Peppered moths
Among creationists, in the past decade or so it has become popular to claim that much of evolution is less than sound science. In order to support that claim, specific points of evolution theory are often distorted, and specific evidence that strongly supports the theory are questioned and denied.
In a famous hoax, Jonathan Wells wrote a book, Icons of Evolution, in which he claimed ten popular stories about evolution were false.
Wells spent a chapter denying the work of H. B. Kettlewell — the famous peppered moth research, in which Kettlewell discovered a classic case of natural selection at work over a 150-year period in England. When air pollution darkened the bark of trees, peppered moths in industrialized areas with the darkened trunks, also darkened. Kettlewell ran several experiments to see whether predation by birds might be a driver of this selection event, and concluded that the lighter moths stood out on darkened tree bark, and that it was likely that predation by birds or other moth predators pushed the rise of the darker moths.
Kettlewell’s conclusions were spectacularly borne out when cleaner air lightened the trunks of the trees, and lighter moths reappeared. The selective pressure ran back toward lighter moths.
Kettlewell’s research was groundbreaking in its pioneering of new ways to study evolution in the wild. But because he was at the cutting edge, questions arose about the exact nature of his conclusions. Kettlewell tried several different methods to count moth predation, finally settling on a system of release and recapture, and counting the moths that were not recaptured as casualties to the predator. Kettlewell released moths in the presence of English titmice, who promptly found moths colored wrongly to hide, and ate them. Tits are not the chief predators of these moths, some argue, and critics wondered whether Kettlewell could accurately conclude what the predator was. Ultimately, it has become clear that Kettlewell’s conclusions are accurate regardless the predator. Scientists like Majerus and Jerry Coyne — fierce rivals now, showing the unanimity of science support for Kettlewell’s conclusions across the spectrum of science views — urge more research to refine what we know about the moths.
Critics claimed some of the steps in some of the experiments as faulty, and extrapolated that the entire conclusions are faulty. In reality, because Kettlewell got similar results with different methods, his conclusions are more robust.
When I took Wells’ chapter on moths and tracked down the citations, I discovered that each person he cited disputed Wells’ conclusions — some quite violently.
Over the past decade, while Wells and the Discovery Institute have continued their assault on science, some of the refutations of his work have fallen by the wayside.
In this page, I hope to preserve the arguments showing Wells’ work’s problems, and preserve some of the publications that have become difficult to find.
Creationism controversy in Pratt, Kansas
In 1999 the school board in Pratt, Kansas, considered biology curriculum and book changes. In what now appears to be practice for future fights, the Discovery Institute of Seattle, Washington, descended on Pratt with Jonathan Wells and others , urging the school board to dilute evolution in the curriculum or eliminate it, and using a variety of unusual arguments on the science to buttress their claims that the science of evolution was somehow in question.
Specifically, Wells introduced his claims on Kettlewell’s work. When they heard of the incident, some researchers scrambled to present the view of science. Bruce Grant of William and Mary College, and Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, wrote letters to the local newspaper, The Pratt Tribune, defending Kettlewell’s work and questioning Wells’ tactics and conclusions. Evolution is solid science, they said, and should be taught undiluted to students.
These letters were available on the internet at the time, but have recently become difficult to find. I reproduce them here:
Dr. Jerry Coyne is professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago.
The Pratt Tribune, December 06, 2000
Original:
http://www.pratttribune.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2000/December/06-663-news91.txt Accessed in 2003Jerry A. Coyne: Criticism of moth study no challenge to evolution
I have learned that the Pratt school board, apparently responding to creationist pressure, has recently revised its tenth-grade biology curriculum to include material that encourages students to question the theory of evolution. In reading the standards, I see that one of my articles - an article constantly misrepresented by creationists - is included as a supplementary reading used to cast doubt on evolution.
Except for a few creationist dissenters, the community of professional biologists has long accepted evolution as an essential theory supported by innumerable pieces of evidence. To make students think otherwise is as harmful as urging them to question the value of antibiotics because there are a few people who believe in spiritual healing.
My article appended to the Pratt standards is a re-evaluation of a classic evolutionary story in which rapid changes in the proportions of color forms of peppered moths occurred in only about 100 years. This evolutionary change is thought to be a response to air pollution, changes in the colors of trees, and increased bird predation. My only problem with the peppered-moth story is that I am not certain whether scientists have identified the precise agent causing the natural selection and evolutionary change. It may well be bird predators, but the experiments leave room for doubt.
Creationists such as Jonathan Wells claim that my criticism of these experiments casts strong doubt on Darwinism. But this characterization is false. All of us in the peppered moth debate agree that the moth story is a sound example of evolution produced by natural selection. My call for additional research on the moths has been wrongly characterized by creationists as revealing some fatal flaw in the theory of evolution.
In reality, the debate over what causes natural selection on moths is absolutely normal in our field. It is not uncommon for scientists to reexamine previous work and find it incomplete, or even wrong. This is the normal self-correcting mechanism of science. Textbook examples may be altered as additional data are found. Creationists, on the other hand, neither air their disagreements in public or admit that they were wrong. This is because their goal is not to achieve scientific truth, but to expel evolution from the public schools.
It is a classic creationist tactic (as exemplified in Wells’ book, “Icons of Evolution”) to assert that healthy scientific debate is really a sign that evolutionists are either committing fraud or buttressing a crumbling theory. In reality, evolution and natural selection are alive and well, with new supporting evidence arriving daily.
I strongly object to the use of my article by the Pratt school board to cast doubt on Darwinism. And I feel sorry for the students who are being misled by creationists into doubting one of the most vigorous and well-supported theories in biology.
Jerry A. Coyne
Professor of Ecology & Evolution
The University of Chicago
Dr. Bruce Grant was professor of biology at William and Mary University, now emeritus.
The Pratt Tribune, December 13, 2000
Original:
http://www.pratttribune.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2000/December/13-653-news92.txt
Accessed 2003Bruce Grant: Charges of fraud misleading
In recent weeks your newspaper has printed letters debating revisions in high school biology curricula. Some of the correspondents have leveled charges of fraud directed at evolutionists for attributing changes in the colors of peppered moths to natural selection. As I am one of the evolutionary biologists who study peppered moths, I feel obliged to comment. Charges of fraud cannot be left unchallenged.
Some background about peppered moths is necessary. The common form of this moth species is pale gray. About 150 years ago, a black specimen was discovered near an industrial city in England. Over the years, the black (melanic) form became ever more common as the pale form became rare. By 1900 the black form exceeded 90 percent in peppered moth populations throughout the industrialized regions of England. The phenomenon was dubbed industrial melanism.
Because people knew that birds eat insects, scientists as early as 1896 suspected that birds were eating the different color forms of peppered moths selectively based on their degree of conspicuousness in habitats variously blackened by industrial soot. Extensive experimental work supports this view, although questions remain. Other scientists proposed that moths responded to the presence of pollutants by developing darker body colors. We now know from genetic analysis that the colors of adult peppered moths are determined by genes; thus, the changes in the percentages of pale to black moths over generations reflect changes in the genetic makeup of moth populations.
As industrial practices have changed in many regions, we have observed black moths plummet from 90 percent to 10 percent in the just the past few decades. Once again, we have observed significant genetic changes occur in moth populations. Evolution is defined at the operational level as genetic change over time, so this is evolution. Of the several factors known to produce evolutionary change, only natural selection is consistent with the patterns of the changes we see occurring in moth populations. Evolution examined at this level is as well established as any fact in science.
We still have work to do. We do not all agree about the relative roles of contributing factors, such as the flow of genes between moth populations in different regions, the importance of lichens on trees, where on trees moths might hide from predators, how important is differential predation, and so on. As in any branch of science, participants endlessly debate interpretations. Such wrangling is the norm, and it stimulates additional research. That is how we make progress.
