Listen up, plebeians and proletariat alike. If you are in doubt that a deity exists, then this is the proof you need!
In this episode of The Tall Friendly Atheist Dad Podcast, my true identity is revealed...but why do I only reveal it now? You'll have to listen up!
In this post-Easter episode of The Tall Friendly Atheist Dad Podcast, I respond to the CrossExamined article "10 Reasons To Accept The Resurrection Of Jesus As An Historical Fact".
I must send Frank Turek some royalties for giving me and atheists all over the world so much material to respond to...
Original article here: https://crossexamined.org/10-reasons-accept-resurrection-jesus-historical-fact/
A chat with Prophet Of Zod about Pentecostalism.
Feel free to add comments down below.
This is part 2 of a response to a response by Pre-Suppositional apologist ApoloJedi responding to claims about the theory evolution and altruism. Part 1 is here.
ApoloJedi has already read part 1 and has responded privately. I won't reveal confidences, but suffice to say he didn't agree with my assessment or some of my phrasing. I have subseqiently changed some of the phrasing to remove anything that came across as an ad hominem attack because I'm attacking the ideas, not the person.
AJ, keep them snow photos coming - life on your side of the world fascinates me.
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'WHAT IS EVOLUTION'
It is at this stage that I wish to point out a couple of instances where it looks like ApoloJedi has selectively quoted from his source material which I don't believe accurately frames the text correctly.
From ApoloJedi's 'What Is Evolution' section, he quotes a particular textbook to demonstrate what he wants to show is being taught as the theory of evolution.
Let’s analyze what is currently being taught as evolution before we go forward. From OpenStax college textbook Biology 2e...p492: (emphasis added)
Evolution by natural selection describes a mechanism for how species change over time…Natural Selection, or “survival of the fittest” is the more prolific reproduction of individuals with favorable traits that survive environmental change because of those traits. This leads to evolutionary change…More offspring are produced than are able to survive, so resources for survival and reproduction are limited. The capacity for reproduction in all organisms outstrips the availability of resources to support their numbers. Thus, there is competition for those resources in each generation.
What piqued my interest here was that when I studied up on evolution, no-one ever mentioned anything to me about competition for limited resources - environmental attrition, yes, but competition for resources was never mentioned, so I decided to go to ApoloJedi's source to see if I had been mistaken all this time, and what I found was that ApoloJedi had quoted his reference in a way that it was framed to look like competition for resources was what was exclusively being promoted and taught as evolution, whereas the wider body of text ApoloJedi quote from actually shows that competition for limited resources was what Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace believed what Natural Selection was (and from an 1800s perspective):
Wallace and Darwin both observed similar patterns in other organisms and they independently developed the same explanation for how and why such changes could take place. Darwin called this mechanism natural selection. Natural selection, or “survival of the fittest,” is the more prolific reproduction of individuals with favorable traits that survive environmental change because of those traits. This leads to evolutionary change.
For example, Darwin observed a population of giant tortoises in the Galápagos Archipelago to have longer necks than those that lived on other islands with dry lowlands. These tortoises were “selected” because they could reach more leaves and access more food than those with short necks. In times of drought when fewer leaves would be available, those that could reach more leaves had a better chance to eat and survive than those that couldn’t reach the food source. Consequently, long-necked tortoises would be more likely to be reproductively successful and pass the long-necked trait to their offspring. Over time, only long-necked tortoises would be present in the population.
Natural selection, Darwin argued, was an inevitable outcome of three principles that operated in nature. First, most characteristics of organisms are inherited, or passed from parent to offspring. Although no one, including Darwin and Wallace, knew how this happened at the time, it was a common understanding. Second, more offspring are produced than are able to survive, so resources for survival and reproduction are limited. The capacity for reproduction in all organisms outstrips the availability of resources to support their numbers. Thus, there is competition for those resources in each generation. Both Darwin and Wallace’s understanding of this principle came from reading economist Thomas Malthus' essay that explained this principle in relation to human populations.
What ApoloJedi says is being taught as evolution is not quite. The text ApoloJedi quotes from is clearly outlining what Darwin in the 1800's believed what Natural Selection was and even says that he was influenced by an economist - this is not OpenStax saying this is what Natural Selection actually is, and we know this because this section is clearly titled "Charles Darwin & Natural Selection"! But the thing to notice here that it says 'Evolution by natural selection describes a mechanism for how species change over time', it doesn't says 'describes the only mechanism'.
