A Pointless Argument

There is lots of talk on the web about Ben Stein's film, Expelled (note cunning link to the NCSE's website about it). A great many people have pointed out various flaws in it (not doubt including the one I'm goingto talk about), but here goes anyway.

Expelled goes to great lengths to try to claim that Darwinism led to Nazism. This is a pointless argument for two reasons.

First, Darwinism (or evolution, or whatever you want to call it - modern biology is probably the best name for it, but it doesn't sound as scary) is not a moral theory; it's a description of the world. And, as David Hume pointed out, an is does not imply an ought - you can't get a moral theory from a piece of science. The best you can get is a description of the consequences of a set of actions - not a judgement of those actions. And the knowledge that killing people off would eliminate populations and cultures is at least two and a half millenia older than Darwin.

Second, even if you could derive moral theories from biology, and you didn't like the consequences, so what? It doesn't make the biology wrong; at best it means the universe is a hostile place. Most likely it means your derivation is in error - and see above for a reason why.

As similar as "action and reaction are equal and opposite" and "do as you would be done by" sound, the one is a piece of physics, subject to refutation at any point; the other is a piece of morality, which is arrived at by other means. If the physics were to stop working tomorrow, or an exception were found, the world would be a different place and our actions would have very different consequences - but the morality of those consequences would be unchanged.