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Evolution versus religion (II)

© Francois Tremblay

I have discussed what evolution is : the inevitable process by which replicators, with natural selection, mutations and other evolutionary factors that change the genotype, adapt to their environments. I have also mentioned in passing why it is so reviled. Biological evolution is a priori unsettling. It upsets our vision of mankind and the human mind as central, and disturbs cherished religious beliefs. We are not a fundamental tabula rasa around which everything revolves, but rather thinking animals whose mind is the product of natural processes.

But because it is so fundamental, evolution, thru evolutionary psychology, is a necessary tool in understanding human nature. As it was engraved above the entrance of the temple at Delphi, "know thyself" : for knowing human nature and its foibles is the key to evade most pitfalls of thought. Of course oppressive religions and other strong-armed beliefs must oppose this, since they advocate an anti-human morality, and an anti-human way of thinking, and seek to evade human nature thru the positing of the soul.

But the soul, of course, does not exist - medicine has revealed that much. The mind is a product of evolution, with all that this implies. The fact that there is no soul is also a hinderance to another particular religious impulse, the search for the afterlife. For there cannot be any afterlife if we follow the rational principles of evolution and medecine.

The refusal to accept evolution leads to Creationism, and Creation "Science". I say "science" because a scientific theory is based on observation and falsification, and Creationism is not based on anything except faith. It would normally be a triviality to gloss over the notion of religious creation, except that it is so ingrained in North American thought that it must be discussed in any explanation of the relation between evolution and religion (Europeans in general do not seem to have this mental malady).

Creationists seek to deny both evolution and the theory of evolution : however to deny evolution itself is sheer folly, since we can observe its mechanisms even today, and confirm their existence. Therefore they seek to undercut Neo-Darwinism, to find "the flaw", and by that propose Creationism as the only answer. But this is ass-backwards, since Creationism is not the only alternative to Neo-Darwinism. The unfortunate Christian who would, hypothetically, rejoice of having destroyed Neo-Darwinism is still stuck with the Algonquin creation myth, the Shinto creation myth, the Yoruba creation myth, the Mayan creation myth, the Pawnee, Inuit, Mogollon, Hindu, and Zoroastrian creation myths, as well as other scientific hypothesis such as Special Creationism, Lamarckism, Neo-Lamarckism, Process Structuralism, Saltationism, and rand knows how many more ideas.

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