Atheism and Evolution

As evidenced by probably half of the questions posed to atheists in various public forums, many theists seem to think that atheism and the theory of evolution (or “Darwinism” for those who want to imply that evolution is just some sort of cult of personality that atheists belong to based solely on faith) are inextricably linked. Apparently, either all atheists believe in evolution as their religion instead of believing in God, or else a belief in evolution is what caused people to become atheists in the first place.

In this post I want to try and unpack this a bit. First, to explain what atheism really means and what the real relationship between atheism and evolution is. And second, to try and understand why theists keep insisting on a relationship that isn’t there.

First, the facts:

• Atheism is neither a belief system nor a community of like-minded individuals. There is no official atheist doctrine, there are no appointed atheist leaders, and there are no requirements to be an atheist other than simply not believing in God. Or gods.


• Yes, many atheists accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, but not all do and you can certainly be an atheist and not accept it. Just like you can be an atheist and think the world is flat or that aliens are regularly abducting people or that world leaders are being replaced with lizard people. Being an atheist is not the same as being a scientist or a rationalist or a materialist — it simply means that you do not believe in God. Or gods.


• And, while many atheists do accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, they do so for the same reason they accept, say, the theory of gravity. It’s a coherent, well-established theory that explains observed phenomena that has been supported by observable evidence and is backed up by numerous other fields of study. And, keep in mind, the “theory” of evolution is the current best explanation for the observed fact of evolution, just like the “theory” of gravity is the current best explanation for the the observed fact of gravity.


• It’s important to note that many theists also accept the theory of evolution for the same reasons many atheists do. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most theists accept it (although some still want to include God as the ultimate driving force behind it). The whole denial of evolution thing is really just limited to a very small number of Christians and Muslims world-wide who take their scriptures extremely literally and feel threatened by anything that could be seen to contradict those scriptures in any way (more on this later).


• Finally, while it’s certainly possible that some atheists lost their faith after learning the details of the theory of evolution (e.g., because their faith was based on an assumption that God was required as an explanation for why life on earth is the way it is), the vast majority of atheists were not looking for an explanation regarding the diversity of life on earth in the first place and didn’t choose to replace their religious beliefs with the “religion” of evolution. They simply lack a belief in God, whether because they were not raised to believe in God in the first place, because they were taught about God and found the notion to be rather silly, because they carefully considered the evidence for God’s existence and found it lacking, or any of a thousand other reasons.

Second, the theories:

• As stated above, many (if not most) theists in the world have no trouble accepting the fact that all species — including man — have evolved over long periods of time to reach their current state. They do not take their scriptures to be 100% literally true and are fine with that, focusing instead on the principles and promises made in those scriptures. A small subset of theists, however, acknowledge the hypocrisy involved in only believing in part of holy scriptures and therefore take an “all or nothing” approach. And, since the holy scriptures clearly state that God created man in His own image and gave him dominion over all other creatures on earth, acknowledging the fact of evolution (and accepting the validity of the current theory of evolution by natural selection) would be to deny the validity of the scriptures and the very foundation of their faith.


• These theists who take their scriptures literally know full well that most of what is written in those scriptures either cannot be verified by modern science or is directly contradicted by modern science, whether it be archaeology, geology, cosmology, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, or what have you. But the whole concept of evolution in particular bothers them, since it undermines the whole idea of humans being uniquely special creatures in God’s eyes. OK, so maybe the world wasn’t really created 6000 years ago and maybe Noah didn’t really have an ark full of animals and maybe Moses didn’t really part the Red Sea, but we sure as heck didn’t come from monkeys!


• As a result, for those theists who take their scriptures literally and whose world view revolves around the notion that humans are special, it is only natural to assume that everybody else’s world view revolves around the fundamental question of how humanity got here and what is humanity’s relationship with the rest of the universe. Thus, since their worldview revolves around “God did it,” atheists must have a worldview that revolves around “God didn’t do it.” And, since a belief that “god didn’t do it” requires some alternate explanation, that explanation must be “Evolution”.


• So, in the eyes of these theists, it is incomprehensible that somebody could simply not believe in God (especially their God) without having an alternative belief system in place. And, since these theists acknowledge (whether explicitly or implicitly) that their belief system is fundamentally based on faith (belief without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary) and a reliance on the testimony (anecdotal stories) of others, they assume that atheist must also base their belief system on faith and testimony.


