5 way Mexican Standoff: Dawkins vs Weinstein vs Myers vs Nelson vs.....

I was fascinated by the complex mix of irreconcilable intellectual positions alluded to in this post on Pharyngula, the blog of evangelical atheist PZ Myers. He tells of a debate between uncompromising evolutionary aficionados (and atheists) Dick Dawkins and Bret Weinstein. The big event was convened by Travis Pangburn, himself  a conceited  egotist - at least according to PZ Myers. Myers is also no fan of Dawkins and even less so of Weinstein who is part of the "Dark Web" (or "Dork Web" as Myers calls it). The Dark Web (which includes Jordan Peterson) is a loosely affiliated group of intellectuals who are pressing forward with their evolutionary logic, particularly in evolutionary psychology, and drawing highly politically incorrect and nihilistic conclusions. This nihilism has even led to a figure like Peterson commenting positively on the social advantages of Christian theism, although this falls well short of outright belief.

Myers tells us that Intelligent Design guru Paul Nelson reviewed the debate here. Nelson's take on the event is that Weinstein "out Darwined" Dawkins in as much as Dawkins baulked at following Weinstein in working out the socio-biological 'ethics' of the ruthless adaptionist logic of evolution.  In fact Weinstein suggests that World War II can be explained in adaptionist and selectionist terms. Dawkins was loathe to be lead by Weinstein into this territory because, according to Nelson, that would go against the grain of today's milieu which is sensitive to anything which smacks of the nihilism of political incorrectness. That's ironic because Dawkins himself has clashed with this prevailing milieu. 

Not that I know much about the ramifications of adpationist selectionism, but within the constraints it imposes it is likely that it envelopes a vast range of apparent random/chaotic outcomes which have no rationale in terms of adaptation and selection: To me WWI and WWII look to be of that meaningless ilk. This chaotic meaninglessness gives plenty of room for atheists like Dawkins and Myers to back off from Weinstein's conclusions and claim that something like WWII has nothing to do with evolution but are epiphenomenal to human nature, foibles permitted, but not necessarily promoted, within a Darwinian envelope. This is the permissive 'will' of evolution at work and it is therefore not 'responsible'!

However, among these protagonists I would probably agree with the general drift of Nelson's thoughts: Whether it's down to adaptionist logic or plain randomness and/or chaos, a purely secular picture of the cosmos conjures up a world of utter ruthless indifference to human affairs and one that has no necessary reason to favour morality of any kind no matter how strenuously espoused by atheists with moral sensibilities such as Dawkins and Myers. Weinstein, in pushing through with secularist selectionist logic and drawing very politically incorrect conclusions (even if his adaptionist "rationale" is fallacious), is nevertheless being guided by atheism's dangerous assignation with the nihilist abyss: Evolution, at least in the long term, is not a custodian with human interests at heart as H G Wells book "The Time Machine" makes clear. This is an uncomfortable conclusion for secular humanism: As PZ Myers himself once said, nature doesn't care about us, or for political correctness!