Natural science, which deals with universal generalizations, must never be confused with natural history, which deals with particular events.
Think of how legend might tell the story centuries hence if in our time, as in Walter Miller’s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, there had been a nuclear war: “From a scientific point of view, of course, we know there never was a Flame Deluge.”
Including the ethical foundations of politics
No doubt the mechanism of natural selection can explain some things, such as why certain skin colors are more prevalent in climates in which they are adaptive. But to suppose that natural selection can explain everything about human nature is absurd. On this hypothesis, the only genes that are consistently passed on are the ones for traits that help us to pass on our genes. Any genes which don’t should eventually disappear from the genome. But is it really true that all human traits are adaptive in this sense?
Both legislators and judges should consider natural law and justice, but in different ways. Legislators should consider them in order to frame the statutes; judges should consider them in order to understand the statutes.
It always surprises me when social scientific colleagues express the conviction that in principle, human behavior is predictable. They seem to make two assumptions: First, that all human behavior is causally determined, second, that in principle, whatever is causally determined can be predicted.
Brain researchers have found that if a certain part of a person’s brain is electrically stimulated, he may experience a strong feeling of the presence of God.
Therefore (some writers conclude), we don’t think God is present because God is really present, but merely because our brains our brains make us feel that He is.
This is like saying that since my brain can be manipulated to make me hallucinate an imaginary cat, there is no reason to think that I ever see a real cat.
Why do so many religious students lose faith in college? Not because they are getting smarter. In the first place, our schools are not doing very well at making them smarter. In the second place, the phenomenon of loss of faith is peculiar to our own universities. There is no evidence that it was widespread in, say, medieval universities, which were much more demanding intellectually.
Why should free exercise of religion be defended? Not because people can make wrongs right just by thinking that they are right, or because religious folk would like indulgence for private eccentricities, or because they would like exemptions from reasonable demands grounded in the common good.