I would have preferred if ApoloJedi quoted the whole text, including the first principle of natural selection, because to me, if you're going to discuss a scientific principle - especially critically - you need to make sure you portray an accurate a picture as reasonable of what it is you're criticising, including any representations from the source text. This is to show a dedication to factual accuracy and to deflect any possible scope to be accused of quote-mining or that you're listening to the wrong people on the topic, lest you come across as someone who does not apply a high degree of intellectual rigour in their thinking.
I am not accusing ApoloJedi of this in the least. All I am saying is that when you quote a reference text to criticise a well-established scientific theory, you need to dot your i's and cross your t's. Measure twice, cut once, as they say.
ApoloJedi then goes on to say what he thinks evolution is:
To summarize their claims on what evolution is:
1. Evolution is unguided
2. Evolution can be verified by showing the gradual process of uncountable sequential individual heritable changes
3. The mechanisms of evolution are natural selection acting on random mutations
4. Genetics determines traits, behaviors, and reproduction
5. Organisms that are the most fit (greatest fitness) in their environment persist to pass their genes to subsequent generations
6. Fitness is “individual reproductive success and is equal to the average contribution to the gene pool of the next generation that is made by individuals of the specified genotype or phenotype”
7. Evolution’s sole driver is to reproduce genetic material in the competition for limited resources.
Let's see how correct ApoloJedi is in his representation of evolution:
1. Evolution is unguided
From a Naturalistic perspective, evolution has no Designer or higher intelligence pushing buttons or pulling strings. However, without a higher purpose is a more suitable term than unguided.
The thing to bear in mind is that evolution didn't seek to create humans - it merely created homo sapiens in the same way it created 8.7 million other species: through genetic variation and environmental attrition.
However, if you wish to accept the Theistic Evolution hypothesis, then no, evolution is not unguided. I, however, can't see ApoloJedi accepting Theistic evolution.
2. Evolution can be verified by showing the gradual process of uncountable sequential individual heritable changes
I'm not too sure why ApoloJedi is fixated on the word 'uncountable' as if it's a bad thing. There are an uncountable number of stars in the universe, an uncountable number of atoms in a rock, and an uncountable number of fish in the sea - this does nothing to count as proof against their existence, and no-one thinks the idea of rocks on the ground, stars in the sky or fish in the sea are ridiculous.
But we can, and have, demonstrated the overall sequence of gradual processes acting upon heritable changes, and in a number of ways.
The most basic is the fossil record - we simply don't see modern animals such as lions, stingrays or weasels in the lower strata, and we never find ancient animals such as eohippus, acanthostega or Venericardia planicosta in the higher strata or even on earth today. There is clearly a pattern from basic organisms to more robust and more complex and featured the higher up the geologic strata you go. The most parsimonious explanation is that different types of organisms existed at various times in the earth's history and that the overall morphology of living organisms has changed over time - exactly what we would expect in the theory of evolution! And if you wanted to challenge this, all you would need to do is find, for example, a Precambrian rabbit fossil. For the fossil record to be evidence against evolution, we would need to find an example of a modern organism, such as a rabbit, fossilised in a geologic strata out of order from its precursor forms. Find that fossil out of order and without a coherent explanation, evolution has a problem.
Next, we have a long chain of intermediates between ancient forms in the Cambrian strata and the modern forms of what we see today. In short, there is no multicellular organism on the planet that we haven't found at least one ancestor for in the fossil record. The tree of life we have uncovered so far is amazingly detailed, something that can be seen for yourself at the Phylogeny Explorer Project.
We then also have phylogenetics combined with taxonomy - with these two tools, we can create a double-nested hierarchical structure that works both backwards and forwards and places organisms by their differences, morphology and genetics, which amazingly also lines up with their place in the fossil record.
So yes, not only can evolution be verified by uncountable, sequential, individual and heritable changes - evolution HAS been verified by analysing the uncountable, sequential, individual heritable changes.