Our debates have never been secret. For recent overviews of the controversies, please see http://www.wm.edu/biology/melanism.pdf [now at http://bsgran.people.wm.edu/melanism.pdf] or www.els.net/elsonline/html/A0001788.html [ now http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/emrw/9780470015902/els/article/a0001788/current/abstract, subscription required]. Yet, unwarranted charges of fraud, fakery and cover-ups repeatedly appear in letters printed in newspapers. In your paper, Ms. Katrina Rider “asserts” the peppered moth story is a hoax. She conveys the impression that dead moths were glued to trees as part of a conspiracy of deception. She seems unaware that moths were glued to trees in an experiment to assess the effect of the density (numbers) of moths on the foraging practices of birds. Taken out of the context of the purpose of the experiment, the procedure does sound ludicrous.
But, should we blame Ms. Rider for her outrage upon learning that moths were glued to trees? No. Instead, I blame Dr. Jonathan Wells, who wrote the article she cites as her source of information. While he has done no work on industrial melanism, he has written opinion about the work. To one outside the field, he passes as a scholar, complete with Ph.D. Unfortunately, Dr. Wells is intellectually dishonest. When I first encountered his attempts at journalism, I thought he might be a woefully deficient scholar because his critiques about peppered moth research were full of errors, but soon it became clear that he was intentionally distorting the literature in my field. He lavishly dresses his essays in quotations from experts (including some from me) which are generally taken out of context, and he systematically omits relevant details to make our conclusions seem ill founded, flawed, or fraudulent. Why does he do this? Is his goal to correct science through constructive criticism, or does he a have a different agenda? He never mentions creationism in any form. To be sure, he sticks to the scientific literature, but he misrepresents it. Perhaps it might be kinder to suggest that Wells is simply incompetent, but I think his errors are by intelligent design.
Bruce Grant
Professor of Biology
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia
February 26, 2008 at 3:07 pm
VARIATION WITHIN A SPECIES IS NOT EVOLUTION!!!!
April 8, 2008 at 11:00 am
YES IT IS!
April 8, 2008 at 12:30 pm
The story of peppered moths shows natural selection in action on variation. That’s what makes populations evolved.
April 8, 2008 at 1:45 pm
And yet…it’s still a moth. Perhaps an “ignorant” thing to say, but even if moths of one color survive over another, it leaves us with reverse evolution. As species are refined and adapt, it leaves us with less information with each passing generation, not more/new. This isn’t an example of anything new, but rather something old would be lost (if the light color moths had gone extinct).
If this is all natural selection is, then I doubt you’d see many creationists having problems with it. Different color pigmentation isn’t evolution, it’s observable science(which evolution is not). If it were simply a process of evolution, then Hitler would have merely been trying to practice “survival of the fittest” which is dubtted “ok” by evolution for animals, but not ok for the “human animal.” Slave traders of Europe and America would have merely been exercizing “natural selection” because those with white pigmentation were excercizing of their dominance over a “lesser” race (which we know now is mereley a different skin pigmentation and minor variations on a theme-something to be celebrated as a gift of God, not resulting in racism, but in union).
What creationists have a problem with is claiming all species came from the same ancestor, not diversification within a species.
Regarding Wells, I make no defense for him. If he did right, then good for him. If he did wrong, then shame on him.
By the way, Ed, did you check out the RATE project yet at ICR?
April 8, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Assuming that the variation in the genes dies off, yes, there may be less variety. You’re assuming, however, that the change in color eliminates one chunk of genetic data, and that’s rarely so. Generally it would be a dominant vs. recessive gene thing — which is how it worked for a long time with the peppered moths, if I understand it correctly, until the natural selection took off and selected one variant over the other. Creationists cannot explain how the dark variant arose; evolution explains it very nicely. Creationism has difficulty explaining why the dark variant became the variant selected against in later times, while evolution theory again predicts exactly what happened. Frequently such variation is the result of a new genetic sequence that suppresses the old, so the old genes are there all along. For example, a modest change in the development of chickens turns their feathers back into the scales they left behind when they stepped away from their reptilian heritage. No reduction in genetic information at all, but instead an increase.
Darwin’s point was that this amazing variation will be directed to speciation; and then the new populations will develop even more variation of their own. In the end, evolution trends away from the door of the bar in the drunkard’s walk, and does not stick to the wall. This misunderstanding of statistics is a plague on creationist understanding of variation, and not at all a limitation on variation in the real world.
The peppered moths story is one of natural selection in action. Evolution? Well, it’s the mechanism of evolution under a microscope. Creationists most certainly do have difficulty with it, which is why they invent fantastic lies about the story, the researchers, and the genetic mechanisms, such as the whopper-on-whopper version Jonathan Wells relates in his book.
Hitler was practicing murder. That’s not survival of the fittest by any definition. Again, creationist misunderstanding of how evolution works, allowing them to confuse murder with natural selection, hampers our understanding of genocide, natural selection, and ultimately, it explains why so many creationists (like Hitler) went along with the scheme. Hitler was interfering with natural selection, trying to push it a different way, if you must put in on that scale. However, Hitler used the Biblical definition of heritage, and believed, as the Bible says, that heritage passes in the blood, not genes. This is why he refused to allow blood banks.
Slave traders well understood artificial selection.
The moral difficulties with natural selection attach even with animals, and plants. Artificial selection does tend to limit genetic variation, which is a benefit when diseases and other selection events sweep through populations.
If you want a contest that’s based on natural selection, let’s put white Europeans down in the Australian outback, with the tools the aboriginals there use, and see which group does best. As Darwin noted, Europeans are not fit to go without clothes in the bright sun. Nor are Europeans fit to go without clothes in the cold, as the Tierra del Fuegians did (and may do, still — I don’t know). In a head-to-head competition using natural selection and not guns or other forms of artificial selection, Europeans are in trouble. Hitler’s moustache would not protect him from drought in Australia, nor from ice in Tierra del Fuego.
Slavery is not natural selection. Racism is not natural selection. Especially, murder and oppression of one’s own species are not natural selection. They may be endorsed by scripture, but that does not make it Darwin’s problem by any stretch. Darwin himself opposed slavery long before most Christians came around.
Creationists always have difficulty understanding that humans are brothers under the skin. When creationists were slave traders, they justified it by saying Africans — and Native Americans, and native Australians, and natives of Southeast Asia — were separate creations. Difficulty with claiming common ancestry is no different; creationists are unwilling to accept the higher moral calling that entails. If we are related to whales, and chimpanzees and the other great apes, and to lemurs, and cows, and all other life, then we do indeed have stewardship duties that many creationists — most in past times — are happy to abandon, claiming we can waste life of other species at will. There is no Biblical reason to deny this common heritage, other than the avoidance of the additional moral duties.
RATE has some supreme difficulties. For great amusement, go back to the project’s papers about ten years ago, and look at their deliberations about measuring isotopes from rocks deposited before the flood with those deposited after. The great difficulty? They have no way to make any such determination — the rocks all bear the same radioisotope signatures of their real ages, no matter how much the RATE researchers preach to them otherwise. Rocks just won’t listen.
I have not gone back to look to see if there is anything new in the RATE stuff. I cannot see how such a fundamentally flawed idea could produce useful results. RATE assumes that God is arbitrary and capricious, and that consequently the universe does not run in any standard, uniformitarian way. There is not a shred of scientific evidence to support the claim, and frankly I find the theology offensive. I think that, were they to preach that God is unsteady and unsure about nuclear power, and deceptive in His creation, they’d not get churches to go along with them. So they don’t let on to the churches they preach to what their science would say — and they are embarrassed to present the stuff in any meeting of scientists. In more than 20 years they have not once presented even a poster session at any meeting of geologists, or physicists, in the relevant fields. If they are sure they are doing real science, why don’t they present it? Why didn’t they bring it forward when Judge Overton asked them to in 1981? Why not when Judge Jones asked in 2005?
Surely you don’t suggest RATE is real science, do you? Here’s some real scoop on RATE:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/zircons.html
April 8, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Wow, did you read that link? I need to do some more reading on the subject, but wow, that’s a lot of anger for a geologist! :-)
I can’t really reply to the science of the links because I don’t really understand it, but what I do understand a little bit about people.
