The Task Of The Mind Is To

The Traditional View Of Purpose Says It Comes From On High, From God, From The Creator. Darwin's Idea Of Natural Selection Makes People Uncomfortable Because It Reverses The Direction Of Tradition. Whereas People Used To Think Of Meaning Coming From On High And Being Ordained From The Top Down, Now We Have Darwin Saying, "no, All Of This Design Can Happen, All Of This Purpose Can Emerge From The Bottom Up Without Any Direction At All."

The Way Evolution Always Discovers Reasons Is By Retroactive Endorsement.

Cost Is Always An Object - The Second Law Of Thermodynamics Sees To That

Virtually Every Major Technological Advance In The History Of The Human Species- Back To The Invention Of Stone Tools And The Domestication Of Fire Has Been Ethically Ambiguous. If You Want To Reason About Faith, And Offer A Reasoned (and Reason Responsive) Defense Of Faith As An Extra Category Of Belief Worthy Of Special Consideration, I'm Eager To Play. I Certainly Grant The Existence Of The Phenomenon Of Faith; What I Want To See Is A Reasoned Ground For Taking Faith Seriously As A Way Of Getting To The Truth , And Not, Say, Just As A Way People Comfort Themselves And Each Other

Let Me Lay My Cards On The Table. If I Were To Give An Award For The Single Best Idea Anyone Ever Had, I'd Give It To Darwin, Ahead Of Even Newton Or Einstein And Everyone Else. In A Single Stroke, The Idea Of Evolution By Natural Selection Unifies The Realm Of Life, Meaning, And Purpose With The Realm Of Space And Time, Cause And Effect, Mechanism And Physical Law. It Is Not Just A Wonderful Idea. It Is A Dangerous Idea.