"(Why biology would care whether we propagate the species is never explained.)"

I don't understand why we should concern ourselves with the metaphysical question about whether biology "cares"?

I understand humans care very much indeed, of course.
Jody Tresidder | 11.30.07 - 8:07 am | #

More to the point, biology "cares" because of inheritence and mathematics. Only the biology of those who reproduce sticks around.
Tapetum | Homepage | 11.30.07 - 9:01 am | #

Sex (should be) a fruit of love. It is the place my wife and I should find the connection between our soul and bodies. The eternal and the moral. It is the place our marriage moves from a temporary and transient (until death do us part) to something eternal (our children). It is the fruit of our love.
Matthew S | Homepage | 11.30.07 - 9:46 am | #

From Jody:
"I don't understand why we should concern ourselves with the metaphysical question about whether biology "cares"?"

Why don't you care about the metaphysical question? If we hope to persuade young people to embrace chastity, the first thing we must do is convince them that they have a higher purpose than rutting around like animals!

The need for "propagation of the species" is an a priori assumption in the Darwinian theory of evolution.

What Dawn does in these few words is to tickle those who are philosophically astute. Yes, biological science has indeed noticed that species which reproduce well tend to survive. But materialist science cannot answer questions like "Why are we alive at all? What compelled that first lump of dead matter to reproduce? Where did all that matter come from in the first place?"

In the first paragraph, Dawn hints that biology might not have all of the answers.

In Dawn's next paragraph, she develops this idea. Dawn appeals to our common sense awareness that something else is going on here... something larger than science can explain.

Metaphysics matter!
Del | 11.30.07 - 9:52 am | #

""(Why biology would care whether we propagate the species is never explained.)"

I don't understand why we should concern ourselves with the metaphysical question about whether biology "cares"?

I understand humans care very much indeed, of course."

Because biology doesn't care. Rather, in the larger scheme of things, pure matter, really doesn't care. The physical universe doesn't profit a bit by having us around, or anything else around. If a meteor smashed into the planet tomorrow, and killed us all, it doesn't matter to Jupiter or Saturn, or the vast unnamed stars.

That's why the biological questions necessarily raises the metaphysical one. The biological assumption is that, through nature, all life strives to recreate itself through some natural desire to do so. But why? There's no advantage to life, in and of itself, to propagate itself, if that's all the more there is to it.

Indeed, there's not even any advantage to our species to do so, or any other species, as if that's all there is to it, we're better off not having that strong desire, and just whooping it up with the resources on hand while we're around.
Yeoman | 11.30.07 - 10:30 am | #

Question: What is sex for?
Answer: Read Song of Solomon

That is all.
Joe Louthan | Homepage | 11.30.07 - 11:27 am | #

"Why don't you care about the metaphysical question? "

I do care.
I agree the question should be asked - just not asked of biology.

The only meaning of reproduction is to continue reproduction.

And it is precisely because biology doesn't "care" that we ought to ask these questions of each other.
Jody Tresidder | 11.30.07 - 12:10 pm | #

Jody -- my apologies! It is apparent that you understand the importance of the question... you are simply pointing out that we should not anthropomorphize (ha! - big word for "apply human characterisitics to a non-human thing) biological science.

I missed the irony in your comment.

I admire Dawn's economy of phrase. She points out the weakness of materialist metaphysics without using any of the "big words." Chesterton would be proud!
Del | 11.30.07 - 12:22 pm | #

By the way, I've only been paraphrasing Tennyson - I think -about science not having all the answers to the questions we wish answered, so I'm not trying to be snippy - or radical!
Jody Tresidder | 11.30.07 - 12:24 pm | #

Del,
Your apology was charming - and totally unnecessary. You picked up the point I was clearly making clumsily. (Should have left it to Tennyson!)
Jody Tresidder | 11.30.07 - 12:26 pm | #

It is not that all life wants to propagate itself, but that only life that does so will stay around, and therefore those life-forms with a strong reproductive instinct are selected for ("survival of the fittest", commonly interpreted as referring to physical fitness, more properly refers to reproductive fitness; even the most magnificently-muscled lion is an evolutionary dead end if it leaves no offspring).
It is only reasonable to state "sex is for reproduction" for animals (most animals, anyway) other than humans, who mate entirely for that reason (however they are prompted to), whereas most instances of human sex are, by the nature of human biology, incapable of producing conception. It is nearly as accurate to define humans as the animal that has sex for fun as it is to define humans as the animal with the large brain that walks upright.
Ledasmom | 12.01.07 - 7:40 pm | #

Ledasmom,

The human animal has sex because it desires it. Nature creates a sexual urge and the human acts upon it (or perhaps decides not to). The rest of the animal kingdom also has sex because of a sexual urge. The animal desires sex. The difference is that man is capable of saying no to the sexual urge while the animal is not.
Patrick T | 12.04.07 - 11:16 am | #