This is funny, and really matches what the creationists are complaining about with a double standard. Henke first tells us that the creationist guys need to be published in peer-reviewed journals:
“So, if Dr. Humphreys is really sincere about his devotion to peer-review, let him wean himself off the reliance on miracles for his .accelerated radioactive decay. process, honestly recognize and correct his numerous mistakes, and publish what’s left in an authentic peer-reviewed science journal.”
He then says, “WHY SHOULD I HELP DR. HUMPHREYS PROMOTE HIS RELIGIOUS AGENDA?
Even if I could get a critique of Dr. Humphreys’ work published in a peer-reviewed science journal, I would have no interest in doing so. If I did, the editors of the journal would be obliged to provide a forum for Dr. Humphreys to rely. Why should I help Dr. Humphreys get free space in a prestigious journal so that he could simply repeat the errors and evasions of Humphreys (2005)?”
You really must see the humor in this, right? To adequately spend the amount of time replying to the creationist guys like he did, it must have taken him days if not weeks to come up with what’s printed on talkorigins, and yet he wouldn’t give them the dignity of a response? This is the sentiment of science toward creationism in a nutshell. Thankfully, creation scientists are not in it for the glory and fame, otherwise they would have given up a long time ago. If they were in it to deceive and simply give propoganda, politics would have been a better field choice.
One thing I will give him is his criticism of fundamentalists in their lack of love. That is a valid point, and is something that comes easy when you spend all your time pursuing the truth. There must be a balance between the two.
I’ll respond to the other stuff later.
April 8, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I think people are misunderstanding the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Micro- is variation within a species that allows the species to change over time so that it can better survive and reproduce in its environment. Macro- is variation an a larger scale such that one species evolves (through microevoltion, basically) into two separate species.
i think the easiest way to explain evolution is as follows:
there are genetic mutations (variation)
these mutations will either help are hurt the creature (adaptation)
these mutations can be passed on in genetic code (heritable)
with these three givens, the variations which help the creature will allow the creature to reproduce more, passing more of its genes on to the next generation, causing the genetic pool to contain more of this mutation. the variations which hurt the creature will cause the creature to reproduce less, passing on less of its genes to the next generation, causing the genetic pool to contain less of this mutation.
once this scenario is played out over a huge population and a long enough time span, evolution is impossible to deny: the beneficial mutation will grow and grow in percent of the gene pool, and the harmful mutation will die out. it’s extremely simple logic.
April 8, 2008 at 9:23 pm
By the way, and in no way responsive to your last post on this thread, Joe, you should get current on the peppered moth stuff.
Michael Majerus is one of the top guys in moth research today. Jonathan Wells claims that Majerus’s work raises questions about evolution theory. Majerus, in that stuffy and witty way English people do things without using the word, notes that Wells is a liar.
But that’s just normal stuff, Wells lying about the work of leading scientists.
What I want you to note is that Majerus conducted a 7-year project to analyze the work of Kettlewell, and to relook at the peppered moth as an example of natural selection question. He reported his results last fall: Kettlewell was right on, and Wells is still a liar.
Go here and please, follow the links to Majerus’ actual work:
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/creationists-lose-key-texas-case/
and:
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/majeruss-peppered-moth-powerpoint/
April 9, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Joe, you really should check out this discussion, about “Expelled!” and its post-modernism roots:
http://austringer.net/wp/index.php/2008/04/06/flunked-not-expelled-and-a-big-round-of-plain-old-defamatory-speech-from-kevin-miller/
May 6, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Ed,
Forgive my long absence from your blog, and for another long post here, but for me this is a past time so when things come up I must say farewell for the time being. That doesn’t mean my heart isn’t here replying to your questions and comments, and I’m sorry if this debate is long since water under the bridge because I was enjoying it. For fairness to you though, I will reply as much as I can to your posts to me.
You said, “Assuming that the variation in the genes dies off, yes, there may be less variety. You’re assuming, however, that the change in color eliminates one chunk of genetic data, and that’s rarely so.”
Isn’t it also true though that genetic change in the data is also rare and not the norm? If that’s the case, then over countless millions of years wouldn’t the level of genetic data keep going down and not up in proportion to the new mutations and selections?
“Creationists cannot explain how the dark variant arose; evolution explains it very nicely.”
Why not? Creationists agree with evolutionists on this subject (or at least I do), that different colors are possible. Look at the human race and tell me that different colors are not possible! But who among us would call someone with more or less color more or less evolved? That would be insulting! No transition has occurred from one species into another species. It is still a moth. In human changes, no transition has occurred from one species into another. That’s where the Creationists disagree with you. You are saying that our ancestors were worms etc. Do you see the difference?
“Darwin’s point was that this amazing variation will be directed to speciation; and then the new populations will develop even more variation of their own. In the end, evolution trends away from the door of the bar in the drunkard’s walk, and does not stick to the wall. This misunderstanding of statistics is a plague on creationist understanding of variation, and not at all a limitation on variation in the real world.”
The ongoing debate seems to be concerning the extent of variations from one species into another. Many Creationists I have read have no problem with a wolf turning into a dog or a lion and a cat being related, but the question comes when completely unrelated, completely genetically different species are seen to have the same ancestor (i.e. all life). This is where we find the problem. Maybe it is because I like to see the picture in whole and then dissect it from there, but the picture as a whole does not add up, so when you get into specifics of the whole it is even harder to swallow. The whole picture, from what I can see is that it is possible for one inorganic molecule to start a chain reaction that would lead to me and all other intelligent life on earth. Maybe my brain isn’t as evolved as yours :-), but the primordial soup, and random mutations and natural selection just doesn’t explain it as well as God does.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who has concerns here. Have you seen this list?
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660
17 pages of reputable (probably some more than others) scientists who question this explanation of how we got here. Have you seen this? It appears that the scientific community isn’t as unified on this subject as you claim.
You incorrectly assume as well that just because there are many bones to spit out in Darwinian Evolution, Creationists refuse to see the meat that is also available. Just because there are errors doesn’t mean that every aspect of it is untrue and that there isn’t a lot we can learn from Darwin and from his views. I don’t think we need to demonize the guy (as many Christians do), but I don’t think we need to worship him and everything he said either (as many scientists come close to doing). Anyone who disagrees with anything Darwin taught is seen as a “religious nut.”
Ed, can you name at least one mistake that Darwin made in his theories? You even have a problem with what God wrote, so I sure hope you say “yes!”
“Hitler was practicing murder. That’s not survival of the fittest by any definition. Again, creationist misunderstanding of how evolution works, allowing them to confuse murder with natural selection, hampers our understanding of genocide, natural selection, and ultimately, it explains why so many creationists (like Hitler) went along with the scheme. Hitler was interfering with natural selection, trying to push it a different way, if you must put in on that scale. However, Hitler used the Biblical definition of heritage, and believed, as the Bible says, that heritage passes in the blood, not genes. This is why he refused to allow blood banks.”
