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Interesting point by B. Wiker re Darwin and racism

Benjamin Wiker (author of The Darwin Myth) points out (while being interviewed by Ian Maxfield for the Podcast "The Catholic Laboratory") that Darwin's states in his Descent of Man that humanity consists of different races and (adds approvingly) that certain races will eventually wipe out other races (I may have overstated Wiker's own paraphrase).

This is interesting because , first of all, Dawkins fails to mention this in The Greatest Show, as does Pinker in The Blank Slate.

The latter criticizes the feminist rejection of evolutionary psychology, saying that they commit the (so-called) naturalistic fallacy (roughly, basing ought on is), and recommends both that we embrace both evo/psych and promote liberal social and political norms . But if we reject the basing of morals on insights into the way our emotions/values have developed, then what would be the basis upon which we would justify our notions of equality and the like? If Pinker encountered a very well-informed evolutionary psychologist who adhered to opposite political and ethical norms/values, would he be able to give an objective basis for his own position? What would that be? Would it be scientific?

The same problem is there for Dawkins, who at least points out the distinction between how nature works in bringing about gene selection in a population and what motivates an individual to act one way rather than other. This distinction amounts, at least roughly, to a kind of distinction between is and ought. But once he has made this distinction, how is he to judge human actions? On what basis?

What if he discovered a tribe that had been out of touch with the rest of humanity for 60K years (thinking here of Papua New Guinea) . What if this tribe had not evolved cognitive abilities as well as humans? How would he treat them? Why?

, then what Of course, the reply to feminist antipathy and racist affinities toward the confluence of Darwin and ethics is that they are both committing the naturalist fallacy. Granted. But then the burden of proof lies with Dawkins and Pinker to say what is their basis of ethics.

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