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calypsse's picture

Dennett's Discussion

To my delight most of the discussion we had in class about Dennett's argument on evolution had to do with the questioning of the existance of God. In fact there was a consensus that God was nowhere to be found in Dennett's point of view. At the same time there is the irony that Dennett is so utterly convinced that evolution is right and creationism is wrong that he talks of Darwinism as a dogma, to the point that we felt him more like an evangelist than a scientist. He dismisses any other theory, he does mention a couple more but discards them right away and focuses on Darwin once again.

We also discusses the possibility of conciliating evolution with the idea of a God. There are many lose ends that have no explaination so far, so a comfortable possibility is God. How else can we explain the transition from chaos to a perfect organization. 

Another point covered was the example of a personal experience on evolution. One example was the sexual maturity at a younger age when growing up in different environments, and the mutation of genes needed for survivial as recorder by biology. The XX XY chromosomes, the detriment of the Y chromosome and it's possible change.

The discussion then shifted towards if using miracles/mystery was considered cheating, while reductionism as a simple way to explain things. Apparently we need to question everything beacuse this produces discussion. Although Dennett seems to refuse the questioning of evolution he does have a point that at the moment it is the best theory out there. However if evolutionists close themselves to the idea of a new and radical theory that'll fill the gaps we have in Darwin's theory then they will take the same possition creationist have at the moment, and they will be percieved as ignorant as creationist seem to them.

The last question was the existance of the soul. The idea of no place for soul might seem pessimistic. And the question of why we need a soul was anwsered by Rachel as an evolutionary benefit. Evolution places the weight of responsability on our shoulders where there is no God serving as a judge, we are given more room for mistakes but for progress as well. 

Elisa

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