I am no Hitler expert (my brother, who is a historian, is close), and as you have learned (been reading your stuff with other bloggers), everyone has a theory on whether Hitler was affected by Darwin or not. Honestly, you go just as far trying to paint him as a creationist as some of these guys are trying to paint him as an evolutionist. Who has the greater sin? Frankly, who really cares?! The question is not whether Hitler was motivated by Christianity or Darwin, but what Jesus and Darwin themselves taught. You can’t entirely blame the teacher for the actions of the students if they differ with what the teacher taught (which is one way I defend Christianity against the Roman Catholic’s Crusades, Inquisition, etc. which were completely contrary to the teachings of Christ). From the perspective of the Bible, Hitler was a monster. From the perception of Darwin…the question is debatable. You can argue that genocide is not natural selection, but if humans are a result of nature, anything that we do is also a part of nature. On what authority do you say that Hitler was practicing murder? Darwin, Jesus, or both (trying to avoid the fallacy of the either or)? If what Hitler did came naturally to him (even though he was the cancer of humanity), who is to say he wasn’t just the beneficial mutation of the species which didn’t take because he wasn’t the “fittest”? Basically, from my perspective, regardless of Hitler’s warped mindset, was he or was he not practicing “survival of the fittest?” You say what he did was murder, but what is the difference between that and a goat killing its kid (just witnessed that one recently, so it’s on the brain)? Isn’t that murder as well? How about spiders that kill their mates? Not all animals kill for food. If we are nothing more than animals from the same ancestor, then how can you call what Hitler did “murder?” Oh yeah, it’s because you believe in Christ! Oh yeah, what Darwin hypothesized and what Jesus taught differ! Even though Darwin purportedly believed in Christ, and it held him back from stating that murder was just “natural selection,” without his religious views that only debatably made their way into his books (Have you read The Descent of Man? Debatably moral, but still very naturalistic), you are left without any moral compass in evolution whatsoever. Ed, natural selection and survival of the fittest and the moral teachings of Jesus Christ are at odds with each other and the sooner you understand that, the sooner you will stop revering Darwin’s teaching at level with Jesus’ and say that morally, natural selection and “survival of the fittest” on a human scale is wrong. Darwin was trying to have the best of both worlds and that is where his theory broke down on natural selection. Because Darwin was a supposed Christian, as I understand it, he agreed with you that murder was wrong (good for him), but if you take Christ out of the picture (as atheistic evolutionists do), you are left with secular Darwinism which is Darwin’s teachings minus his “Christian” views on the sanctity of life. If you do this (which you don’t, thankfully), you are left with Hitler being justified in his murders.
Ed, are you pro-life? Or are you pro-choice? The question is directly related. Darwinian evolution helps us justify the deaths of about 48 million children each year. The life of the mother is usually not even involved. Personally, I know several who were told by doctors to get abortions because the baby would have health problems or was deformed (one refused the abortion and the baby was born without any problems!) and they were told it was ok because it was just an embryo/fetus. The consistency of your statements rests strongly on your answer to this question, I hope you know that.
Also, all that being said, what is your definition of the difference between artificial selection and natural selection? Keep in mind that man is a part/result of nature in an evolutionary mindset.
“If you want a contest that’s based on natural selection, let’s put white Europeans down in the Australian outback, with the tools the aboriginals there use, and see which group does best. As Darwin noted, Europeans are not fit to go without clothes in the bright sun. Nor are Europeans fit to go without clothes in the cold, as the Tierra del Fuegians did (and may do, still — I don’t know). In a head-to-head competition using natural selection and not guns or other forms of artificial selection, Europeans are in trouble. Hitler’s moustache would not protect him from drought in Australia, nor from ice in Tierra del Fuego.”
Um…Ed, that’s artificial selection if you do that. Obviously if you take something out of its “natural habitat” and move it somewhere else it will do poorly. If you take worm and put it under a hot lamp how long is that going to last? Would you call that natural selection at work? That’s bizarre. You are also taking one species killing off another species out of your “natural selection” equation. There is a balance between hunters and prey in nature, but there are definitely hunters! Many carnivorous species even eat their own wounded and kill off the weak/runts. Going back to Hitler, how is what he did NOT a naturalistic definition of natural selection if we are a part of nature? Forget about what Jesus taught (please don’t but for sake of this discussion) about loving even your enemies, what would natural selection and survival of the fittest say about Hitler? He was merely thinning the weaker herds! (Please understand, I am NOT trying to justify Hitler. I am trying to say that Darwin’s theory is flawed and that humans are NOT just evolved animals! By saying that murder is wrong, aren’t you agreeing with me? Can you justify your agreement by using the theory of evolution and leaving Christ out of the equation?)
“Slavery is not natural selection. Racism is not natural selection. Especially, murder and oppression of one’s own species are not natural selection.”
Says who? You? According to evolution, what gives you the right to tell Mother Nature what IS and what is NOT natural selection? What is your authority for morality? God? God is antithetical to natural selection!
“They may be endorsed by scripture, but that does not make it Darwin’s problem by any stretch. Darwin himself opposed slavery long before most Christians came around”
What?!! Murder and oppression is endorsed by Scripture? Chapter and verse, Ed, if you please. Are you saying moral justice is murder? I’m struggling with your point here in demonizing God and the Bible.
“Creationists always have difficulty understanding that humans are brothers under the skin. When creationists were slave traders, they justified it by saying Africans — and Native Americans, and native Australians, and natives of Southeast Asia — were separate creations.”
Have you ever read the story of John Newton, the guy who wrote Amazing Grace? Not all people who claim Christianity are followers of Christ. Many “Christians” do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Being a “creationist” doesn’t make you a Christian. Naming the name of Jesus, doesn’t make you a Christian. Being “Christ-like” makes you (by definition) a Christian. I have just as much problem with people claiming to be Christians calling someone of a different color “separate-creations” as you do. Don’t blame the Bible for their attempt to justify their sin.
“If we are related to whales, and chimpanzees and the other great apes, and to lemurs, and cows, and all other life, then we do indeed have stewardship duties that many creationists — most in past times — are happy to abandon, claiming we can waste life of other species at will. There is no Biblical reason to deny this common heritage, other than the avoidance of the additional moral duties.”
In a similar manner, if whales, chimps, etc. are all created by God, and we love Him and desire to please Him, we will love His creation and take care of it. Stewardship is strongly taught in Scripture and those who don’t adhere to it are not obeying the Bible. It doesn’t mean we have to be genetically related to respect and protect God’s creation. You seem to be debating 19th century consumerism. Not anyone I know today. That’s like me trying to equate evolution and Hitler. Something you are very vocal against.
“RATE assumes that God is arbitrary and capricious, and that consequently the universe does not run in any standard, uniformitarian way.”
Rate assumes that there was a flood which strongly changed the surface of our planet, including causing a large ice age. After researching causes for ice ages, the flood (IMO) is the strongest argument for an ice age and that the earth isn’t always uniform.
“There is not a shred of scientific evidence to support the claim, and frankly I find the theology offensive.”
So, you’re saying that no meteor ever hit the earth and nothing in the supposed billions of years of aging has ever changed? What about global warming? Wouldn’t this be an example of how the earth is not uniform but rates change? Doesn’t a greenhouse effect change how our climate warms and cools? Haven’t we had at least one ice age or do you deny that as well? How is this uniform? The only uniform I see is that the earth constantly changes. The laws stay the same, duh; no one says they don’t, but global effects effect the globe. Those are constants that change. I like your use of the word “theology” by the way. Good trigger word! Very clever.
You said, “If they are sure they are doing real science, why don’t they present it?” Again, Dr. Gish answered this question by stating that no one will print it. So, your criticism is like taping someone’s mouth and nose shut and then mocking them for not breathing. It’s insane!
I don’t know much about RATE but was wondering if you did. Obviously, you came to the table with your presuppositions and wouldn’t give it much of a shot. You won’t even concede that the earth has changed at all in the past several billion years (I keep forgetting how many billions to put in there), and you criticize those who cannot print in respected journals for not doing so. Why did I expect you to look at the evidence with as little bias as possible?
I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ve been praying for you Ed. The Lord brings you to my heart often and I pray that if you genuinely are a Christian, your faith in Him will increase. Let me leave you with one verse:
Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”
This is why I am stubborn about being a firm believer in Genesis. The Bible even tells us that there wouldn’t be visible evidence for God being the Creator (not saying there is no evidence mind you, but you mock those who are you fellow brothers and sisters for holding to the same God you trust in for your salvation, that teach that design screams for a Designer)! You can reject Genesis as being compiled by Babylonian wanna-be’s if you wish, but I put my trust in God and His Word and I don’t mind if it makes me sound like “religious nut” or not, but God says it, not me, so why are you arguing against Him?
