Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
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<strong>Atheism</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Theism</strong> 91<br />
This ‘eliminativist’ conclusion is at odds with what is generally supposed<br />
to be the case, including the presuppositions of most working scientists. We<br />
do believe there are living things <strong>and</strong> that they exhibit features additional to<br />
those of matter as that is characterized by physics. The nature of such features<br />
is precisely what the life sciences are concerned to describe <strong>and</strong> underst<strong>and</strong>.<br />
Moreover, nothing in elementary physics forces us to say that this is an<br />
illusion; there is nothing in physics that is incompatible with biology, even<br />
teleology. It is only the philosophical imperative of reductionist materialism<br />
that requires the denial of ontological <strong>and</strong> explanatory irreducibility.<br />
Suppose then that this point is conceded, but it is maintained that the<br />
existence <strong>and</strong> emergence of life do not call for any explanation beyond that<br />
available to naturalism. My objection is now this: if these accounts eschew<br />
eliminativism <strong>and</strong> allow the veridicality of biological characterizations, then<br />
they have to show why descriptions of beneficial teleology are not also<br />
warranted, <strong>and</strong> how the laws of nature operating on inanimate matter could<br />
generate life. The former is so to speak a ‘stopping’ problem, the latter a<br />
‘starting’ one. If the existence of complex living forms is allowed why not<br />
grant what appearances also suggest, namely that these forms exhibit beneficial<br />
order? Why stop with mere life? And if even mere life is granted how<br />
did it start? The latter question is intended as a philosophical one. I am not<br />
asking what the natural mechanism is, but how it is even conceivable that<br />
there could be one. Given that no conjunction of descriptions of purely<br />
physical states together with non-biological laws entails a description of biological<br />
states, any account of these issues is going to be open to a vitalist<br />
interpretation. The advocate of neo-vitalism, in the Aristotelian sense explained<br />
above, can claim that what has been described is the material-causal<br />
substratum of life not something that is of itself sufficient for it. It may be<br />
countered that this is ontologically extravagant, to which I would respond<br />
that it is not superfluous if a materialistic explanation seems incomplete,<br />
<strong>and</strong> that only a non-scientific insistence on reductionism motivates the thesis<br />
that it must be no more than mechanism even where there could be no<br />
deductive explanation of how it is so.<br />
The next stage in the defence of teleology concerns not the origins of<br />
life but its evolutionary history. First, however, let me observe that contrary<br />
to some popular expositions evolutionary biologists do not try to show that<br />
every advantageous characteristic is the direct product of natural selection.<br />
Genetic mutations rarely have single effects, <strong>and</strong> if some of these improve<br />
the reproductivity of breeding populations then while they will tend to be<br />
selected for, other collateral effects may be preserved so long as they are not<br />
seriously disadvantageous. Thus features may emerge that were not themselves<br />
selected, <strong>and</strong> some of these may be good, some indifferent, <strong>and</strong> some<br />
bad – though not so bad as to be fatal. In other words, even within the sphere