• This false equivalence leads to two separate phenomena. First, there is an ongoing attempt to argue that atheism is no better than theism since both “isms” are equally reliant on “faith” and “testimony” and therefore atheists have no right to feel at all superior to theists (and theists are perfectly justified for not feeling at all inferior). Second, there is an ongoing attempt to undermine the theory of evolution in the mistaken belief that doing so will somehow convince atheists that the explanation for how humanity got here must actually be “God did it” after all.

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For more of my musings on the subject of evolution and religion, please see the following:

Accepting Evolution
The “Theory” of Evolution
Evolution and Why Labels Don’t Matter
Another Evolution Analogy
 

For more discussion of what, exactly, it means to be an atheist, please see the following:

What is an Atheist?
No, Atheism Is Not a Belief System
Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”

Evolution and Why Labels Don’t Matter

Theists (especially Young Earth Creationists who deny the reality of evolution) love to make a big deal about the emergence of species, constantly asking for evidence of one species (or “kind”) turning into another, or asking how the “first” member of a species could have possibly shown up suddenly one day if it had no other member of its species to mate with, etc. Here’s the thing that these folks either do not understand or else choose to ignore, however:

We humans looooove labels. We just can’t help ourselves. We have this innate burning need to distinguish everything from everything else and give it all labels to make sure that everybody knows what we are talking about. We have chairs and we have beds. When somebody invents something that can be used as both a chair and a bed, we call it a futon rather than just admitting that “chair” and “bed” are arbitrary labels in the first place. We label eating utensils that have tines as “forks” and eating utensils that have bowl-like depressions as “spoons”. But then somebody comes up with a utensil that has tines and a bowl-like depression, and we have to come up with a new label “spork” (or “runcible spoon,” if you prefer) because we just can’t deal with something that contradicts our previously defined labels.

The same is true with biology. We have “cats” and we have “dogs” and we have “birds” and we somehow think that just because we have come up with these labels that nature somehow cares one whit about making sure that reality conforms with them. And, sure, it’s pretty obvious that cats and dogs and birds are pretty distinct from each other, but things get awfully muddy when you start labeling each individual species of cat, dog and bird. Not to mention ape. We have arbitrarily defined “species” as groups of animals that can interbreed with each other, but this is simply our way of labeling things and not a hard and fast natural law. That’s why there are things like “ring species” where one group of animals can interbreed with a similar group living in proximity to them, and that group can interbreed with another group that lives in proximity to them, etc., but you eventually get to a group that can interbreed with their closest neighbor but can not interbreed with the original group. We then feel compelled to label the last group a different species from the first group.

All of this is to say that, yes, evolution is true and occurring all the time and yes, this means that any labels we put on things with regard to species, genus, etc., are necessarily going to be imprecise and have gray areas and be subject to revision. Which is, of course, why it is so ironic when some people who deny evolution claim it’s impossible for one “kind” of animal to evolve into another “kind” over time, as if they themselves have some infallible way of labeling things.

The "Theory" of Evolution

I've lost count of how many times I've heard or seen fundamentalist theists (whether Christian or Muslim) disparage the entire concept of evolution by saying, "it's just a theory."  As in, "Scientists claim that man evolved from apes, but the Theory of Evolution is just that -- a theory!  It's nothing more than a guess!"  I've also lost count of how many times I have heard or seen people (whether atheists or just rational theists) respond to this claim, but the responses always seem to be one of two different approaches.  Some people go with a glib response to the tune of, "Evolution is 'just' a theory the same way gravity is 'just' a theory!"  Others point out that the word "theory" has a different meaning when used in a scientific context than it does when used colloquially.  In other words, while theory can certainly mean "simply a guess or conjecture" when used colloquially, when scientists use the term they mean "a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena."

Neither of these two standard responses are particularly helpful, in my opinion.  The first suffers simply because it is glib, and doesn't really offer enough information to change anybody's mind on the subject.  Glib responses, in my experience, are best suited to making the person making the response feel superior, but don't typically have much affect on the respondent.  The second response, while informative and accurate, suffers because it completely misses the entire point.  It doesn't really matter if "theory" is defined to mean that it's not "just" a guess but is instead supported by evidence and generally accepted as true.  That still lets fundamentalists claim that it doesn't have to be true.  "After all," they might argue, "for centuries it was generally accepted by scientists that the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth, or that everything was made up of earth, air, fire and water."

