After a little rant about Francis Collins being made head of the NIH, Myers delivers some standard boilerplate attempting to derive Ought from Is via evolutionary handwaving. Myers declares that he knows right from wrong:<\/p>\n
Not because a god has whispered a rule into my head, but because I know that the successful relationships that build a cooperative network within the framework of my society are all formed on mutual trust, and that is a violation. We test these bonds of mutual support all the time, we rely on them, and we know from history that their loss contributes to social decay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Just as though this explains something. Of course, what this all rests on is the great big Transcendent Ought: Society ought to be preserved. Mutual trust ought to reign. Social decay ought to be discouraged. Why? Because some evolutionary imperative for survival ought to be obeyed. It would be, \u2018ow you say?, \u201cwrong\u201d to ignore it. Why? Because our genes say so.<\/p>\n
Of course, our genes also tell us to have blue eyes and lots of children, but I\u2019ll bet Myers has no problem ignoring that genetic imperative if somebody want to wear brown contacts and practice contraception.<\/p>\n
The whole \u201cevolution tells us to be good and we have a moral obligation to listen to evolution\u201d line of BS is pure rubbish. I can buy the proposition \u201cGod is love and therefore we who are in his image are called to love.\u201d This is coherent, albeit mysterious. But \u201cYou are nothing but molecules and you have a moral obligation to obey your molecules\u201d is nonsense. Still more is the proposition, \u201cWe create our own meaning!\u201d followed by \u201cBut it\u2019s horrible to say that you find meaning in a universe created by God.\u201d If it\u2019s all about creating your own meaning, then what\u2019s the problem with theists who are, by atheist lights, doing exactly what atheists are doing: inventing meaning? One gets the distinct impression that a scam is being pulled.<\/p>\n