{"id":1278,"date":"2009-09-29T10:33:38","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T10:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2009-09-29T10:33:38","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T10:33:38","slug":"evil-intentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/evil-intentions\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil intentions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A commentator on Andrew Sullivan&#8217;s blog asks:\u00a0 <em><a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2009\/09\/what-is-evil-for-the-darwinist.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Where is the Darwinian theory of evil?<\/a><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Because\u00a0\u00a0modern biologists this last century or so have been very concerned to avoid teleological arguments, modern biology has still only an impoverished theory of intentionality. \u00a0Living organisms are focused, in the standard evolutionary\u00a0account, on surviving themselves in the here-and-now, apparently going through these daily motions unwittingly to ensure\u00a0 those diaphonous creatures, genes, can achieve THEIR memetic goals. \u00a0Without a\u00a0rich and subtle theory\u00a0of intentionality, I don&#8217;t believe one can explain complex, abstract\u00a0human phenomena such as evil or altruism or art or religion very compellingly.<br \/>\nAsking for a theory of intentions and intentionality does not a creationist one make, despite the vitriol often deployed by supporters of evolution.\u00a0 One non-creationist evolutionary biologist who has long been a critic of this absence of a subtle theory of intentionality in biology is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esf.edu\/EFB\/turner\/turner.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">J. Scott Turner<\/a>, whose theories are derived from homeostasis he has observed in natural ecologies.\u00a0\u00a0 I previously discussed some of his ideas <a href=\"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2009\/01\/of-quacking-ducks-and-homeostasis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<em>References:<\/em><br \/>\nAlfred Gell [1998]:\u00a0 <em>Art and Agency:\u00a0 An Anthropological Theory<\/em>.\u00a0 Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.<br \/>\nJ. Scott Turner [2007]: <em>The Tinkerer\u2019s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself.<\/em> Cambridge, MA, USA:\u00a0 Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A commentator on Andrew Sullivan&#8217;s blog asks:\u00a0 Where is the Darwinian theory of evil?\u00a0\u00a0 Because\u00a0\u00a0modern biologists this last century or so have been very concerned to avoid teleological arguments, modern biology has still only an impoverished theory of intentionality. \u00a0Living organisms are focused, in the standard evolutionary\u00a0account, on surviving themselves in the here-and-now, apparently going [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,71,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-religion","category-science","p1","y2009","m09","d29","h10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}