No, I think the best response to the whole "it's just a theory" argument is to point out what the Theory of Evolution actually is, not what the word "theory" means.  And no, I don't mean explain all the details of the theory and point out all the evidence that supports it (although that can certainly be helpful if you have the scientific background to pull it off).  I'm talking about something a lot more basic which always seems to get missed in these discussions.  It is important to explain that the Theory of Evolution is not the proposition that there is such a thing as evolution in the first place, that all currently existing species (including man) have evolved from previously existing species, and that all life on earth shares a common ancestor who lived billions of years ago.  Instead, the Theory of Evolution is the proposition to explain how and why all of that took place.

Evolution, in other words, is an observable, demonstrable fact and not a theory at all!  The Theory of Evolution is our best explanation (supported by evidence and commonly accepted as accurate) as to what caused (and still causes) that fact.  And just because our best explanation might be incomplete or inaccurate or just flat-out wrong doesn't say anything about whether scientists are at all unsure as to whether evolution is a real thing.  This is similar to how the "Theory of Gravity" does not seek to explain whether or not there is gravity, but instead seeks to explain why there is gravity and how it works.

Evolution is an observable and demonstrable fact, plain and simple.  We have a multitude of evidence from various sources, such as the fossil record, comparative anatomy, DNA analysis, etc., that shows unequivocally that all life on earth has evolved from prior life forms over time and that all living creatures shared common ancestors in the past.  Evolution itself is not a theory -- it's simply an observation.  The Theory or Evolution deals with how and why evolution occurred, and the commonly accepted explanation is that evolution is caused by the occurrence of random mutations within a population that gives rise to variety, and that changes in environment cause different variations within the population to either thrive or perish, which over vast time scales can lead to entirely new species, genera, orders, classes, phyla and even kingdoms.

Whether this theory is wholly accurate and complete can certainly be discussed.  It is, after all, "just" a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction.  Maybe there are additional factors at work that we haven't figured out yet.  Maybe some of the factors we currently believe to be involved aren't as important as we think.  Maybe we've got it completely wrong and there is a totally different explanation for how evolution has occurred (and is still occurring).  Maybe that explanation is even "God did it" (or "aliens did it" or "magic pixies did it").  But none of that uncertainty changes the fact that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.

Evolution is a fact.  The explanation as to how it works is a theory.  A very good, commonly accepted theory that can be and has been used as principles of explanation and prediction, but a theory nonetheless.  And this, I believe, is the best response to the whole "evolution is just a theory" argument.  No, the "Theory of Evolution" is a theory, but evolution itself is an an accepted, observable, demonstrable fact.

Another Evolution Analogy

In a previous post I discussed (among other things) Richard Dawkins' "Climbing Mount Improbable," in which he laid out a good analogy comparing the gradual process of evolution to a walk up a very gradual slope that eventually leads to the top of a very high mountain.  It's a very good analogy, but I fear it may require a bit too much work to accept it since (a) not everybody has experience with climbing up gradual slopes and (b) a change in altitude is not really in the same conceptual ballpark as the change that species undergo over time.  It's strength is, I believe, primarily in the way it conveys how extremely small changes can add up to large changes over extreme lengths of time.  But some folks will probably still reject it because they simply can't get their minds wrapped around the comparison of time to distance.

After much thought, I believe I have come up with, if not a better analogy, at least a complimentary analogy to the one Professor Dawkins discussed.  It lacks the sense of vast time in Dawkins' analogy, but is more grounded in everyday experience and deals with actual biological processes.  It also helps deal with the common objection heard by Creationists that there are no "transitional" fossils that show one species evolving into a completely different species.

Let's imagine a father who photographs his newborn child and decides to take a new photograph of the child once every minute of every hour of every single day from that point on. At the end of the first day, the father has 1400 pictures, after one week he has 10,080 pictures, and at the end of a year he has a whopping 525,960 pictures. At the end of ten years, the stack has grown to 5,259,600 pictures, and by the time the child is 50 years old, the stack has grown to 26,298,000 pictures. And (assuming the father was extremely long-lived or passed the duties on to somebody else), by the time the child is 90 years old, the stack has a massive 47,336,400 pictures, all showing the gradual growth of a baby into an elderly man one minute at a time.

Now, over a period of ninety years, the child has changed from a newborn infant to an elderly man, and along the way the child progressed through various well-defined stages (infant, toddler, child, pre-teen, adolescent, young adult, adult, middle-age, senior citizen, elderly) . And if you randomly selected any example from that stack of 47,336,400 pictures, you would be able to clearly identify which stage of life the child was in at the time that photograph was taken. No photograph, however, would show a clear "transition" from one stage to the next. You wouldn't, for example, find a picture showing the child with the body of a baby and the head of a toddler. Or the arms of a teenager but the legs of an adult. Or (to mirror some of the extreme examples asked for by Young Earth Creationists), the body of an infant and the head of a senior citizen.

