Michael Medved writes that the idea that Americans have an inherent - even Darwinistic - advantage over other peoples is gaining additional respect in the scientific community as a result of new research. The reason? Immigrants who self-selected themselves have a greater tendency to exhibit risk-taking and inventive skills. Perhaps. But I wonder if we’ve not lost that aspect of ourselves.
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Filed under: Conservatism, Darwinism, Religion — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on May 5, 2007 @ 7:55 am CEST
A very interesting article at the New York Times about conservatism and darwinism.
Evolution has long generated bitter fights between the left and the right about whether God or science better explains the origins of life. But now a dispute has cropped up within conservative circles, not over science, but over political ideology: Does Darwinian theory undermine conservative notions of religion and morality or does it actually support conservative philosophy?
To me it does, to a degree, support conservative ideology. Evolution is a slow, slow process. Where we are today, is because of what our parents decided and did yesterday: the ‘rules’ have come into existence extremely slowly, weak traditions and ideologies have gone away, died out so to speak, and we have kept that which is strong. All of this means that change should only come very slowly: no radical changes.
In essence, of course, this is the case Hayek made: he was not a Christian as far as I am aware, but he did support the morals, customs, traditions, etc. because he realized how they came into existence and that one should be very careful before getting rid of them / changing the customs, morals and traditions in a country.