3. The mechanisms of evolution are natural selection acting on random mutations
Firstly, while there is an element of randomness to evolution, but it is more of a feedback loop rather than something like lottery balls or coin tosses. Genes, despite their seeming complexity, are bound to the laws of chemistry and it is within those boundaries that they operate. It's not like anti-theistic scientists ad hoc created new laws of chemistry to dictate what should happen for the sole purpose of upsetting gentle and pious Christians to try push God out of the textbooks - scientists are simply reporting what they observe, and they observe that genes behave in a certain manner and undergo changes in response to a number of factors.
Secondly, it could be argued that natural selection doesn't drive the changes. Natural selection is merely shorthand for the observation that a set of genes whose body is not capable of surviving its environment is less likely to pass on those genes.
Thirdly, those 'random mutations' could be one of a handful of observed mechanisms for genetic variation. Single nucleotide polymorphisms, insertions/deletions, polyploidy, genomic duplication, frameshift mutations, endogenous retroviruses and more. And you can't dismiss these because these have all been observed.
So it turns out ApoloJedi is somewhat correct. But I will add that Creationists do need to make themselves more aware of the research in to the topic to uncover more of the things they aren't aware of.
4. "Genetics determines traits, behaviors, and reproduction"
But again, it's not the whole story. Genetics are the blueprint for the structures in much the same way architectural drawings are blueprints for a house, but they're not the whole thing. There is a lot more to the body than just genetics.
So the most reasonable way of putting it is to say that genetics has an INFLUENCE on traits, behaviours and reproduction, but determines is not the right word. This is where the nature-vs-nurture debate comes in to play, especially in fields such as neuroscience.
5. Organisms that are the most fit (greatest fitness) in their environment persist to pass their genes to subsequent generations
Again, not quite. You don't have to be the most fit - you just need to be somewhat fit to the point that the environment doesn't actively work against your existence. If we look at an animal like the Naked Mole-Rat, the Naked Mole-Rat thrives in underground desert environments, as compared to humans who need plenty of both water and sunlight (but not too much).
So it's not the case that you need to be so strong that you're selected for - you just need to not be so weak as to be selected against.
And remember, 'selected' is just an analogous term. There is no evolution games-master looking from above pulling trapdoors on unsuspecting critters.
6. Fitness is “individual reproductive success and is equal to the average contribution to the gene pool of the next generation that is made by individuals of the specified genotype or phenotype”
This is fairly correct.
But as a reminder, fitness in this context is to do with regards to the environment, not with notions of worth, value or economic productivity. I add this because I have noticed in Creationist circles that fitness gets equivocated with value to society or worth.
So hats off to ApoloJedi on this one.
7. Evolution’s sole driver is to reproduce genetic material in the competition for limited resources.
Half-right. Evolution's driving factor is reproduction and survival, but there doesn't need to be competition for limited resources for evolution to work. Evolution also works when plenty of resources are available as well.
ApoloJedi continues his analysis:
WHAT IS EVOLUTIONISM
Evolutionism is the belief that evolution is the only explanation for all of biology. Those who practice evolutionism are ruthless in protecting this belief. Practitioners expel, malign, and/or punish anyone who dissents from the common evolutionism narrative.
Let's go to Wikipedia to see what it has to say and see if ApoloJedi is somewhat correct in his definition:
The term evolution is widely used, but the term evolutionism is not used in the scientific community to refer to evolutionary biology as it is redundant and anachronistic
I highlight this because when discussing science, again, you have to be as precise as you reasonably can be, consistent and up-to-date with your terminology. Discussing the scientific veracity of evolution, but then throwing in an anachronistic word no-one uses is poor sport because evolutionism is really now only a word Creationists use to describe anyone who accept the findings of modern biology and is prepared to defend the findings of science against the encroachment of pseudoscience.
But is evolution the only explanation for all of biology? No. Anyone who has looked even a cursory glance in to the topic should know about the four foundational principles of biology: evolution, cell theory, genetics and homeostasis. So using the pejorative 'evolutionism' to describe a position no-one who understands the topic properly holds and then ignore the rest of the research in the field is, yet again, poor sport. The closest one could get is Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay that was literally titled "Nothing In Biology Makes Sense Except In The Light Of Evolution". So, Dobzhansky was one of these raging atheists? No. He was a Creationist.
