Essay - Week 1

I just started the spring semester on Thursday, but I had a rude awakening today. Being that NJIT is a good 40 miles from my home, I had signed up for two online courses (a networking class and a writing class, both electives), hoping to reduce time spent in a car. Neither of the teachers made an attempt to contact me, so I had to go about trying to get in touch with them. Both of their email addresses listed on the school site were invalid, and the writing professor didn't even have a voicemail! I finally got her "real" email address through the human resources department at the school, and she contacted me today with her site address, and informed me that I had to read three in depth essays, and write a 600 word dissertation on them by THAT EVENING... okay great, well I probably wouldv'e procrastinated anyway. But not only that, but a 600 word essay is due EVERY Friday for the whole semester! But you know what? This is good for me. Since graduating high school, and even before, I have stopped reading almost altogether. I can't even remember the last book I read cover to cover. I need this to get my brain jump started.

Anyway, here is the essay I wrote. To really understand it you have to read the sources first, and the whole topic is really very interesting, but I doubt any of you (with the possible exception of Dean) will actually check these out. I don't expect anybody to read the whole thing, but if you can read as much of it you can stand, and give me your thoughts, I would appreciate it. As I said before, it was supposed to be 600 words (200 words devoted to each essay), but mine turned out to be about 1300 words, and even so, I don't even feel I grazed the surface of what couldv'e been said. (Interesting side note: I counted most of my writing time as service time, and why not? This teacher will be getting a witness from this)

• Charles Darwin - Recapitulation and Conclusion

• John Dewey - The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy

• Stephen Jay Gould - Nonmoral Nature

In Darwin’s remarks in the paper entitled, “Recapitulation and Conclusion,” Darwin attempts to summarize his entire evolutionary theory, and in effect, refute all arguments that had to that point been raised against the evolutionary theory (Darwin 1). He states that only a relatively “few species are undergoing change at any one period; and all changes are slowly effected,” and that the supposed “intermediate” varieties will eventually be totally exterminated, replaced by an alleged “final product” (Darwin 2).

First of all, who is to define what an “intermediate variety” is? Darwin’s case that only a few species at any given time are evolving is merely justification of the obvious fact that there are hundreds of thousands of so-called “intermediate varieties” on the earth presently.

Darwin makes the argument that the bone structure is similar in the hand of a human, the wing of a bat, the fin of the porpoise, and in the leg of the horse (Darwin 8), so according to his theory, could not rightly each of these species be defined as “intermediate,” with each trying to attain to a sort of perfect finality? In reality, each of these species is entirely different. Darwin himself would admit the human is a much more advanced creature than the horse, the porpoise, or the bat (not to mention the only one capable of pondering this very subject). And while these different species may share some characteristics, like bone structure, this doesn’t prove his theory at all. Even humans are known to employ the same fundamental design in an assortment of inventions. Take the arch for instance; it has been used in the design of bridges, tunnels, coliseums, and countless other structures. If anything, Darwin’s mention of the fact that a great many species share similar traits merely glorifies an innovative genius: A Creator.

Darwin repeatedly acknowledges that his theory lacks scientific documentation, yet he justifies this by saying that the geological record “is far more imperfect than most geologists believe” (Darwin 2) and that it is “a poor collection made at hazard and rare intervals” (Darwin 11). Darwin claims that the geologic record is lacking, but really, it appears that he says this simply because geology does not back his porous theory. For example, no fossils of giraffes have been found with short necks, and nobody can make any claims that fossils of any intermediate species have ever been found. The geologic record shows that species remain consistent over eons of time, whereas no transitional phases can be found (Watchtower 65). When he asserts that the geologic record demonstrates that it “cannot be objected that there has not been time sufficient for any amount of organic change” (Darwin 2), he admits to the fact that the geologic record can’t be traced back far enough to even support evolution, because organisms haven’t even existed long enough on this earth to have the time to evolve into all the millions of varieties we see today.

Darwin takes a jab at creation when he marvels at the different varieties of birds, and their different structural makeup, methods of seeking out food, and habits (Darwin 5) because he can’t understand why a God would create so many varieties of a bird. His whole theory really presents a utilitarian view of life, and therefore, Darwin seems to think there is nothing more to life than survival.

John Dewey takes a similar stance when he states that “evolution insults intelligence” (Dewey 2), which is basically saying that the organism “knows” what it is trying to evolve to, and that finality surpasses intelligent thought. On the contrary, how insulting it would be to a skilled carpenter if he were told that his beautiful and well-furnished house was the product of some radical occurrence.

Dewey also says that religion as a whole is a habit; An illogical aberration that people only believe in because it has been so engrained into their way of life (Dewey 5). He paints the religious man as a spineless follower of the masses, and the believer in the evolutionary theory as a bold thinker. I suppose that I can’t blame Dewey for his thoughts on religion, or at least Christianity, because for the most part Christendom as a whole has, through the centuries, presented religious dogma as scientific fact, when in actuality it went directly against what we now knows to be the truth. But that is because Christendom has failed, not Christianity. While the Bible is not a scientific textbook, in no place in the Bible canon is there a single instance of it refuting scientific fact.

Dewey doesn’t claim to know the answers. In truth he claims that no matter what, more questions will be pop up, and so he chooses evolution mainly because the problems that are created are more specific, and easier to grasp (Dewey 4). By making this claim, Dewey undermines the evolutionary theory, by making the choice between evolution and creation a question of preference, not fact.

Stephen Jay Gould doesn’t claim to have the answers either. His conclusion: “Let each man hope and believe what he can,” destroys the theme of his paper, which was supposed to be about how a compassionate God could permit so much senseless brutality in the animal kingdom (Gould 1). While cruelty in the animal world cannot be justified, certainly God does not give man the authority to lord over the animals in a malicious way. In the first chapter of the Bible book of Genesis, verse 28 states that man should “have in subjection…every living creature.” However, nowhere in the Bible is there a condoning of animal abuse. In fact there were Israelite laws that protected animals, and in Luke 13:15 Jesus stated that a Jew should untie his donkey (something that could be considered to be work) even on the Sabbath to let it get a drink.

Using the comparison of “primitive” people to more “civilized” man, Gould tries to make the point that just because an organism has less intelligence, does not mean it suffers less (Gould 5). While physical pain is evident in the animal world, it cannot be measured outside of the human species, simply because animals lack the means to communicate it to humans in a calculable way. And Gould makes a correct statement when he says that “beasts are not moral agents” (Gould 5) because while the Bible holds out the hope of a resurrection to humans, it does not hold out such a hope to animals, because they lack the means to reason. Whereas humans have the means to make informed, intelligent decisions (2 Peter 2:12). At least, unlike Darwin, Gould realizes that there is more to life than survival. Things like love, friendship, the human conscience, and appreciation of beauty, all things which cannot evolve.

Gould is bewildered at the amount of suffering he sees in the world. Sadly, it shouldn’t have been this way. If Adam and Eve had not slipped up in the Garden of Eden, we wouldn’t see such a mess surrounding us, including the brutality we see in the animal world. His so-called “idealized world, where the lion might dwell with the lamb” (Gould 1) is really not as far off the mark as he makes it seem. Right now “the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one”(1 John 5:19) and things will not be entirely right until God wipes away this system of things and ushers in a new order.

(Note: I didn’t have the textbook so I printed these essays off of the Internet. My page numbers may differ from the ones in the textbook)

Bibliography:

Charles Darwin. “Recapitulation and Conclusion”

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Life - How Did it Get Here? New York:

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc., 1985.

John Dewey, “The Influences of Darwin”

Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonmoral Nature