May 6, 2008 at 11:07 pm
A quick response — lesson plans to do yet — but I cannot let this go:
You’re assuming, with Hitler, that the Gypsies, homosexuals, English, French, Italians, Albanians, Russians and Jews were the weaker herds. As Darwin noted, such assumptions are generally in error. On what basis would a Darwinian turn over the job of natural selection to a human?
I know you don’t mean it as racist as it comes out, Joe, but the fact is that Hitler made that decision on the basis of his belief that God was on his side. There is not an iota of evidence to support the claim that Hitler thought Darwin was anything other than a stinking, stupid Englishman. There is not an iota of evidence Hitler based any of his actions on any understanding of evolution, though he certainly did not understand the science.
May 7, 2008 at 10:23 am
You asked, “On what basis would a Darwinian turn over the job of natural selection to a human?”
I’d say on the basis that humans are a part of nature and therefore it is natural. How did we as humans rise above natural selection so that we were no longer a part of nature? Maybe you’re glimpsing some of that “Divine spark” that is so popularly debated and that even though our bodies are natural, there is something that sets us apart from nature. Hmmm…what could it be?
I talked with my “almost” historian brother and asked him what he thought about Hitler; whether he was Christian or a Darwinian. I liked what he said. He told me that Hitler basically used whatever means he could to control the world, whether it was religion, science, or anything. He wasn’t a Christian. He used Christianity for his own benefit. He wasn’t a Darwinian. He used evolution for what he could get out of it. Whatever was the most convenient in winning over the masses, Hitler used it. I think that may be a more accurate reflection of where Hitler was coming from than what either you, I, or anyone else I’ve been reading has mentioned.
I did not defend Hitler being a Darwinist, if you read my previous post a little more carefully. I said that it didn’t matter one way or the other. The popes of the eons gone by were “Christian” but they practiced some very strong Darwinian concepts in killing off those who disagreed with them. They definitely weren’t following Christ’s teaching, but what they did sounds a lot more like what Darwin taught. Were the inquisitions not just an attempt at “survival of the fittest?” That’s my distinction. It doesn’t matter what name you interject as your religion, what matters in this discussion is whose teaching are you following? If I was a strict Darwinist, I would look at David and Bathsheba (please tell me you know the story) and say that David was justified in killing Bathsheba’s husband so that he could have her for himself. Why? Because he was improving his genetics and advancing his DNA! If Darwin is correct, there should be nothing morally wrong with that. Yet God vehemetely condemned him and would not bless him until he repented of his sin. Sounds like God and Darwin are at odds with each other.
I am wondering where the word “racist” came into the discussion in connection with me? I am condmening Hitler, very adamately! Yet if you strictly adhere to Darwin, Hitler’s actions are defendable and debatable. So, I am playing devil’s advocate.
May 7, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Here’s where unfamiliarity with Darwin shows: Read the first two chapters of his “big book.” He deals explicitly with artificial selection, how humans substitute it for natural selection, and how it generally produces creatures less fit for most circumstances. No Darwinian would presume to be able to predict what conditions would prevail in the next generation of humans. Human selection, artificial selection, simply doesn’t work if there is no plan to husband the animals. Hitler had no plans to husband the groups he decided to murder.
I know its popular among creationists to pretend murder is natural, but it’s not. It’s rare in most species. It’s not a part of the struggle for survival that Darwin observed. Nor is it really fair to say Darwin advocated anything from that observation, unless of course one were to assume Darwins strong stance against genocide, against race discrimination, in favor of altruism, and for the protection of the weak and lame.
Because most of Darwin’s critics appear wholly unfamiliar with evolution theory, and with Darwin, they make crass assumptions which are exactly the opposite of what is accurate.
If your brother can find any legitimate source which indicates Hitler knew beans about Darwin, I’d sure like to hear about it. The reality is that Hitler despised the English and most Englishmen — his admiration for Rolls Royces being an aberration. Ask your brother which are the major histories of World War II and the Holocaust. Then check them: You will not find Darwin or evolution listed as an influence on Hitler, on the rise of the Nazis, nor on the planning of the Holocaust. Hitler didn’t use evolution. Darwin’s work was burned along with other western works; science was never a strong suit for Hitler, and he opposed the use of evolutionary science in all cases where it was proposed.
If you wish to argue that Hitler was following Spencer’s teachings that some people prosper because they are superior, make the argument. (Spencer is the guy who invented what later became known as “social Darwinism” — but it had nothign to do with Darwin) But don’t pin Spencer’s blame on Darwin.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say that “it doesn’t matter one way or the other” about Hitler’s influences. It matters a lot, especially to creationists who, though grounded in racist ideology themselves (read the early stuff from ICR), have worked like the devil to pin a racist and murderer label on Darwin in the need they feel to invent some harm from the study of science. Hence, Ben Stein’s mockumentary movie. And I think it’s important, as a consequence, to be clear: Hitler was not influenced by any knowledge of science in his tactics; Hitler was racist from his childhood. That patent racism is what drove him to murder. Evolution had nothing to do with it.
You keep confusing “survival of the fittest” with murder. Why? David had Uriah sent into battle to certain death — murder in modern terms. Why do you confuse that lust driven murder with evolution? There is no role for murder in evolution. God is at odds with murder for any reason. God is not at odds with Darwin — nothing in evolution can fairly be said to be at play when a king has a minion murdered for reasons of lust.
Hitler was not engaged in a survival of the fittest exercise. He was engaged in murder of people he thought unworthy to live — much more similar to the Inquisition than to evolution.
If I introduced the issue of racism, it is becuse Hitler was a racist. That still doesn’t make Hitler’s actions defensible under evolution — in fact, it only highlights the point that his actions have no foundation in evolution. We are, as Darwin argued, one race.
May 7, 2008 at 4:38 pm
You said, “I know that its popular among creationists to pretend that murder is natural, but its not. Its rare in most species.”
It depends on how you define “murder.” Many vegetarians define murder as even the killing of an animal for food. In that case, murder would be common in the animal kingdom. Who then is the authority on what IS and what is NOT murder in evolution? Darwin? If evolution is true, then Darwin is only a miniscule speck in the massive space called time which is crammed full of countless millions of years of death and destruction. Millions of years of animals eating animals (doesn’t sound like the animal kingdom has heard that we are all one race yet). So, what is murder? Are you a vegetarian? If not, then please defend your remarks on the whales and animals being our brothers and then you eating them. If you are a vegetarian, don’t plants have the same ancestors as we do as well? What makes them any less alive than animals? Shouldn’t we just eat apples that have already fallen off of trees? Wait, seeds contain life too, don’t they? How far do you want to take this?
Most people I’ve met summarize murder in the animal kingdom as killing something without the intent of eating it (like the goat and the kid scenario). If that is true, then aren’t cannibals morally vindicated? Why is it murder to kill a human for food and not murder to kill a cow for food? If not, then isn’t that a double standard? Do you see how a moral compass can get out of whack if it isn’t guided by Jesus?
Again, you haven’t answered the question if you are pro-life or pro-abortion. I did a search on your site and you are pretty quiet about it. I couldn’t find anything. According to what you’re saying in these posts about life, abortion would be murder (I would agree).
Regarding Darwin, his moral compass didn’t come from his evolutionary beliefs it came from his Christianity. I am not trying to criticize Darwin here, I am trying to show that Darwin’s morality didn’t come from his theory; it was regulated by his beliefs in Christ. By rejecting God all you are left with IS Social Darwinism. Talkorigins rebuttal is basically that diversity within a species guarantees its survival “in the even of environmental change.” Are you sure you still want to hold to uniformitarianism? Anyway, diversifying by allowing the ignorant and genetically weak to reproduce and grow is reverse evolution, not survival of the fittest.
After doing a little bit of research on Hitler, there is much debate on the meaning of his uses of the term evolution and his seemingly contradictory views of man. The guy clearly had a warped mind, no question.
