Scientism exalts the idea of science on its own, causing people to become fixated on the assumptions that seemed scientific to them during their formative years. This prevents them from seeing contrary facts, however glaring they may be, that have been noticed more lately.”(Are You an Illusion? 2014). A scientific analysis of a book can tell you all about the wood-fibre in the paper, and the chemicals in the ink. But appreciating the story it tells however, and the motives of the author (fiction, non-fiction, parable or satire), is not in the scientists’ jobdescription.

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