Of further interest are three links ApoloJedi used in his definition for evolutionism for the words expel, malign and punish. Let's see where they take us.
Link 1 take us to Creation-Evolution Headlines (http://www.crev.info), a website run by David Coppedge whose claim to fame is that he was fired by a contractor to NASA for pushing Intelligent Design on to his co-workers. Crev.info is no better than EvolutionNews.com in terms of intellectual robustness and dedication to accuracy. Not that I proclaim myself to be any better, but at least I can be corrected.
But I'll put it like this - if David Coppedge has an open-and-shut case against evolution and has a better scientific principle, he should talk to Dover Area School District and appeal to get Kitzmiller vs Dover overturned.
Link 2? This takes us to the Wikipedia entry for "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", a statement issued by The Discovery Institute that attempts to show that a large number of serious scientists seriously question Darwinian evolution. At last count, over 1000 scientists from all fields have put their name to the statement.
The first problem? As I said before, Darwin isn't evolution and evolution isn't Darwin. Darwin could be wrong about one thing, ten things, a thousand things, but the theory of evolution stands by a long and thorough body of research independent of Darwin. Sure, write a petition against Darwin. That's nice. He not going to take offence because he's long dead.
The second problem? While there may be 1000 signatories to the statement, less than a quarter of them have any direct relevance with respect to biology, and a large percentage of the signatories are evangelical Christians (see here).
The third problem? As a counter measure, the National Centre for Science Education created Project Steve in which scientists named any variation of the name Stephen (Steve, Stephanie, Stipe, Esteban, etc) signed their name to support a statement regarding the veracity of the theory of evolution. So far, more professionally-qualified Steves have signed the NCSE counter-statement than the total number of signatories to The Discovery Institute's original statement, with a higher percentage of biologists among them.
And what about ApoloJedi's third link? Jerry Bergman's Slaughter Of The Dissidents, a book about those evil and corrupt Darwinists killing the careers of those who boldly stand up and dare to challenge the theory of evolution.
This, I don't have too much to say, but let me frame it like this: if I was an astrophysics professor who attempted to teach Flat Earth Theory or Geocentrism to my students as a serious scientific proposition, I would expect to the shown the door. If I was a lecturer in a medical faculty teaching students that sacrificing doves in a temple to a particular Israelite deity was the most effective way to cure diseases, again, my resignation would be expected.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts. Just because you have a controversial opinion does not mean that opinion is correct and it does not mean you have the right to teach that opinion as fact at the expense of intellectual rigour, and especially not in a professional science faculty.
Anyone who wants to teach pseudoscience can go teach their pseudoscience at places that accept pseudoscience as fact, and let the adults in the room go about their business.
Let's continue:
According to those practicing evolutionism…
Which is no-one because evolutionism is not a thing.
...the theory of evolution cannot, must not, and will not be criticized.
I personally have no issue with criticism of specific components of the theory of evolution. Criticise those specific components of evolution as much as you want, but on two conditions: First, that your criticism has scientific validity, and second, that your criticism doesn't come out of theological bias - remember, the theory of evolution is NOT a theological issue: it is a scientific issue. I set these two criteria because in my dialogue with numerous Creationists, I have heard some woefully ignorant claims said about evolution, such as that Hitler's racism was inspired by Darwin (quite inconceivable, considering Hitler wrote that he was actually inspired by Protestant forefather Martin Luther), or that teaching children the theory of evolution leads to emotional distress and depression. These claims are not just not supported by the evidence, but is almost an ad hominem attack (if you could somehow ad hominem a scientific theory).
Scientific criticism of evolution? No worries. If your research is rock solid and you can overturn one of the founding principles of biology, you deserve the fame and fortune that comes your way.
But political or theological criticism of evolution just fake news. Don't spread it.
Efforts to offer any anything other than complete obeisance to the theory are met with swift and unmerciful retribution in an effort to silence critical thinking. In practice, it strongly resembles religious fervor in protection of the dogma.
This is where the previous analogy with teaching Flat Earthism comes in to play. Again, imagine an astrophysics professor who is dismissed for teaching Flat Earth and dismissing and criticising the teaching of a global earth. Would you then say that physics departments all over the world are part of a cabal to silence critical thinking, or would you say they are simply upholding academic standards?