Hey, have you even seen Expelled by the way? It did have several clips from Hitler’s speeches and from his propaganda (there’s the trigger word used appropriately) that indicated that he used evolution to justify his ethnic cleansing. The only way to get it wrong would have been if he was mistranslated from German to English. The topic of Expelled is another topic, BTW, so perhaps we should stay clear for now.
Regarding Spencer, the differences between him and Darwin were merely philosophical. The principles of evolution are all the same no matter if you’re talking about Darwin, Hitler, Spencer, you, me, or whoever (the “is” remains the same). It is the application (what “ought to be”) that changes from person to person. According to talkorigins, evolution does not dictate what “ought to be” but merely states facts of what “is”, so who is the one who determines why Hitler was wrong? You and I can stand up until we’re blue in the face and say that what Hitler did was not natural selection or “survival of the fittest”, but if we are a part of nature as humans, how is it possible for us to do anything that is NOT a part of survival of the fittest and natural selection? Wouldn’t we have to be outside or above nature to be able to be separate from it? (If you missed that point, please read it again-I’m a pastor now, I like to say things twice). You are doing a good job of arguing that humans are distinct from animals and should be taken as completely different from nature. In evolution, Darwin has no right to say something is right or wrong because he is merely one member of a vast herd. All actions within nature are a part of nature and so are amoral. Or would you say it is possible for a worm to be immoral?
Creationists and evolutionists are both trying to do the same thing with Hitler – pin it on the other guy. While creationists are screaming that Hitler was an evolutionist, Darwinists are yelling back just as loudly that he was a creationist. I’ve even seen him called a young earth creationist! Wow! So, to me, this whole discussion of what or what Hitler was or wasn’t is irrelevant and may never be solved. What matters is that if you look at the teachings of Jesus, who said you are to love your enemies, you cannot justify Hitler. If you look at the teachings of Darwin, minus the influence of the philosophical (“ought to be”) teachings of Jesus on his life, you can make a legitimate case that Hitler was merely attempting to advance his tribe’s DNA and was simply amoral. (By the way, the only way Jesus is authoritative in any way is if He is outside of creation and nature as well—He is God, therefore what He says goes. He and His Word is our moral compass.)
You said, “You keep confusing survival of the fittest with murder. Why?”
In the strict sense of the term, and in a perfect world, survival of the fittest would mean that no animals were harmed in the making of the production. That all the world is in harmony, but it is those who are the most adaptable, and “fittest” (doesn’t always mean strongest), duplicate and their descendents go on while the other dies out. I bring murder into the equation because I’m having chicken for dinner and I don’t want to be eating a distant cousin. If we’re all one race, as you put it, and taking it one step further that all life is from the same ancestor, then why is it ok to murder a cow but wrong to murder a fellow human being? I kill any spider I find because I have arachnophobia (the existence of spiders is the only time I’ve questioned God’s omniscience), but no cop is going to arrest me no matter how many spiders I “murder.” What’s the difference? Please use evolution, not Darwin’s religious philosophies to defend your explanation.
I totally agree that David did a horrible thing by killing Uriah! But don’t animals compete for mates? Doesn’t it sometimes get ugly, even fatal in extreme cases? Isn’t what David did just a highly evolved form of finding a superior mate that would advance his DNA?
My whole point here is that humans are NOT animals. If we are animals, then nothing we do is morally wrong because we are simply products of our environment and following the laws of nature. We are living within the rules of nature, which apparently include survival of the fittest and natural selection, so we cannot rise above them or against them any more than we can break the law of gravity. I’m contending that it is impossible for us to have artificial selection if we are a part of nature.
Do you see how important God and Jesus is in this whole discussion?
May 7, 2008 at 8:05 pm
How does the Bible define murder? What is the commandment against killing?
In evolutionary terms, the predators do the weeding out of the non-predators, eating the sick, the halt and lame, the slow, the easy-to-see, first. But the wildebeest don’t murder each other — life’s tough enough competing with the zebras and avoiding the lions and crocodiles.
Surely you don’t think killing livestock for food is the same as murdering one of our own species for gain.
Are you going to argue the PETA position, or the Christian position? In evolutionary terms, the beef we breed to use as food gets its survival advantage from being killed and eaten — we breed more, and the genes are carried on, by siblings.
You guys really don’t understand evolution at all, do you.
In the struggle for life, things gotta eat. There’s no reason for you to kill spiders, by the way, unless you happen to live in a nest of brown recluses. The spiders will reduce the populations of mosquitoes and flies that carry disease. You kill spiders, you get the disease vectors. But that’s just an aside.
There’s a difference between murder of your own species, and eating. It is necessary that something die in order that 99.9% of life can live. That isn’t murder, by any definition.
Almost never, no. In fact, in wolves, when two males fight for a mate (wolf packs have one alpha bitch, typically, and her mate is the alpha male), the bitch often selects the loser to mate with. Go figure.
No, animals don’t fight to the death over mates, most often — very, very few exceptions. Peacocks display their tails. Bower birds show off their dancing structures and dances. Atwater’s prairie chicken shows off its drum. Walruses drive off the weaker ones, often with injuries, but rarely fatal ones. No, it doesn’t generally get that ugly.
David could have had any number of concubines. I don’t think there’s any case to be made from evolution for what David did. It was lustful murder, a story for scripture, completely divorced from any part of any evolution theory.
You assume, against scripture, by the way, that animals do not have morals and cannot act morally. You assume, erroneously, that animals behave horribly. Frankly, I’ll take the brave sparrow fighting off the marauding crow over many people, for bravery. I’ll take the killdeer feigning injury to lead the snake or fox away from her babies. I’ll take the cape buffalo ganging up against the lions to save their calf. I’ll take the bonobos comforting the loser of any argument, especially over a scheming, aging movie extra who finds it useful to lie about a good and noble man and good and noble science. Better to be descended from the honest monkey than the primate who insults grandmothers to win a silly debate point for creationism.
Mark Twain noted that most animals have much higher morals than humans. He was only half joking. Your error is assuming animals are not noble, not moral, not altruistic. This is one more area where creationism shows its complete ignorance of God’s creation. Stick to the evidence — your argument won’t stand.
You assume nature has no moral laws. Nature appears to abhor murder. I think the error is in your view of nature, which is not based on any fact. You wish to claim to be the crown of creation, rather than a human, conceived in a bed in a fit of lust. You’re committing Wormwood’s error, assuming that ignobility is the natural state, and the reflex action. I think you don’t have a case there, and in any case I’m not letting you get away with asserting it without any support. No, murder is not following the laws of nature.
Survival of the fittest, in Darwin’s model, requires a fair competition absent murder. You still assume murder is a natural thing, and something that’s part of evolution theory. That’s not so. Murder is not part of evolution.
Well, then make your case. Where do you get the idea that murder is natural, or common, or even a good way to compete? Who is to say that the fittest is not the murdered, rather than the murderer? How do you propose to distinguish?
In nature, it’s rather easy: The one that survives the natural conditions, because it ran faster than the cheetah, stayed uninfected, gathered more food, made a better nest, is the one that gets chosen for mating. If some poacher kills the more fit stepping outside the natural order, the next most fit steps up.
There’s no role for murder.
I see that God and Jesus have failed to convince you that nature is good, that murder is bad, and that bearing false witness against Darwin is a bad idea. Unfortunately, that’s contrary to the good and just arguments for the importance of God and Jesus.
More seriously, you need to get off the murder kick. That’s not evolution. And until you understand why it isn’t, and why it frustrates the natural order, you’ll never understand just how far from Darwin’s theory Hitler and crew got.
