There’s much about Daniel’s post that requires further clarification. For instance, what on earth is “basement materialism?”

You don’t hold a court of law for every bacteria in your body that you ruthlessly slaughter when you take antibiotics for an infection.

And you shouldn’t make the nonsequitous leap from simply acknowledging that biology, like any other of the natural sciences, does not make ethical prescriptions, to claiming that we cannot therefore make ethical judgments about the conduct of the Columbine shooters.

Remind me never to hire Barry A as my attorney, for anything.

I’m not sure what you mean.

I find it interesting how you throw out Harris’ complaints by saying that he was “disturbed,” almost like saying that he himself is a fluke to natural selection. Basement materialism and strict Darwinism say that he’s not a fluke, that he’s a natural part of the process and that he simply fulfilled his own imperative.

I’m still not quite following – could you clarify all this a little?

His own “imperative”? What evidence do you have to support this?

I don’t know what “basement materialism” is supposed to be, but the simple fact that science is descriptive rather than prescriptive does not mean that we cannot make judgements about Harris’ behaviour. Did you ever stop to consider the possibility that Homo sapiens evolved the capacity (i.e. insofar as we have working brains and a higher level of intelligence than other creatures) to make reasoned ethical decisions, and that therefore Harris–unless it is shown that he doesn’t have a fully-functioning brain nor is as superior in intelligence to other species than his fellow human beings–is as accountable for his decisions as the rest of us?

I realise that this would blow your attempted Darwinist strawman out of the water, but that shouldn’t rule it out as a possibility.

I’d hope not, and I hope that you don’t either. Why? Because evolution is inextricably bound to *everything*. That excludes *nothing*.

I find it interesting how you throw out Harris’ complaints by saying that he was “disturbed,” almost like saying that he himself is a fluke to natural selection. Basement materialism and strict Darwinism say that he’s not a fluke, that he’s a natural part of the process and that he simply fulfilled his own imperative. Does that mean he did the “right” thing? Well, by deffinition of Darwinism, there is no “right” or “wrong” thing, there is just what happens and what doesn’t happen. If a bear mauls you in the woods, whether because it’s hungry, protecting its young or just because it happens to be a particularly nasty bear, you can’t hold the bear morally accountable and take it to trial in front of an unbiased jury. You don’t hold a court of law for every bacteria in your body that you ruthlessly slaughter when you take antibiotics for an infection. So then why is everybody so concerned about one organism ending the lives of a few other organisms? It’s really not that big a deal in the big scheme of things and whining about it isn’t going to change the fact that people kill people. 93, –DH