The Link Between Intelligence and a Moral Sense By M. Bassett Having laid forth his evidence about the structural similarity between men and animals, pointing to a common ancestor, Darwin had another problem to address in his book The Descent of Man. He recognized that the moral sense of man is probably the most important distinguishing feature between him and an animal, which is a fact that could pose a stumbling block to his theory. What is a moral sense? Where does it come from? Can animals evolve into moral beings through evolution, the way men supposedly did? Modern scientists also ask similar questions. Seeing emotions and actions of cooperation, empathy, and a sense of justice1 in the actions of animals, they debate: do animals have a moral sense, or not? Are they developing a moral sense the way we did? Or is it just a social instinct that comes from living in a group? Perhaps these emotions and actions in higher-intelligence animals are evidence of a lesser moral sense, or per...
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The Problem of Darwinian Correlation by J. Rogers Darwin work, The Descent of Man, first published in 1871, is Darwin’s attempt to demonstrate that his evolutionary theory is the logical explanation for the existence of man by drawing connections between species of animals and humans. Early in the work Darwin presents two figures that at first glance seem nearly identical, however one is of a human embryo and the other of a dog embryo.1 Darwin then states that this correlation represents the fact that humans and dogs and all lifeforms come from a common ancestor. This reasoning is wrong. Thomas Henry Huxley, one of the few people Darwin spoke to about his ideas before having published them, explains the fetal development as so, “[I]t is very long before the body of the young human being can be readily discriminated from that of the young puppy; but, at a tolerably early period, the two become distinguishable by the different form of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois. The...
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Darwin’s problem By A. Nounna Darwin had a problem with explaining how humans could have evolved from a lesser evolved form, which is missing in the fossil record and which he had no demonstration of, and still have ended up with the mental capacity and intellect that they present with today. Darwin articulated his problem by saying that the intellectual progression that he saw within animal species had no particular logical connections with humans are they are today, seeing that some animals possessed some of the faculties that humans present with, but not all of these traits were present within one being, except within humans. Further, humans present with the full spectrum of intellectual capacity and yet their closest comparison is monkeys or apes. So, how did humans end up with all of these in one body? Darwin does have a problem with this, but says he is going to disprove that this is an issue to his theory, or in fact a valid issue at all. He begins by saying: “My object [in this...
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Unnatural Selection By A. Johnson Charles Darwin changed the way people thought about God, the world, and themselves. He published his groundbreaking work The Origin of Species in November 1859. Darwin wrote in his pivotal work: “Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.” (Darwin 2008, #62) Darwin believed that the environment chooses the fittest species to survive and that man cannot be involved in this process. In his later writings, Darwin observes man’s interference with natural selection. However, his solution to this interference goes beyond the scope of natural selection. Darwin contradicts himself: he believed in unnatural methods of achieving a society based on natural selection. Darwin’s theory of evolution relied on two pillars; universal common ancestry and natural selection. Darwin’s second pillar claims that all org...
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“ON THE INTELLIGENT ORIGIN OF LIFE” By A. Nielsen Darwin’s secular theory of evolution contains an exclusive focus on what is already living, and discounts any of his peers' attempts to add the possibility of Intelligent Design. In his attempt to explain how man became the superior species on Earth, Darwin didn’t include the origin of life in his theory of evolution, saying that science didn’t yet have enough to theorize on the answer. 1 He sought to explain the world through purely scientific and secular means, though he grew up religious. While it is entirely feasible that God uses natural processes to build and maintain the world, if he were to use evolution as his chosen method – why did it stop? Assuming mankind came about because we evolved into a superior species; why wouldn’t we continue letting mankind evolve from lower forms instead of resorting to sexual reproduction as the only way to perpetuate mankind’s existence on Earth? Aristotle says that the multiple causes invo...