Evolutionary Biology
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Science is different than philosophy, religion or art because it is presumed an objective discipline, while the others are subjective. Further, science is founded on empirical data that support scientific conclusions, while philosophical, religious or artistic conclusions often require a “leap of faith.” Yet, many notable thinkers like Karl Popper and Paul Feyeraband argue that science is not objective, and that its methods are not superior to any other discipline in discovering the truth. As Popper relates, “The way in which knowledge progresses, and especially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests. They may survive these tests; but they can never be positively justified: they can be established neither as certainly true nor even as probable (in the sense of the probability calculus)” (Popper vii).Thus, the dilemma becomes, if science is prone to human error or ideology and not superior to any other source of discovering truth, how do we determine what is truth and from what discipline(s)? Nowhere can this dilemma be better expressed than if we look at the debating camps of thought regarding evolution. Evolutionary biologists believe in Darwin’s theories of natural selection, survival of th
. . .
to man’s complexity of being, would also answer questions regarding what makes humans human. In other words, evolution should be able to explain our intellectual abilities which do seem to separate us from other animals and life forms. However, evolutionary psychology, a relatively new aspect of thinking believes the mind is an evolved organ that often has left-over instincts that are no longer adaptive in the modern world. For example, some argue that the God-part of the human brain has evolved because less primitive man was unable to accept the existential dilemma. As such, as a protective mechanism, nature evolved the God-part of the brain which makes us believe the source of answers to life’s biggest mysteries are external to us (i.e., the creationist argument regarding God). However, evolutionary psychologists believe the answer is internal, a mental mechanism evolved in us to help us deal with the psychic pain of leading a meaningless existence in a meaningless universe. Those who argue this point of view see man as descended from less primitive forms of life, but they also view the mind as being capable of adapting beyond the mental mechanisms that are part of our biological development but no longer serve a useful fu
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
God Galapagos, David Berlinski, Paul Feyeraband, Thomas Kuhn, Thomas Huxley, Science Science, Protestant God, evolutionary biology, Reason Vol, Whatever God, Evolutionary Biology, natural selection, darwins theories, philosophy religion, source ultimate truth, 2 1998, intellectual abilities, leap faith, 1998 1-2, modern world, 2 1998 1-2, discovering truth,
Approximate Word count = 2010
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
