Serial Killer: “Evolution Kills”

After I posted this video about how serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, blamed evolution for his conduct, a Facebooker took issue. I responded:

You wrongly claim that evolution provides us with an adequate reason to act morally:

·       “I would argue that understanding evolution has the opposite effect, let me explain:

·       As far as we know, we only have one life and we share this planet with billions of other life-forms that have the exact same purpose as we do. We're no better or no worse than any other individual, ESPECIALLY not other human individuals.”

“Better” is a value judgment. Since evolution denies that life has a purpose, claiming that everything just happened without design or purpose, you have no basis to talk about “better.” Better for what?

You are claiming that humans are essentially equal. However, you have no basis for this claim either. When we look at humans through evolutionary eyes, we see commonalities but also differences – sexual, racial, physical, mental…  Evolution has no basis to say that some are not more evolved than others.

You also claimed that because humans are social, evolution has provided morality through this:

·       “We're a social species and couldn't have evolved as a species without a sense of morality. It is plain and obvious when you ACTUALLY study evolution. There's no way around this.”

However, the fact that we have certain inclinations or moral feelings does not mean that we should follow them. Morality requires some concept of “ought” or moral obligation. An evolutionary understanding cannot provide this. There can be no basis for an “ought” in a meaningless world, apart from an “ought” that we arbitrarily and meaninglessly create for ourselves to fill the void. In fact, we have many dangerous feelings – murder, hatred, jealousy, lust…  Why not follow these? What can evolution possibly have against these instincts?

Darwin and the Growing Gaps in the Fossil Record

If marijuana use leads to harder drugs, then we should be able to document this progression in the case histories of hard core drug users. If we can’t do this, then we should abandon this theory. If polyps lead to cancer, we should be able to demonstrate this lethal progression. If we can’t, then it is time to reconsider our theory. If natural selection leads to macroevolution – the appearance of higher life forms from lower – we should also be able to document this as well. However, the overwhelming consensus of leading paleontologists is that this cannot be done.

I will merely present a very partial list of quotations from these paleontologists:

• "The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find' over and over again' not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another." (Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager)

• "A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God." (Paleontologist, Mark Czarnecki)

• "There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways, it has become almost unmanageably rich and discovery is outpacing integration. The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps." (Professor of paleontology - Glasgow University, T. Neville George)

• "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (David Kitts – Paleontologist)

• "The long-term stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists" – (Stephen Jay Gould – Harvard)

• "The sweep of anatomical diversity reached a maximum right after the initial diversification of multicellular animals. The later history of life proceeded by elimination not expansion." (Stephen J. Gould, Harvard, Wonderful Life, 1989, p.46)

• "Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series." – (Ernst Mayr-Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University)

• "What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types." (Robert L Carroll – Paleontologist)

• "Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record." (Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9)

• "The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be .... We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin's time ... so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated". (David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History)

The fossil record provides us with no more reason to suppose Darwinian evolution, no more than to suppose that placing teeth under pillows brings the good tooth fairy. Perhaps it is due time to question the theory of evolution!

Meanwhile, theists are accused of believing “creation myths.” However, can the evolutionist say this with a straight face while they have their own creation myth – that everything sprang into existence uncaused out of nothing? Some do!