May 8, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Ed,
You may be misunderstanding me here. What I am doing is something called “playing devil’s advocate.” I am not espousing murder as ok, nor am I trying to convince you that animals do not have morals. My moral compass has not gone haywire. I am on the “murder kick” because I am saying that evolution does not define what murder is, the Bible does. What is the first thing that you said when I asked you to define murder? “How does the Bible define murder? What is the commandment against killing?” I totally agree! You don’t’ define murder by nature; you define it by God’s definition! God gave you a conscience that says that killing a fellow human being is wrong, but does evolution even define murder? No. Nor does it attempt to “go there.” You are not telling me why evolution condemns murder. You cannot. You are telling me to go to the Bible, which is correct, and is what Darwin had to do as well. Again, citing talkorigins, “This claim [might makes right] exemplifies the naturalistic fallacy by arguing that the way things are implies how they ought to be. It is like saying that if someone’s arm is broken, it should stay broken. But “is” does not imply “ought.” Evolution is descriptive. It tells how things are, not how they should be.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA002.html
For that reason alone, murder is not condemned in evolution, it is merely stated as “is.” You cannot look at evolution and say what ought to be, and on the flipside, you cannot look at evolution and say what ought NOT to be either. For this reason, if you desire to keep scientifically unbiased (according to evolutionary standards), you cannot condemn Hitler for murder because it is not even defined in evolution.
Do we all believe Hitler was a monster? Do we say that what David did to Uriah was wrong? Definitely! Why? Because of the theory of evolution? No. Evolution is insufficient because it reduces humanity to the level of animal and gives no explanation for why humans are immoral beings and sometimes act contrary to nature.
“In evolutionary terms, the predators do the weeding out of the non-predators, eating the sick, the halt and lame, the slow, the easy-to-see, first. But the wildebeest don’t murder each other — life’s tough enough competing with the zebras and avoiding the lions and crocodiles.”
Going back to devil’s advocate, I thought that all life was related. I thought we all were in harmony and were brothers and sisters? Maybe they are removed many, many generations, but aren’t we all still related? So, in nature it’s wrong to kill in your own species, but it’s ok to kill another species? You’re also saying that they kill “the sick, the halt and lame, the slow, the easy-to-see, first.” They even go so far to many times kill their runts in their litters. We even personally had a dog that refused to nurse the runt. Isn’t that exactly what Hitler did? Isn’t that what we do in the US when we abort unborn children who may or may not have disabilities?
“Surely you don’t think killing livestock for food is the same as murdering one of our own species for gain.”
No, I don’t. Again, playing devil’s advocate now. I’m asking you if you believe in the sanctity of all life, even if they are removed from your family line 10,000 generations or more. What makes your life more important than theirs? How dare you eat a cow! We’re…like family.
God told Peter that all life (minus humans) was clean to eat, and He commanded Peter (a Jew) that it was ok to even eat pig. The Bible says that my spare ribs are ok. If it said not to eat meat, then I wouldn’t. The Bible says that before the flood, people didn’t eat meat, so I wouldn’t have back then either. How could the Bible make the claim that we can eat meat if we are all from the same ancestor? Clearly, we were uniquely created, even though our bodies are made from the same material, humanity is not from the same genetic line as the cow and every other life form. Otherwise, eating a cow would be cannibalism, 10,000 (an uneducated guess) generations removed.
“Are you going to argue the PETA position, or the Christian position? In evolutionary terms, the beef we breed to use as food gets its survival advantage from being killed and eaten — we breed more, and the genes are carried on, by siblings.”
I’m arguing the Christian position. What I’m saying (as a devil’s advocate) is that in evolutionary terms, the group from PETA is the most consistent. They believe in the sanctity of ALL life, because all life is related. Isn’t that what evolution teaches? Wouldn’t you just love it if we as humans were being bred for food? Would you still say as you’re about to be slaughtered, “Its ok, my kids will carry on our genetics.”? I mean, it is only by natural selection that you were born a human and not a cow right?
The only answer I can come up in evolution is that animals kill each other for food and so it’s ok for us to kill for food too. So, that makes mother nature the authority and so we must copy what nature does. It’s insane logic! Nature also kills off the runts. I’m not going to kill my son because he’s short (and he is)! Mother Nature is not my authority, God is my authority. I sure hope you don’t say that what nature describes is the answer.
“In the struggle for life, things gotta eat. There’s no reason for you to kill spiders, by the way, unless you happen to live in a nest of brown recluses. The spiders will reduce the populations of mosquitoes and flies that carry disease. You kill spiders, you get the disease vectors. But that’s just an aside.”
I understand that, and I respect spiders, but only if they stay away from my house! If they invade my space, I am only defending my territory. :-)
“There’s a difference between murder of your own species, and eating. It is necessary that something die in order that 99.9% of life can live. That isn’t murder, by any definition.”
Again, I thought you were the one blurring the species lines and saying that they do not exist because all our ancestors to evolved from one ancestor. So, if that’s true, then we’re all really just one enormously diversified species! Could we live without intentionally breeding animals for death? Next time you visit Red Lobster or Outback Steakhouse, tell me how our species couldn’t live without it. We could live just fine as vegetarians. If we are being consistent in our evolutionary mindsets, we would all, including animals, be like PETA and be vegetarians. But even then you’re in trouble because plant life is from the same ancestral line! Where does it end?!
By the way, by your definition for the weak and few to die for the good of the masses, then what they did at Donner’s Pass was justified.
“No, animals don’t fight to the death over mates, most often — very, very few exceptions. Peacocks display their tails. Bower birds show off their dancing structures and dances. Atwater’s prairie chicken shows off its drum. Walruses drive off the weaker ones, often with injuries, but rarely fatal ones. No, it doesn’t generally get that ugly.”
Well, (again, playing devil’s advocate) couldn’t David’s case have been one of the “very, very few exceptions.”? Most of the time when a human picks his mate it never turns that ugly. But maybe this is an example of the case in the human animal
where it did get that ugly.
“David could have had any number of concubines. I don’t think there’s any case to be made from evolution for what David did. It was lustful murder, a story for scripture, completely divorced from any part of any evolution theory.”
Perhaps, because of her beauty, his instincts for advancing his DNA were very strong and he chose her by an evolutionary standard. Isn’t lust just an evolutionary chemical reaction in the brain anyway? Solomon (the wisest man who ever lived, who made Israel “great”) was born through Bathsheba. So, arguably, David’s DNA DID increase through Bathsheba, because even Christ Himself is through Bathsheba (I forget if it was Mary or Joseph’s line)! What I’m saying is that according to the Word of God, what David did was horrible! But with evolution, there is a case to be made for its legitimacy. (Again, I’m not condoning it because God strongly says murder, lust, and adultery are wrong!)
“You assume, against scripture, by the way, that animals do not have morals and cannot act morally. You assume, erroneously, that animals behave horribly.”
I did not say that. You are putting words in my mouth. What I’m saying is that if we are all related, then when a robin eats a worm it is eating a distant relative. While that is seen as ok in nature, it is not seen as ok to kill a close relative that you could breed with. What animals do is fine IMO. I used to have a wonderful dog who I would take over a lot of people too! Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to vilify animals. I’m trying to get you to be consistent. If humans are animals, then what Hitler did is not too far removed from what animals do in thinning out the weaker herds for territorial dominance (not saying they were actually weaker, but Hitler thought they were).
Perhaps it seems more barbaric because we are a more “highly evolved” species, but the principles stay the same, if we are just animals. This is not a Christian mindset, because Christ strongly condemns it. It is an evolutionary mindset to look at a different “race” and call them an “inferior race.” Yes, many “Christians” were slave traders, but they were wrong! Christ strongly condemns anything but loving your neighbor as yourself and doing to other what you would have them do to you. Evolution teaches that the sick and the weak are weeded out. Jesus healed the sick and the weak and we are to help the poor and needy after His example, not let them die out as nature does. Even though nature has morality, we are called to be higher than animals. When was the last time you saw a lion go to a hyena at a kill, “oh no, you first. I insist!”? But Jesus taught us to love our enemies. This is contrary to nature and the flesh. This is contrary to the laws of evolution.
“This is one more area where creationism shows its complete ignorance of God’s creation.”
By the way, an animal sometimes being more moral than humans does make a case for the depravity of man and that again, humans are NOT animals because they are capable of doing things far worse than an animal could ever imagine. The way nature is, is in perfect accordance to God’s Word, but the presence of fallen humanity is freakish if it supposedly a part of nature.