But despite your answer to the above, ApoloJedi's criticism is definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black - one only has to look at the history of Christianity, both ancient and modern, to see that Christians have had no problem silencing, with swift and unmerciful retribution, anyone who dissents from the theological line. In his own words, the church father St. Augustine welcomed persecution of heretics, and in a modern context, David Fitzgerald's Jesus: Mything In Action lists numerous Christian academics who either had their careers stalled, were forced to resign from positions, or were otherwise ostracised for airing alternative views on theology that did not toe the Fundamentalist line.
Funny about that...
This is generally what happens when someone makes a social media comment that even hints there might be problems with evolution’s ability to explain all of biology...
No-one believes evolution explains all of biology. As stated before, evolution is one of the four foundational principles of biology - not the be-all and end-all. Comments like this indicate either a lack of study biology to any great depth, or having consumed so much of the Creationist trope of it being equivalent to anti-theistic atheism that ApoloJedi doesn't realise his position is not that is held by those who understand the topic professionally.
But it's not so much that you are criticised for criticisng evolution because atheists just love evolution so much - it's because evolution has been so thoroughly proven that the only reason you would criticise it is because you're trying to defend a pseudoscientific position, not advance scientific education or understanding. The same goes for Flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, 9/11 Truthers and Scientologists - if you say something so outreageously incorrect and untrue that the only reason you’d say it is because your theological disposition compels you, you deserve the criticism - not abuse because abuse is bad, but criticism - that is directed your way.
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This marks the end of part 2.
The fun and frivoloty continue in part 3.
Stay safe. If you can't be all of tall, friendly, atheist or a dad, be at least two of them!
Some time back, I got into an intense discussion with a Christian apologist that I interact with a lot on Twitter who goes by the handle of @Apolojedi_, so handled because he is an apologist who finds your lack of faith disturbing.
(Apologist Jedi - get it? But since it was Darth Vader who said "I find your lack of faith disturbing", his handle should actually be ApoloSith).
This particular debate got so intense that ApoloJedi stopped communicating with me for a while, and even as I write this, we are at somewhat of an uneasy truce (though things are warming up, which is great. Behind the scenes, ApoloJedi is a nice guy, and that is something I have no problems saying).
In our debates, the biggest point of contention is about the nature of epistemology and philosophy of mind. And why something so obscure, and you know, not actual evidence? Because ApoloJedi is a Pre-Suppositionalist. Pre-Suppositionalist apologetics doesn't focus on building an evidentiary case for God's existence or the superiority of Biblical morality - the core skill of Pre-Suppositionalists is uncritically assuming that they're correct, then dismissing atheists because they are apparently self-deceived fools who can't even know for sure if the sky is blue. The general topic of Pre-Suppositional Apologetics is one I'll write on in depth at some time, but for now, just bear in mind that the standard Pre-Supp apologetics style is NOT to use reason and evidence to build a case - actually, quite the opposite - and this is something I will refer back to towards the end of this response series.
The other thing to bear in mind is that ApoloJedi is a Fundamentalist Creationist of the Biblical-Literalist variety, which means he does not accept the theory of evolution as an explanation for the diversity of life on earth today. I would also add that because he is a Biblically-Literal Creationist, I feel that he feels that he is theologically-obliged to not accept or understand evolution* no different than the standard Creationist tropes of it, then to attack that Creationist straw-man of evolution as if he is criticising evolution as actually understood in the scientific literature, and then acting as if he has definitively proved evolution is b******t. All of this is in stark contrast to myself, a person who accepts that science is the best tool for explaining the natural world, so in due course I accept the theory of evolution. But don't think for a second that it means I uncritically accept the writings of Charles Darwin or that I am a Richard Dawkins fanboy or that I worship evolution. I'm not and I don't. Accepting the theory of evolution just means that I acknowledge what I regard to be the evidentially unescapable fact that the species homo sapien is a member of the wider primate family (which itself is the result of a long line of forebears who are now extinct) as well as the fact that all organisms on earth are inherently related.
