Evolution

Yesterday I finished reading a fun little book called "Then Why Do I have Toenails", written by Thom Phelps. Originally started as a letter to a fanatical Christian friend (an interesting story in and of itself), it proved to be an interesting and amusing foray into the mind of an atheist.

True, it wasn't the best-written book I've read this year (though I have certainly read worse), but it did make its point, and made it well. Plus it gave me a new phrase for my repertoire: "C&E Christian" – a Christian who attends church only twice a year, on Christmas and Easter. I believe he used this in a similar way to my own "CINO" (Christian In Name Only).

The question of toenails really only plays a very small role in the book. I believe the title was chosen specifically to cause inquiry and curiosity; on that particular level, it worked. Why, the reader is forced to ask, do people believe in creationism when animals and plants and humans have vestigial organs?

I spent a few minutes Googling today, to see what bits and pieces may be left over from the evolutionary process. As it turns out, there is a broad spectrum of vestigial organs across this planet, far too many to be conveniently explained away by creationism.

In humans alone, there are male nipples, toenails, wisdom teeth, ear muscles, sinuses, the appendix, the coccyx, part of the large intestine, and apparently a little bit of a third eyelid. We also have vestigial reflexes like goosebumps and babies grasping anything placed in their palms.

In the animal kingdom, you can find flightless birds, fish with feet, snakes with pelvises, blind species who still have eyes, or my personal favorite: whales with leg bones.

Before my deconversion from Christianity, I was a die-hard creationist. I believed in the literal six-day creation as outlined in Genesis, I believed that evolution was a lie, and I believed that schools teaching evolution should also be required to teach Intelligent Design as an acceptable alternative.

But now that I've removed the filters of religion and have started to question the motives of evolutionary scientists versus religious pundits (I realize now that science is not trying to hide truth, but discover it; whereas religion is trying to hide discovery under the guise of truth), I see and understand that we are all part of a huge, growing, changing system. It is awesome, and amazing, and beautiful, and deadly, and scary – all at the same time!

Why are so many fundamentalist Christians diametrically opposed to the idea of evolution?

For starters, they just don't have the correct information. One of the many problems with church hierarchy is that one person (or a small group of select people) are in charge of dictating the information their parishioners and parochial-school students receive. In most cases, those parishioners and students simply accept the information given to them without much, if any, further research because they trust the supplier of the information is telling the truth or is knowledgeable (this is called the Argument from Authority). The problem here is obvious: if incorrect information is being disseminated, and no one is fact-checking, then the cycle of ignorance continues.

But the major reason why fundie Christians reject evolution is because they are literalists, which means they absolutely believe the creation myth (in other words, they are die-hard creationists), and since creation and evolution are mutually exclusive and contradictory viewpoints, and they are fundamentalist, they choose religion over science.

From the fundamentalist point of view, evolution brings death into the world before sin; but the bible indicates death is the punishment for sin, so no death could have existed before Adam and Eve ate the fruit. And anyway, if the bible is lying about this, at the very beginning of the book, then what else could it be lying about? No, creationism must be true because otherwise the entire book is suspect and we cannot have our faith called into question, science and reason be damned.

The fact of the matter is this: science is continuously giving answers based upon evidence. If the evidence contradicts what is known, science is smart enough to try to figure out why and flexible enough to change its precepts. It isn't afraid to say "I don't know" because it always follows up with "but I will try to find out."

Religion, on the other hand, cannot give answers based upon evidence: only faith. If evidence contradicts faith, it is usually the evidence which is the first to be chucked out. Christianity rarely changes its precepts, which is why there are so many denominations: if one does not agree, one leaves and starts one's own church. Well at least the religious are not above admitting lack of knowledge, but there is almost always the caveat: "we cannot know the mind of god" or something similar. 

Given these things, science will always triumph over religion. On the topic of this post, science can nearly perfectly explain vestigial organs by evolution, creationism cannot. In fact, here are the two most common responses used by religion on this topic:

1. The organs (and reflexes) in question initially had an important function, but have lost that functionality over time.

2. Science has not yet discovered the function or purpose of those organs (and reflexes).

Please indulge me for a moment as I point out the hypocrisy of these two responses. The first is using evolution to disprove evolution. The second is using the scientific process to disprove the scientific process. It is becoming increasingly the case that Christians are abandoning the literalist interpretation of Genesis and embracing the scientific understanding of evolution.

I hope the trend continues. People need to wake up and come to terms with how the universe actually works, god or no. And when they do? Who knows... perhaps one day religion itself will also be vestigial.

Until next Monday,

Frank