I’m trying to get you to see, through some weird logic here I know, that if we are animals, then it would be impossible for Hitler to have been a monster, because all humans are just a part of nature, and since evolution only describes what “is”, what Hitler did just “is.” There is not “ought to be or ought not to be” in evolution and so you cannot condemn him as an evolutionist. You can as a human and as a Christian, but not as an evolutionistic scientist.
“You assume nature has no moral laws. Nature appears to abhor murder. I think the error is in your view of nature, which is not based on any fact.”
So how is it possible for the human animal to go contrary to nature? If even the animals abhor it, then how do humans do it? Even animals are capable of it, even if its rare. Cats don’t always kill mice for food you know. They enjoy playing with the dead mouse. Isn’t that murder of a mouse? The answer is “it’s just a mouse and not a human.” Well, if we are all a part of nature, then it isn’t JUST a mouse. But what sets Hitler apart is that his murdering was on a massive scale, killing millions. There is no evolutionary explanation for why a guy like Hitler would pop into the equation. What I am saying is that if evolution is true, nature HAS to reconcile a guy like Hitler because Hitler’s existence is just a product of evolution and natural selection, and survival of the fittest, and so he must fit into nature and follow the paths of nature. If you’re saying that he doesn’t follow nature, then why not? How did humanity break free of nature? Again, evolution explains what “is”, not what “ought or what ought not” to be. So, you cannot use evolution to condemn Hitler because he is a part of evolution, isn’t he?
If you say “no” then you are admitting that humans are separate from natural selection. What you did not address at ALL in your previous post is how humans are either different or the same as animals. If they are different, and outside of natural selection (created in God’s image) then evolution falls apart because it means we’re not descended from one ancestor and all animal life is not our relatives. If they are the same, then killing cows is wrong, there is no explanation for the appearance of a guy like Hitler, and what he did just “is” and cannot be condemned by evolution. You’re between a rock and a hard place unless you realize that evolution is a product of man’s imagination and that God says he did it differently and we are a creation of God, not nature.
“Survival of the fittest, in Darwin’s model, requires a fair competition absent murder. You still assume murder is a natural thing, and something that’s part of evolution theory. That’s not so. Murder is not part of evolution.”
Then you are admitting that humans are NOT a part of nature. Otherwise you have to reconcile every single death of an animal killing another animal that is not for food. Otherwise, you have murder in nature.
“Well, then make your case. Where do you get the idea that murder is natural, or common, or even a good way to compete? Who is to say that the fittest is not the murdered, rather than the murderer? How do you propose to distinguish?”
My case is that murder is NOT natural. I’m saying we live in a sin cursed world. In evolution, it MUST be natural, because we are a part of nature and we murder. Even though you say killing for things other than food is extremely rare in nature, it still happens. I witnessed it recently with a goat and its kid. But if you look statistically at humanity, murder is extremely rare as well. 90+% of humanity would never kill someone. So, we could just wave off human murders as “rare” and “almost non-existent”, but it still happens! You could argue for wars being different, but even lions have territorial disputes; animals fight over food and water, etc. Perhaps we could argue that war is just a more highly evolved form of the same thing? But seriously, let’s not do that. War is NOT natural. Murder is NOT natural, and that means that humans are different from nature and that our world is tainted with sin. Do you get that from evolution or from the Bible? Again, what Darwin taught and what God says are different!
“If some poacher kills the more fit stepping outside the natural order, the next most fit steps up.”
What you say is true, unless the poacher is a part of nature, and thus would be impossible for him to step outside of the natural order.
“I see that God and Jesus have failed to convince you that nature is good, that murder is bad, and that bearing false witness against Darwin is a bad idea. Unfortunately, that’s contrary to the good and just arguments for the importance of God and Jesus.”
Again, I don’t think you’ve grasped that I am playing devil’s advocate. I am not arguing against nature being good. What I am saying is that if we are all related, then nature is not good by our definition of morality, because all carnivores, including us, are eating our distant relatives. If they are not our relatives and are intended to be food for us, and for our enjoyment and to demonstrate God’s glory, then there is no problem in nature and no problem in eating meat. But if we are all related, then nature and humanity is barbaric for not evolving a way to eat without the killing of distant cousins.
“More seriously, you need to get off the murder kick. That’s not evolution. And until you understand why it isn’t, and why it frustrates the natural order, you’ll never understand just how far from Darwin’s theory Hitler and crew got.”
Until you demonstrate how humans are a part of nature and evolved from the rest of nature, then I think the “murder kick” is perfectly appropriate. How can something that is a part of evolution NOT be evolution? You have to be outside of gravity to break the law of gravity. Please, this is the crux of the matter: Are, or are not humans a part of nature? Why or why not from evolution?
Lastly, you STILL haven’t answered about abortion. I’m going to keep pestering you until you answer because it’s completely relevant to this discussion of defining murder.
May 8, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Functionally, nature defines murder. With very, very few exceptions, intraspecies killing is taboo. Some of the exceptions are interesting — spider mating, for example. A few of the exceptions tend to fall out of the taboo — the murder of juvenile offspring of the old pride leader among lions, which sometimes occurs. The general law of nature is no murder. Deer don’t murder each other. Tigers don’t murder each other. Crows don’t murder each other.
Murder is not a part of evolution. Intraspecies killing is a taboo, in almost all species. And much more to the point, murder is not part of the struggle for life that Darwin observed and wrote about. If you want to demonize science, I can understand why you’d try to claim murder is a natural event. But it’s not natural, and demonizing science is an ignoble goal. Stick to the facts. Murder is not part of the competition that works to change species in evolution by natural selection. Murder runs contrary to the gene spreading exercise people like Richard Dawkins claim drives the whole process. Murder is contrary to the social cohesion rules of social species. We do not see on Earth the style of knife the big guy in the back advancement the Klingons practice. Klingons are fictional.
For that matter, open warfare seems to be an almost uniquely human invention, too, especially things like the War of the Austrian Succession, or the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Succession planning doesn’t always go smoothly in the jungle, but if it were a jungle in human organizations with regard to succession, all of human life would be a lot more placid.
May 8, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Ed, if that is the case, which I agree that murder is NOT natural, then aren’t humans outside of nature and not a part of nature? Isn’t it just humans that we claim participate in “artificial” selection? Again, you’re not addressing the crux of the matter here.
On the flip side, again to play devil’s advocate, even though most of nature does not murder, couldn’t we be one of the “taboo exceptions?” It doesn’t make it wrong then in nature, so using evolution, you still haven’t shown how murder is wrong, because in evolution, it just “is.”
Also, you’re not addressing abortion at all.
May 10, 2008 at 7:28 am
Dawkins put it well in his “Lying for Jesus?” commentary on Stein’ movie – the argument of the film and much of this thread commits the “is-ought fallacy”. Biology, including evolution and natural selection, describes things as they are. Theories set out ways in which changes have come about, but makes no comment on the morality or ultimate cause of the mechanisms and changes.
Religion is one of the sources of morality, though of course secular humanism includes alternative moral philosophies which have very similar conclusions. Religion, and some irreligious regimes have commonly justified murder. It’s my understanding that both genocide and slavery are explicitly instructed or condoned in the Bible.
Darwin himself observed and commented on various ideas, while maintaining that humans were all one species and objecting strongly to slavery, in opposition for example to his creationist opponent Louis Agassiz who maintained that blacks and whites were created different species. Ben Stein quotes Darwin’s description of ideas of others about the implications for human breeding of encouraging “poorer stock” to breed. The idea goes back to the ancient Greeks of Sparta, and Stein omits Darwin’s next paragraph which states that failing to look after the poor and sick goes against the noblest part of our nature. Irrespective or whether that noble nature was evolved or based on religion, Darwin’s moral view was that crude “survival of the fittest” applied to humans was wrong.
May 10, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Yes, humans are outside of nature when they murder. You’re beginning to get the point.