As a prelude to the interaction that sparked this blog post, ApoloJedi challenged me on Twitter with the statement:
I've never heard a good explanation for why evolutionists think altruism is beneficial.
I responded with:
Altruism is a beneficial trait in social species. The other primates also practice altruism.
He responded:
More of the same post hoc gibberish dressed up with some sciency lipstick.
And thus I replied:
The scientific research would beg to differ. The evolutionary origins of human altruism explained.
And after some time, he with a blog piece of his own titled "Can Evolution Explain Altruism?". I have had a read of it and felt the need to respond because he gets quite a number of things wrong (as well as a couple of things right).
Here begins my response to ApoloJedi's "Can Evolution Explain Altruism?".
All text quoted from ApoloJedi's original blog post come from the version published on 5th December 2020, and is represented in Courier font.
All external sources used by either ApoloJedi or myself are quoted in Verdana font.
Inevitably in some of those conversations, skeptics bring up evolution as a reason not to repent. The conversation sometimes includes this phrase:
There’s no need for your sky daddy. Evolution explains everything without him
I am not one of those people. To me, evolution doesn't explain everything - all evolution explains is the diversity of life on earth, not the origin. This would make my stance somewhat compatible with Theistic Evolution, a concept that accepts the veracity of the theory of evolution, but also believes God either started the process, guided it, or could well have intervened at certain stages. So I will tell you straight up that theology is not the issue - God could exist, evolution could be verified, and none would detract from the other.
Aside from that, my primary reason for not believing in God (or repenting) is that no-one has ever come up with a testable definition of what a god actually is or a way of verifying how a god interacts with material reality. All of the definitions of what a god is that I've come across are not testable, have no material definition, or at the very best are philosophical and not scientific. I certainly don't reject God because of evolution - however, when I was a Christian, I rejected evolution because of my belief in God, in much the same way ApoloJedi is doing now, which is typical in the Fundamentalist mindset. Talk about pot calling the kettle black.
But one of the questions I’ve asked God-deniers about evolution’s explanatory power is “How is altruism consistent with evolutionism? How does evolution explain altruistic behavior?”
The first part is easy, and one I answered in the preliminary conversation: altruism is a beneficial trait in social species, and how it relates to evolution is that if a trait or practice is beneficial, it helps the community of whatever receives the altruism to survive and thrive.
But for the second part: how does evolution explain altruistic behaviour? The link I shared in the conversation up the top was to a Google Scholar search result for the term "evolutionary origins human altruism", which brings up 87'000 results - certainly enough to answer the question.
This, however, I am not concerned about - I'm not a biologist. It's the Creationist response that has me excited. Now, remember, the theory of evolution is not a theological issue. Numerous Christians happily accept the Bible as being divinely inspired as well as accepting that evolution is as solid a scientific theory we can get. So when ApoloJedi attempts to tie the theory of evolution with atheism (or God-denial, as he puts it) he's already trying to reframe the issue to make it theological, not scientific. A big no-no if you're presenting yourself as a defender of God's timeless word by speaking words of truth that accurately represent reality.
This is apparently a question that triggers God-deniers, because when I post that question on social media, there are all kinds of caustic and derogatory remarks about my lack of intelligence, my lack of education, and their desire that I be quiet.
I'm sorry for the caustic remarks ApoloJedi receives from atheists. In my mind, this is not how debate should be done, and personal abuse serves no purpose. Sarcasm, yes, but abuse, no. And I will make it known that I have publicly defended ApoloJedi in the face of abuse numerous times.
But on the flip side, ApoloJedi is also not beneath being condescending or antagonistic, though towards me he is a bit more moderate.
But the reason the question 'triggers God-deniers' isn't because the question is hard - it's because the question belies a lack of scientific understanding: the same lack of understanding that caused the Dark Ages to be so dark. From my point of view, when I walked back on theism, I didn't go "I hate God because he doesn't exist because the theory of evolution can explain everything!" - I rejected theism because I realised theism deals with nothings and offers nothing, and when I stopped being a theist, I accepted the theory of evolution because when you look at the evidence dispassionately and without a theological bias to be beholden to, you will see that evolution has an enormously large body of science behind it.