The point is that the change from infant to elder is so gradual that there are no clear-cut transitions from one stage of life to the next. Somebody may legally be considered an adult at the age of 18, but it would be impossible to detect any physiological differences between a person one minute or one hour or even day before his 18th birthday and one minute, hour or day after his 18th birthday. And this isn't to say that there aren't any transitional photographs of the child; instead, it means that every single photograph shows a transition from the previous minute to the next minute and the supposedly "well-defined" stages of life are really just shortcuts we use to describe people instead of actually having some sort of absolute definitions.

The same is generally true with regard to the fossil record and the evidence it provides for evolutionary processes.  Just as children gradually change into adults over time, species gradually change into other species over time.  The only difference is that species change over millions of years instead of 90 years, but the principal is the same.  Just as you will never find a photograph of somebody who has the head of an infant and the body of an adult, you will never find a fossil showing the head of one species and the body of a previous species.  And this isn't to say that there aren't any transitional fossils; instead, it means that every single fossil shows a transition from the prior generation to the following generation and the concept of "well-defined" species is really just a shortcut we use to describe life instead of actually having some sort of absolute definition.

Dishonest Arguments

People in the skeptical community (and elsewhere) often discuss the various "dirty" debate tactics used by people who argue on behalf of religion (or any other topic, for that matter).  Most of these tactics involve one form of logical fallacy or another, such as a straw man argument (misrepresenting your opponent's argument so you can score points by attacking it), an appeal to authority (a famous historical figure or Internet blogger said it, so it must be true), confirmation bias (focusing only on evidence that supports your argument and ignoring the evidence that doesn't), etc.

One tactic I have seen more and more often lately, however, which doesn't seem to get mentioned much, is when people just flat out lie in a debate.  This tactic is very hard to defend against, partially because it's often very hard to catch somebody in a lie or prove that they are lying, and partially because we tend to accept that people making an argument are sincere in their beliefs and probably aren't even aware that they are using "dirty" tactics in the first place.

Where I tend to see this most often is when people lie about their background, the research they have done and/or the things they have personally experienced in order to lend credence to their argument.  For example, when discussing the various barbarous acts described and promoted in the Old Testament (slavery, murder of children, rape, etc.), it's not enough for these people to simply state their belief that these things had a different meaning back then than they do now and/or point to a Christian apologist web site that argues the same point.  Instead, they have to justify their argument by claiming to have spent many, many years researching the issue, traveling all over the world, learning different languages, etc., despite the fact that they actually have no formal training whatsoever and have reached conclusions not shared by people who do actually have formal training in the subject.  Not surprisingly, all their many years of esoteric research has led them to form beliefs exactly mirrored on Christian apologist web sites and nowhere else.

Similarly, when discussing the Theory of Evolution, it's not enough to simply state that you have trouble accepting the evidence and/or refer to a Creationist web site that supports your point of view.  No, instead, these people have to claim that they have studied the topic in great detail for many years and have come to understand it far better than any of the so-called "experts" in the field (despite the fact that they themselves have no education or training whatsoever in any relevant field of study) and are therefore justified in the claims they are making.  And, once again, it's always interesting how their arguments somehow manage to end up consisting of quotes lifted directly from various Creationist websites.

It's not limited to religious discussions, of course.  When discussing topics such as anthropogenic ("man-made") climate change, some people can't simply state their belief that it's all a hoax or point to a particular web site that claims to debunk the theory, lest somebody with more knowledge respond with actual facts.  Instead, they have to lie about all the many years of independent, non-biased research they have themselves performed (despite not having any actual education or training in the field) to let them confidently state that they know more than any of the so-called "experts" out there.  And yet, once again, their arguments somehow manage to quote almost verbatim from the same discredited web sites that every other climate change denier references.

