The latest New Yorker published an interesting article on the debate between advocates of intelligent design of the universe and the proponents of evolution, specifically those advocating natural selection and the random processes of natural selection. The tone of the piece is, predictably, extremely dismissive of intelligent design but nonetheless tries to present the arguments fairly. I am no expert in this field but I think the arguments the article sets out for intelligent design (if only to try to mock them) were pretty convincing, even in the summary version presented.
The most striking words in the article to me were these :
Organisms aren’t trying to match any "independently given pattern": evolution has no goal, and the history of life isn’t trying to get anywhere.
This has always been my main objection to evolution : not as science, not as a theory, not even as an assault on the biblical text; it is simply an untenable way to live. If this claim above is true then life is, at its root, completely and totally meaningless. In this view, a robbery or suicide is morally the same as feeding your children or helping the poor; life isn't trying to get anywhere so one random act is equivalent to another.
If I believed this to be true, I would have to make up Christianity (or something) just to be able to live. I would have to tell myself a story, make up a myth so I could live through a day or a month or a life. Of course, many are doing just that : telling themselves stories, making up "spirituality" in order to put the meaning back into their life that scientific modernism has stolen. I think this is a part of what "post-modernism" is supposed to be about.
So, if you wish, you can read the entire article here :
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact
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