I have just read Mary midgleys latest book Are You an Illusion? It is inspiring that a woman in her nineties can be producing books like this full of challenging ideas such as: 1. Nature is abundant and this abundance calls for explanation which is lacking from mechanistic theories. Natural selection cannot explain the productivity and generativity of nature, only the elimination of some of its products. If that generativity does not come from a divine source, then it has to be, in some way, inherent in matter, but if this is the case, then our modern sense of matter as inert has to be abandoned. 2. Many features of animals have no utilitarian function and are a result of selection in the full sense of the word, i.e. subjective choice. Thus the tails of male peacocks and pheasants are an impediment that continues only because it is evident that females fancy them. The selection by a pea hen of a male with a big tail does have an impact on the evolution of the species and this kind of selection has nothing to do with blind, atomistic forces, but is a wholly subjective matter in the emotions of the hen. 3. It is further interesting that not only do peahens fancy them, but we do too. We admire and praise peacock feathers and feathers generally are used as decoration in many human societies. What possible evolutionary use can such a habit have? If feathers really were of evolutionary use to us why have we not developed them ourselves? Taste, however, it seems, sometimes transcends even species barriers. Beauty can be a motivator and it is difficult to see what this can possibly have to do with species survival. Marys point here is that while evolution is a wonderful explanatory principle for many phenomena, it is not capable of explaining everything and the fact that we have one useful tool should not lead us to abandon all others. 4. The term natural selection is a confusion of categories because selection is a subjective act. This is similar to the confusion in the term selfish gene. The idea in it that the subjective element is illusory is not warranted since actual selection does affect the course of things Even reliance upon an analogy with mechanism does not eliminate the subjective element since all machines are made by persons for purposes. If we say something is a mechanism, we implicitly say that it has a purpose or telos. It is not a blind, inanimate process. Thus things are not just results of the past, they are also projects toward a future. We are surrounded by things that have purposes and we ourselves manifestly have purposes. This observation should invite the question whether the whole of which we and they are parts has a purpose and, if so, what does this do to our idea of science? Mary points out that while asserting that nature has no purpose, most materialists still obliquely sneak into their writings many implications of what they think the purpose is and many of the selections of research materials and how they are recorded in supposedly scientific studies clearly have covert purposes grounded in various myths about the nature of reality. 5. The supposedly scientific myth that animals do not have consciousness, subjective purposes, will and emotions is plainly mistaken, as any child can observe. It is therefore an interesting reflection to ask why science has clung to such an obvious fallacy so long. The purpose of such blindness is surely to preserve a justification for exploitation of animals. So is science, sometimes, at least, not really objective at all but simply a rationalisation for wilful blindness? 6. Science has taken on an authoritative, even authoritarian, quasi-religious function in our society, not infrequently invalidating things that are plainly true and advancing myths that have sometimes led us into great trouble, as with the problem of environmental deterioration. Mary is a great supporter of science correctly understood but objects to its elevation into a quasi-religion supposedly implying all kinds of value positions, many of which are dubious. Altogether a very good read.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 08:50:00 +0000
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