This also spills over to political discussions, of course (and perhaps it's not a coincidence that the people who use these techniques to argue in favor of religion and against science also use them to argue for conservative causes as well).  Here in the U.S.A., the Fox News channel is the primary (if unofficial) mouthpiece for the Republican Party and spends endless cycles obsessing over one so-called "scandal"after another that might make President Obama and/or his administration look bad, even after the scandals have been completely debunked by every other reputable news organizations and even after exhaustive investigations have shown that the scandals had no basis in fact whatsoever.  Whether it be the so-called "IRS Scandal" or the so-called "Benghazi Scandal," Fox news will continue to talk about it long after everybody else has either dismissed it or forgotten all about it.  Everybody, that is, except for this certain breed of arguers that I am discussing today.  And, since they are who they are, it's not enough for them to simply quote Fox News and state their agreement.  No, instead they have to blather on and on about how they have done the research and looked into the facts and gone beyond "simply clicking on the first link that comes up with a Google search," etc., before coming to a conclusion that (a) ignores the actual facts and (b) just so happens to agree verbatim with whatever nonsense is currently being promoted on Fox News.  Funny how that works.

Now, I am not a psychologist and have no idea whether these people even consciously know they're lying or whether they have somehow deluded themselves into thinking they are experts on the subject.  Or perhaps they are consciously lying, but feel that it is OK to lie since deep down they truly believe in what they are arguing and think it's vitally important to convince others of their beliefs using any means necessary (hence the phrase "Lying for Christ").  Or perhaps they are just dishonest trolls who purposely lie because they revel in sowing confusion and doubt.  Whatever the case, however, it is important to recognize that not everybody who you debate with has pure motives and it's quite possible that some people will flat out lie in order to win the argument.

Accepting Evolution

Although the theory of evolution doesn't really have anything to do with Atheism, per se,  it often comes up in discussions with theists who apparently feel threatened by something which can so fully explain observable phenomena that theists have been claiming for centuries could only be explained by the existence of a divine creator.  Before the theory of evolution was proposed (and, eventually, accepted), there just wasn't any good way to explain the immense diversity of life on earth and the way it is all so interconnected.  Of course, claiming that God "must" have done it since we can't think of any other explanation is a classic argument from ignorance, but the fact remained that there were no other decent explanations for a long time.  With the theory of evolution, however, you no longer need God to explain everything, and this has led some theists to attempt to undermine its acceptance at every opportunity.  Not all theist, mind you -- the Catholic Church, for example, officially recognizes the science behind the theory of evolution and "merely" claims that God directed the process and at some point in that process injected the human soul into the mix.

Somebody once me asked whether it was possible to come up with grand unifying analogy or quote to fully explain the theory of evolution and make it more understandable and accepted by whose who deny it. Unfortunately, while analogies may be useful in understanding the general concepts underlying evolution, I don't think they are much use when it comes to actually accepting the truth of evolution. And this is the case with most fields of science that attempt to explain things that are not, and cannot, be perceived directly and which may even appear to contradict our everyday experiences.

Relativity is truly weird, especially when you talk about curved space/time. Sure, comparing space/time to a rubber sheet and massive objects to a bowling ball rolling along that sheet may help me understand the general idea that somebody is talking about, but at the end of the day it doesn't really help me to understand what space/time really is or accept that it can be somehow distorted by massive objects. That will only come by learning a lot of complex mathematics and performing (or at least studying) tons of experiments.  And if I insisted that all theories that describe reality must comport with my "common sense" view of the world, I would never be able to accept the validity of relativity, despite the fact that it is widely accepted among physicists and is actually used on a daily basis for such things as making adjustments to GPS satellites that are further away from the Earth's gravitational pull and therefore run at a slightly different speed than clocks on earth.  Seriously weird stuff, but also seriously true.

Quantum mechanics is even worse. It has been said that nobody truly understands it, and yet its principals have been borne out by experimentation and physicists can make accurate predictions based on the various laws that have been discovered regarding it.  Of course, the world we can observe with our eyes and ears does not operate on the quantum level, and once again my "common sense" experiences are not a reliable means of judging the validity of quantum mechanics.

Like relativity and quantum mechanics, the theory of evolution describes reality as it occurs on a scale not generally observable by our standard senses.  In the case of evolution, the scale has to do with time rather than size or speed or distance.  And, just like relativity and quantum mechanics, we cannot rely on our own "common sense" experiences as a guide to determining whether or not it is an accurate description of reality.  Once again, however, just like the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, the theory of evolution provides an explanation as to why the universe behaves the way it does and also lets us make falsifiable predictions as to what will happen in the future.

[As a side note here, let me point out that the word "theory," when used in a scientific sense (like the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity), does not mean an unverified guess or idea.  In scientific terms, that would be a "hypothesis".  Instead, the word "theory" is used to describe a system of interrelated laws and principles that have been tested, validated and confirmed and that are used to describe a particular area of  observed reality.  In other words, you don't get to call something a "theory" in science unless it has been proven to be be true.]