Keep in mind also that I have no desire for ApoloJedi to be quiet - I have a desire for him to be correct. As long as what he is saying isn't abusive or defamatory, he can be as loud and as wrong as he wants - he certainly wouldn't be the only person on Twitter to be combative and unaccepting of the findings of science. But if you're going to be loud, try to also be correct.
Once in a while a skeptic will try to answer. Here’s a recent answer I got to the question “Why do evolutionists think think altruism is beneficial (in this case public education)”
Alturism (sp) can improve the survival rate of the herd making it easier for individuals to thrive. Education improves the herd so ensuring a well educated public can improve individual life
In a very basic and unrefined sense, yes, that is the long and short of it - altruism (though I think the word 'kindness' is better for the argument) improves the survival rate of groups of organisms. I personally see kindness and altruism as being two points on the same side of a sliding scale, but I won't put my own definition in to the debate.
ApoloJedi then provides two definitions of altruism:
Wikipedia defines altruism as “Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual.”
Merriam-Webster tells us that altruism is “behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species”
These are OK, though I would remove the word spiritual from Wikipedia's definition simply because spiritual is a philosophical or poetic word that tends to refer to something emotional in humans anyway.
I prefer Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's definition:
Behavior is normally described as altruistic when it is motivated by a desire to benefit someone other than oneself for that person’s sake. The term is used as the contrary of “self-interested” or “selfish” or “egoistic”…
Further to this, SEP have an incredibly long article outlining the research behind various academic viewpoints of altruism. So from hereon in this will be my preferred definition, simply because it is more academically rigorous and favours no theological position either way.
ApoloJedi continues:
I will reference these definitions later in the post, so prepare to be pointed back here for a reminder of these foundational definitions. We all recognize altruism in humans when people are selfless. Altruism is on display when a person gives money to the homeless and when a person helps at the scene of an accident and when a person helps build houses on a mission trip. In those interactions, there is no benefit and may even be sacrificial on the part of the giver. Sometimes, altruism is seen in ant and bee colonies.
Already, ApoloJedi's arguments against evolution and for Creation show some weakness.
Sometimes, altruism is seen in ant and bee colonies.
Keep in mind, not just ant and bee colonies - numerous primate species, numerous mammals, even some species of shrimp have been observed to display altruistic behaviour - so however you want to define altruism, you then have to admit that altruism is not a behaviour seen only in humans, which means that the mechanism for how altruism developed in humans is just as applicable to how it developed in non-human mammals.
But if we ignore the scientific research and look to an Intelligent Design/Creation model, the only way to account for what we observe would be to say that the Creator/Designer gave the capacity for altruism to some animals (especially primates). And why? For reasons undiscernible, the Creator decided not to make other animals altruistic.
This is hardly an explanation.
One of Intelligent Design's fatal flaws is that not only does a given explanation for an observation that counters Methodological Naturalism and leverages Intelligent Design have to account for a how, but it also has to add a why component to the explanation - otherwise, both the design and the Designer are no longer intelligent.
Whereas under an evolutionary model, not only has evolution been established as the primary driving factor behind biodiversity, but it also helps explain how altruism is found mostly in mammals, in particular social primate mammals, but only in a handful of other species - in short, it simply wasn't a trait that was developed and inherited across the animal kingdom. The detailed answer lies in genetics, which is not my field, but feel free to read a book literally titled The Genetics Of Altruism if you want the granular detail.
The next section goes on to define evolution.
In 1859 Charles Darwin released one of the most influential books of all time, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for the Preservation of the Favored Races. In it, he lays out a case for a mechanism known as natural selection, which he says:
Natural Selection is the principle by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved
This is not too far off the mark, but one thing you have to bear in mind that Darwin didn't get everything right. Darwin saw the broad brush strokes and worked out that something was going on, and then put his findings in to writing for others to build up on. Darwin is not the be-all and end-all of evolution - he simply put the theory in a way that made more sense than other authors of his day, though he certainly wasn't the only proponent of the theory of evolution at the time. But the reason I need to make this clarification is to counter the common Creationist fallacy that evolution has been debunked because something Charles Darwin wrote in the 1850's was incorrect. No.
