Some Scientific Ideas that are Essential to Modern Humanist

by Bill Creasy, Mike O'Mara, and Stuart Hirsch

There are some ideas in science and philosophy that form a basis for modern humanism, so they are essential for an understanding and promotion of humanism. We propose five main ideas:

1) Understanding of the scientific method,

2) Big Bang Cosmology,

3) Evolution,

4) Cultural Evolution,

5) Evolutionary Ethics.

Scientific Method: Humanists agree that we acquire knowledge based on evidence from the real world, as opposed to religious revelation, arguments from authority, or supernatural sources. The evidence must be verifiable or confirmed by multiple sources. Observations become theories by applying reason and logic to the data to form generalizations. These theories are subject to peer review and criticism, and they are subject to revision or rejection based on new observations or experiments.

Big Bang Cosmology is one important scientific theory. Humanists have the same emotional drive to understand our origins as people with other belief systems. However, we don't accept supernatural explanations. The Big Bang Theory is currently the best theory about the origin of the universe, and it has been verified by numerous observations, including the cosmic background radiation and the expansion of the universe. However, this idea about the origin of the universe is not as comforting as a mythological explanation such as Biblical Creation. The Big Bang implies that the universe began long ago, and human beings are a very tiny part of the universe. There is no evidence that the universe arose for our benefit. However, it is a tribute to human reason that a theory that encompases the scale of the entire universe can be formulated and tested.

Evolution is another important scientific theory. It provides a natural explanation for the origins and diversity of life on this planet, and it provides the most reasonable explanation for our existence. It proposes that those individual organisms that are best adapted to survive in their particular environment produce more offspring. Many of the offspring die without reproducing, though, and entire species can even become extinct. This theory is a very elegant and simple explanation for the wide variety of observations about life. It also removes any special status for human beings in nature as distinct from other organisms.

Cultural Evolution is an extension of the principles of evolution to the role of learned behaviors in human adaptation. The key difference between humans and other animals is the ability of humans to learn new behaviors and teach them to our offspring. To understand the development of societies, humanists need to examine the way that cultural behaviors have been passed to new generations. Some societies with unfavorable cultural features can become extinct. It can be observed from history that cultures tend to thrive if they support cooperative behavior and symbiosis between people and groups of people. Cooperation allows more complex and specialized societies to exist. Conflict can be useful for eliminating inefficiency and errors through the competitions of different ideas, but a social organization can be destroyed if conflict becomes dominant over cooperation.

Evolutionary Ethics can be developed by understanding the mechanisms of cultural evolution. A common misunderstanding of evolution is that it is purely competitive. Cooperation is much more important in the development of complex systems, either organisms or societies. We as humanists can arrive at ethical principles that are consistent with natural, evolutionary principles by emphasizing the need for cooperation. For example, societies that have laws or ethical codes that condemn murder, robbery, and rape, and that promote cooperation, are more likely to survive and prosper. As members of society, we should do everything we can to make our society prosper, since that leads to our own increased comfort and security. We should also encourage other individual members of our society (as well as people in other countries, as part of a planetary society) to take actions that will lead to a better society. The ethical codes will evolve over time, though, so they should be based on scientific observations and adaptation, rather than fixed religious or ideological dogma.

It is worth noting that we, as humanists, don't choose these ideas out of personal preference. We choose them because our highest value is truth and understanding about the natural world, and these ideas reflect that truth as best we know it.

This article is based on a presentation at the May 12, 2002, Baltimore Secular Humanist meeting.