To understand evolution, all you really need to know (and I hope I'm getting this right) is that (a) small, random changes are occurring all the time within all biological organisms due to such things as random cosmic ray bombardment, (b) the environment in which most organisms live is constantly changing as well (either due to a change in the environment itself or because the organisms have moved to a different environment), and (c) these two factors frequently combine so that some members of any given species find themselves better suited to the current environment (and thereby survive to pass on their genes to future generations) while other members of that species find themselves less suited (and thereby do not survive to pass on their genes to future generations). Add to that a time span of billions of years for small changes to accumulate, et voila!

The best analogy I have read to help me accept the truth of the theory evolution is the one described in Dawkin's "Climbing Mount Improbable." It doesn't lend itself to a pithy quote, unfortunately, but the general analogy compares the evolution of, say, mammals from their ancient fish-like ancestors to a sheer-faced cliff hundreds (thousands?) of feet high. To somebody standing at the base of the cliff, the very thought of leaping to the top in a single bound is impossible to consider, just like it may be impossible to imagine a fish turning into a mouse. But, the analogy continues, what if you could look at the other side of the cliff and see a gradual slope extending for tens (or even hundreds) of miles in the distance, leading from sea level all the way to the cliff's edge? If you started a journey from the very beginning of the slope, the incline would be so gradual that at no point in your journey would you ever even notice you were rising. You could travel for days, weeks, months and still appear to be traveling on perfectly level ground. And yet, at the end of your journey you would eventually find yourself thousands of feet in the air despite never having made any perceptible leaps whatsoever.  Replace "hundreds of miles" in the cliff analogy with "billions of years" in the theory of evolution, and the analogy is complete. The analogy only works, however, if you fully understand the processes involved with evolution in the first place.

Hopefully, this analogy  provides with a framework to understand how evolution is even possible, similar to how the bowling ball on a rubber sheet analogy might help somebody understand the concept of warped space.  It's not an exact analogy, but it should help (assuming, of course, that somebody actually wants to understand how evolution could possibly be true instead of just rejecting it out of hand).  Having said that, let me just address a few of the most common criticisms I have seen and heard lobbed at evolution by those who clearly do not understand how it could be possible:

• If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes around today?  This is an easy one to answer -- humans did not evolve from apes!  At least, not from the apes that are around today.  Instead, humans and apes both evolved from a common ancestor species millions of years ago and we turned out different from modern apes because we moved to different locations than they did, encountered different challenges than they did, faced different environments over time, etc. It's sort of like asking, "If the English language evolved from Germanic roots, why are there still German speaking people today?"
  
  
• If evolution is true, why don't we ever find any "transitional" fossils that are clearly in between two other species?  The answer to this is that scientists have actually found many different transitional fossils, especially in recent years.  Numerous fossils have been found in the fossil record that show some characteristics of fossils found earlier in the fossil record and some characteristics of fossils found later in the fossil record.  The problem is that some people either are not aware of these discoveries (willful ignorance, perhaps) or require impossible standards for "transitional" like a fossil that is half duck and half crocodile, despite the fact that the theory of evolution clearly states that evolution is a gradual process with no sudden leaps from one species to a wholly unrelated species on in a single generation.  No duck ever gave birth to an animal that wasn't a duck, but over millions of years what is a duck now may be quite different from what was a duck back then.
  
  
• If evolution is true, that means we are just animals and therefore have no reason to act morally toward one another.  Well, aside from the fact that this is basically arguing from the consequences (a logical fallacy where you try to disprove something simply by pointing out the possible negative consequences of that thing), I would have to take exception at the "just" part of this criticism.  True, evolution means that humans are animals, but why do we have to be "just" animals?  A dolphin is not "just" an animal -- it is an animal with a highly specialized, perhaps unique, ability to navigate underwater using sound.  An eagle is not "just" an animal -- it's an animal with exceedingly keen vision and the ability to soar through the sky.  And man is not "just" an animal, either -- he (or she) is an animal with a highly developed intelligence and moral sense that has evolved over time to help us better survive in our environment.  The fact that we are animals doesn't mean we can't be different from other animals in significant ways, and it certainly doesn't mean that we have to act like other animals any more than you would expect an eagle to act like a dolphin (or to act like a penguin, for that matter).
  