Darwin isn't evolution and evolution isn't Darwin, in much the same way that Newton isn't calculus and calculus isn't Newton. No-one who studies mathematics is compelled to worship at the altar of Newton, and likewise for evolution - Darwin is just a guy. Further to that, evolution has been verified independent of Darwin, and Darwin only described the process from an 1850's perspective, not a 2000's one, so he's obviously going to get some things wrong. Evolution also doesn't follow Darwinian principles, as if Darwin created de novo a process by which organisms MUST pass on traits, and any organism NOT passing on traits the way Darwin specified means Darwin was a liar and a racist. No - again, Darwin just described what he saw, and he just happened to get a good few things right.
Darwin reveals his biological theory that attempts to explain the origin of the great diversity of life. This theory requires that uncountable sequential individual heritable changes be preserved by natural selection for evolution to have veracity. He said:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
Correct. He did say the words attributed to him...as a rhetorical device. Darwin wrote the following text immediately after the above quote (from p.189 of On The Origin Of Species):**
But I can find out no such case. No doubt many organs exist of which we do not know the transitional grades, more especially if we look to much-isolated species, round which, according to my theory, there has been much extinction. Or again, if we look to an organ common to all the members of a large class, for in this latter case the organ must have been first formed at an extremely remote period, since which all the many members of the class have been developed; and in order to discover the early transitional grades through which the organ has passed, we should have to look to very ancient ancestral forms, long since become extinct. We should be extremely cautious in concluding that an organ could not have been formed by transitional gradations of some kind.
One of the common Creationist traps is the Darwin quote-mine, especially because what Creationists don't get is that Darwin employed a writing style where he gives what he believes is a necessary condition for his theory to fall down, almost as a dare to his detractors, but then retracts it by comparing with a more fortified opinion. He did this with the eye as well. The common Creationist quote-mine for that is text from p.186:
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.
Pretty damning, right? Charles Darwin, god of the evolutionists himself - get this - thinks his own theory is absurd! Open and shut case! But wait…the rest of the paragraph reads as such:
When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.
So just be aware that when a Creationist quotes Darwin, what is being quoted may not be reflective of the whole picture of what Darwin was trying to communicate**.
ApoloJedi then continues:
For evolution to have explanatory power, there must be uncountable sequential individual heritable changes that are preserved solely by natural selection.
Not quite. Firstly, natural selection isn't the only mechanism proposed for how evolution works. Natural selection is the strongest mechanism, but not the only one. Darwin himself wrote in a letter to Charles Lyell:
I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main, but not exclusive means of modification.
Secondly, evolution is a process that happens to populations, not individuals. So yes, while one member of a group may have a beneficial trait, for it to be counted as evolution, the trait has to be passed on to a population and to the point that the population in question becomes distinct enough to warrant either a new species, or even a sub-species, category.
Thirdly, it is not quite uncountable. The Human Genome Project quotes research that National Institute of Health put out in 2007 that indicates that between any two people, there is approximately 0.1% genetic difference. Eighty years ago, we had no idea how genetics worked, but now, we have mapped the genomes of multiple animals (including humans) and we have now quantified how different humans are from one another. Given enough time, we may well be able to quantify down to an extremely granular level. But the thing to bear in mind is that uncountable does not mean unknowable.
Though I will say ApoloJedi is correct in that the changes are heritable and sequential. This is why we don't see homo sapiens giving birth to an australopithecus aforensis or any other member of the suborder Haplorhini (though we do sometimes see atavisms).
Now Darwin had no idea about DNA or the unimaginable complexity of genetic code that is stored on DNA, but scientists after Darwin discovered the code of DNA which serves as the source of inheritance, the mutation of which supposedly provides for novel traits.
This is almost correct. If ApoloJedi took out the word supposedly in the last sentence, I'd give him 8/10 - the genetics are the carriers of the differences, and sometimes also the inherent cause themselves, via a number of observed mechanisms. But saying 'supposedly provide for novel traits' is, again, shows that he is either unaware of the research, or is discarding it because of theological bias to do with the subject matter.
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This here will mark the end of part 1 of what is so far a 4-part series.
Whenever and wherever you read this, stay rational and stay safe.
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* - the original line "to the point of misrepresentation" has been removed to avoid any implication ApoloJedi is being deliberately deceptive.
** - text has been edited to avoid any potential accusation of quote-mining.