In Talks Beginning March 1, Duke Professor Examines Darwin's Theories

In a series of lectures beginning Thursday, March 1, Duke University Professor Alexander Rosenberg will argue that Charles Darwin's theories best explain human behavior, culture and morality.

"If you take the scientific world view as the best account of reality, then as a philosopher you have to attach importance to the physical sciences, like chemistry and physics. But these theories have very little implication for ‘life's persistent questions,'" said Rosenberg, the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy and a co-director of the Center for Philosophy of Biology. "The one theory that maximally combines strong confirmation -- great evidence in its favor -- and relevance to human concerns is Darwin's theory."

Rosenberg will speak in the Richard White Lecture Hall on Duke's East Campus at 5:30 p.m. on March 1, 6 and 8. His three talks - -- "Is Darwinism the Only Game in Town?"; "Nature or Nurture, Darwin is Still the Only Game in Town"; and "Naturalism's Nice Nihilism?" -- are all free and open to the public.

Rosenberg's lectures come as part of his being awarded the Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Professorship by the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. The award is given annually to one American philosopher for scholarship and contributions to public understanding of philosophy.

Rosenberg said every human cultural product -- such as the exchange-market or the U.S. Constitution -- can be explained by Darwinian processes.

"The mechanism that creates human social institutions and norms is not our conscious ideas, our beliefs and our desires, our intentions and our plans," he said. "Everything, including human thought, is a matter of blind variation and natural selection, regardless of whether it's a matter of genes or not."

Rosenberg said it is a mistake to confuse the Darwinian theory of morality for Social Darwinism, which argues that the values of whoever wins the struggle for survival are the morally right ones. In fact, he argues, in human evolution, "It turns out might doesn't make right; it turns out cooperation makes right."