  
• Evolution is just a "theory" that Darwin made up and scientists have blindly put their faith in it ever since!  Actually, no.  As mentioned above, the scientific use of the word "theory" (as in the "theory of gravity" and the "theory of relativity") used to describe a system of interrelated laws and principles that have been tested, validated and confirmed and that are used to describe a particular area of  observed reality.  Darwin (and others like him) may have first proposed the idea of evolution, but it didn't become a scientific "theory" until it had been thoroughly tested, revised, expanded upon, and confirmed by generations of scientists looking at many different fields for corroboration.
  
  
• The odds of a complex organism like a human arising purely by "chance" are as ridiculous as a tornado whipping through a junkyard and assembling a complete, working jumbo jet airplane purely by chance! You're right, that would be rather ridiculous. But the theory of evolution doesn't actually state that everything happened purely by chance. Yes, it requires chance mutations to occur and accumulate over time, but that's just an ingredient in the recipe and not the recipe itself. The actual process of evolution is driven by the pressure of natural selection. It may be chance when one animal develops more hair than another member of the same species, but it's not chance when that hairier animal survives when the climate gets colder and the less hairier animal doesn't.
  
  
• Evolution can't explain how life got started in the first place.  You are right, it can't.  But, then again, neither can the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity.  And that's because none of those theories actually claim to answer that question and their validity therefore does not rest on whether they can answer it or not.  There is a completely separate field of biology called Abiogenesis that does try to come up with theories to explain how life could first arise (whether from inanimate matter or some other way, such as having been carried to Earth on a comet).  Evolution, on the other hand, starts with the assumption that life exists and then explains how it became so diverse.
  
  
• But, what about [insert anomaly mentioned exclusively on creationist websites that seemingly "disproves" some tangentially related principal]?  I don't have room to mention every single thing that creationists have come up with over the years in an attempt to "disprove" evolution.  The important thing to remember, however, is that not only does evolution stand as the best explanation ever devised for every bit of observed biological phenomena, and not only has it shown again and again that it has strong predictive powers, it is also corroborated by many other branches of science.  If the theory of evolution were just based on the observed fossil record, then maybe attacking the validity of the fossil record could be an attack on the theory itself.  Instead, though, the theory of evolution is based on corroborating observations from the fossil record, from the genetic analysis of living species, from field examinations of species evolving in the wild, etc.
  
  
• But, there's no actual proof of evolution!  Oh, go read a book.  Preferably one written by an actual scientist with a degree from a real university with a degree in a field actually related to the study of evolution.  That is, of course, if you actually want to learn all about the proof instead of just repeating what others have told you. Creationists have been shouting "there's no proof of evolution" for over a hundred years, ignoring or dismissing every single bit of evidence that comes along, as if simply stating that something isn't true will somehow make it not true. Or, in other words, yes there is actual proof of the theory of evolution. Lots of proof. So much proof that it could (and actually does) fill entire libraries. You just have to be willing to look at it.

Timing Is Everything

OK, so this has nothing to do with why I am atheist, but I just wanted to share...

For a couple of years now, I've been a semi-regular visit to Richard Dawkins's website at richarddawkins.net.  Partly for all the interesting articles there about science and religion, but mostly because the site allowed ordinary people to submit their own articles for discussion and engage in conversation with fellow atheists as well as the few brave theists who wanted to explain just how and why we were wrong about everything we believed (or didn't believe, as the case may be).

I personally found the discussions a great way to expand my scientific knowledge and had some great experiences posting some questions I had about things like biology and evolution.  It wasn't quite the same as sitting down for a discussion with Sir Richard himself, but still a very valuable and rewarding experience.  In addition, I enjoyed engaging in debates with a number of the aforementioned theists on a wide variety of topics.  In fact, many of the posts I make on this blog are based on those discussions.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, when I first thought of creating this blog, I decided to go through the discussion archives at richarddawkins.net and save some of the posts I had made there onto my hard drive.  I didn't really need to, I figured, since the archive would always be there, but it would just be easier to look things up on my own hard drive than having to keep running queries.

Well, as it turns out, timing really is everything.  As of a few days ago, the entire discussions forum has been completely removed.  And I do mean completely.  There are no links to it on the main page and any old links elsewhere return 404: Page Not Found errors.  The archived discussions are likewise completely gone as if they had never existed.

I sent an e-mail to support and eventually received the following response:

Discussions have been removed.  The time and personnel required to moderate them are simply not available to us at this time.  Given our current resources, we felt that focusing on high-quality reputable content was a more efficient use of those resources.

Thank you for your feedback and understanding.

