Conjecture vs. Truth

"Gray is entitled to his gloomy Weltanschauung. But he is wrong to accord it the authority of science. The fallacy is an old one; it is the fallacy of 19th-century materialism. Gray mistakes conjecture for certain truth, heuristic principles for insights into the ultimate nature of reality. Darwin did not "show that humans are like other animals". He - or rather his successors - assumed that human beings are in some respects like other animals, hoping by means of this assumption to reveal their organisation and behaviour, a hypothesis that may yet prove fruitful. But the supposition that humans are like other animals is just that - a supposition. Gray, like so many before him, has surreptitiously elevated it to a metaphysical truth. Science has been transformed into mythology.

The Taoist ideal of spontaneous, animal existence is alluring but ultimately dangerous. Its secret promise is to free us from the irritating constraints of conscience and responsibility. Hence its appeal to Nazis and modern management gurus. Gray's approving summary of Taoist doctrine could also stand as the formula of modern totalitarianism: "The freest human being is not one who acts on reasons he has chosen for himself, but one who never has to choose." (from here)