Well, they are certainly welcome for my feedback, but not for my understanding.  Unpaid moderators don't typically require a great deal of resources, but that's not for me to decide.  What bothers me most, however, is the loss of all archived discussions.  You don't need any resources to moderate archived discussions, especially if you lock them so no additional posts can be made.  I suspect there was more going on here than simply a lack of moderation resources but, again, that's not for me to say.

What I can say, however, is that I doubt I will be spending much time at the site anymore.  I still support Richard Dawkins and the mission of his Foundation for Reason and Science, but the thing I valued most about his website -- the ability to ask questions of and engage with like minded people -- is now gone.

Just wanted to get that off my chest, especially since nobody else seems to be talking about it anywhere (not that I can find, at least).  We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming...

On Morality

As an atheist, I have often been told that I am incapable of being a truly “moral” person and that if I raise my son as an atheist he will grow up without morals as well. The argument is usually that “morality” (in the sense of knowing right from wrong, good from bad) comes directly from God and is defined by his nature. Therefore, the argument goes, if one does not believe in God there is no place to look for a source of absolute morality.

I reject this argument for two main reasons:

1. The argument presupposes that there is, in fact, such as thing as “absolute morality.” At best, I think you can say that humans are naturally social and empathetic creatures and that certain behaviors help the survival of the species as a whole. But what the specifics are can and do change from one society to another and one era to another within the same society, and I think you would be hard pressed to find many moral principles that are shared across all cultures or even all religions. Even within a single religion, moral principles regularly change over time. For example, in the days of the Old Testament it was apparently perfectly moral to own slaves and commit wholesale genocide (as long as God commanded it, of course). Conversely, it was immoral to eat shrimp or wear fabric made of two different types of thread. If you ask a Christian why such things are not followed today, you will usually get a response along the lines of how those commandments were given to meet the needs of the society that existed at the time and don’t apply to our society today. Which is, of course, the very definition of moral relativity.
   
   I think the closest one could get to any sort of “absolute” moral principle (despite the fact that it was violated repeatedly in the Old Testament on the direct order of God) would be the principle that we should treat each other the way we ourselves want to be treated (the so-called “Golden Rule”). Christians seem to think that Christ came up with this, but the principle existed for thousands of years prior to Christ’s supposed birth in a variety of other cultures. And, as I mentioned, the Old Testament is replete with examples of God commanding his people to commit all sorts of atrocities in his name in direct contradiction to this principle.
   
   
2. Our only knowledge of God’s commandments and essential nature comes from the scriptures, and those scriptures portray him in large part to be capricious, jealous and vindictive (especially in the Old Testament where people get smitten left and right for all sorts of trivial crimes). It’s all well and good to use logical arguments to hypothesize as to what God’s essential nature “must” be, but if you look at what is supposed to be an accurate record of what God actually said and did, we see a being at odds with his supposed goodness.
   
   I would argue, in fact, that nobody actually gets their moral guidelines directly (or exclusively) from the Bible. Instead, they use their own innate sense of morality to decide which parts of the Bible they want to follow. Perhaps you really like the bits about loving thy neighbor, honoring thy father and mother and taking care of the poor and afflicted? Are you not quite as excited about the bits commanding you to stone homosexuals to death or permitting you to beat your slave as long as he doesn’t die? Morality isn’t doing what God tells you to do – it’s deciding which parts of “God’s words” are actually worth following in the first place.
   
   Now, I have been told that this “innate moral sense” of which I speak is actually some sort of "Light of Christ" which comes directly from God. If that were the case, however, then it doesn’t explain the inconsistency of having God tell us one thing in the supposedly inerrant scriptures and then giving us the ability to determine which parts are false...
   

As an aside, I’ve frequently been struck by the observation that theists tend to have a much lower opinion of humanity than atheists. Most atheists I have talked with seem to accept that morality, while not absolute, has it's origins in the social and evolutionary development of our species. It evolved as a survival trait and is simply part of what makes us human. We treat each other the way we would like to be treated because, on the whole, it makes living together easier. Most theists I have talked with, on the other hand, seem to think that man is basically a depraved animal driven by the basest of motives, perfectly willing to lie, cheat, kill, rape, steal, etc., at all times, held in check solely by enforced obedience to a set of divinely revealed rules and regulations. OK, so they never actually say it quite like that, but the implication always seems to be there.

I just have always found it ironic that Christians (in particular) rail against evolution because it somehow debases humanity and makes us appear no better than any other animal, and yet they are the ones who think we would all run around acting like "animals" if it weren't for their archaic moral codes.