Just wrote a new blog post on the subject at Freeminds, discussing why even creationists accept some evolutionary ideas without realizing it...
Evolution a fact? You betcha!
by Awakened at Gilead 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Awakened at Gilead
Am I the only one that's nerdy about evolution? Or worried that kids are being brainwashed into creationism?
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Dogpatch
Encourage kids to watch nature programs on archeology, dinosaurs, extinction periods in history, and things like "How the eye develops in many creatures." Use interesting shows that explain clearly how evolution works. Such education is priceless.
Dogpatch
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Vidiot
This was a significant one for me, too.
The turning point was reading about the Neanderthal Genome Project on Yahoo news a few years back; I came across it by accident. At the time, preliminary examination of Neanderthal DNA samples strongly suggested that Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans were too different genetically to interbreed, ergo, Neanderthals were an entirely different species of human. That rocked my world because A) I had recalled an Awake article that acknowledged that Neanderthals had to have been human, and B) according to WT theology, all humans had to have been members of ONE species if we'd all descended from Adam.
That set me on the path of examining evolutionary biology, learning that its portrayal by the WTS wasn't accurate, and learning just how extraordinarily well natural selection works. I came to the conclusuion that the WTS's position on the matter was ideology-based, as opposed to evidence-based, and thusly biased. Surprisingly, I did this all on my own, without ever reading anything by "apostates" or knowing that Dawkins' God Delusion had a section that had critiqued the WTS's Creation book.
Then, I took the next step outside the box, and asked myself "if the WTS is wrong about something this big, what the hell else are they wrong about?"; and make no mistake, "brothers and sisters", it is big, for reasons that I'll post below.
I couldn't unlearn what I had learned, of course, so imagine my amusement when the Neanderthal Genome Project's final analysis reversed their preliminary conclusions, and that Neanderthals and our prehistoric ancestors did, in fact, interbreed. Haw!
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nolongerwaiting
Awakened - No, you are not alone. Reading "The Blind Watchmaker" was huge step for me in escaping the JWs. Evolution makes so much sense when explained accurately and backed up by real evidence. The strawman argument presented by the Watchtower makes scientists look like fools who can simultaneously discover amazing things about biology but can't see the "obvious flaws in their pet theory."
Since then I've tried to read or watch something to increase my understanding of evolution science on a regular basis. I recently saw a quote, although I can't find it now, to the effect that evolution informs and interconnects our understanding in multiple branches of science. It's reach has extended well beyond simply genetics, biology, and paleontology. Even in modern computer science, "evolutionary" algorithms are used to solve modeling, statistics, and control problems.
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Vidiot
Okay, for years after my "epiphany", I gave the matter major serious thought, (ironically, my devout JW Mom had nevertheless instilled in me a respect for science, reading, and education), and put together a breakdown of the reasons why evolution is the slipperyest slope imaginable for fundamentalists and Biblical literalists/innerentists of all stripes:
1. If evolution is true, then the Eden account in Genesis cannot be literal history, and must therefore be allegorical. However, once you start recategorizing the essentially supernatural aspects of Genesis as allegorical, where do you stop? The Deluge? The Ten Plagues? The crossing of the Red Sea? the Virgin Birth? the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes? The Resurrection? The Revelation to John of Patmos? Eventually the temptation to explain away or dismiss ALL the supernatural events in the Bible can become almost overwhelming.
2. If evolution is true AND the means by which God (assuming He exists), created and propogated life on Earth, then its very nature reveals a "God" who is fluid, changing, and enigmatic; the very opposite of an authoritarian deity as He's portrayed in fundamentalists' interpretation of the Bible.
3. In the late 19th/early 20th Century, orthodox Christians finally got fed up with having to reinterpret the Bible and Christianity (as they percieved it) with what seemed to be every other discovery science made, and with the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species, drew a line in the sand and said "NO MORE!" (plus, they found the suggestion that we could be descended from creatures like chimps and orangutangs kinda gross).
4. (A big one) If evolution is true, Adam couldn't have existed as an actual historical figure, therefore he could not have committed Original Sin, therefore humanity (as a whole) did not need redeeming, therefore Jesus' (who some theologians have called the "Second Adam") "Redeeming Sacrifice" isn't the literal canceling out of Adam's Fall, as defined by the Apostle Paul and Augustine of Hippo, therefore fundamentalist Christians' understanding of Christianity's entire purpose may be potentially flawed.
5. If evolution is true, then all the conditions (or restrictions) that fundamentalist Christians claim as having their origins in the Garden of Eden are suspect, not the least of which is the assumption that Christianity is the restoration of authentic worship as was ostensibly laid out in Eden, thusly threatening Orthodox or fundamentalist Christianity's claim to hold the "One True Path". (Yes, it sounds weird, but there are a few obscure Christion sects that subscribe to this)
6. Biblical literalists/innerentists are not at all comfortable with a whole lot of symbolism, because it's "fuzzy"; open to REinterpretation. They like it black and white, and evolution has the potential to turn virtually everything important to them into shades of gray; it is therefore exceedingly threatening to their worldview.
7. Biblical literalists/innerentists also believe that humanity has entered the End Times or Last Days as foretold in the Book of Revelation, and that if people are to take the last book of the Bible seriously, then they better take the first book in the Bible seriously (forgetting, of course, that one CAN take something seriously without necessarily taking it literally).
8. Many conservative Christians interpret the Revelation passages referring to the post-Armageddon era as a millenium-long righteous utopia where justice and peace prevail under the benevelent rule of the returned Messiah, of which Eden is clamed to have been the prototype. If evolution is true, and Eden is allegorical, it potentially casts doubt on that hope. This is just my opinion, but it seems to me that evolution is FAR more threatening to Biblical literalists and fundamentalists than gay marriage, stem cell research, or Roe vs. Wade.
9. The vast majority of religious conservatives take it as an axiom that humanity is inherently bad (and needs to be kept on a tight leash for its own damn good, hence their often hawkish and clenched-fist political and social inclinations). A “perfect God" wouldn’t create “imperfect” worshippers, so something must have happened to screw us and the rest of the world up. The Genesis creation narrative of the Fall from Grace in Eden provides a neatly packaged theological (or, more accurately, ideological) explanation, but it really only works if it’s taken literally.
So you see, it’s not so much about Genesis per se; it's (mostly) about Eden.
I doubt the vast majority of fundamentalists have actually sat down and worked out these details in their heads; I had to think about them for a while myself to clearly quantify them. I suspect, rather, that they grasp it more on an unconcious/intuitive level; this might explain the more visceral "reptile brain" response one often gets when one suggests evolution and Abrahamic monotheism might be compatible.
Interestingly, while researching “The Case for God” Karen Armstrong concluded that Biblical literalism was sort of an unexpected byproduct of the Enlightenment; the rational/scientific method for explaining the world around us had had unparalleled success, but an unexpected side effect was the discrediting of mythology, to the point where the word “myth” even became, for all intents and purposes, associated with “lie”.
I light of that, how could people who revered the Bible associate their cherished scriptures with lies? They couldn’t, of course, and so Young-Earth literalism, well, evolved into its the modern-day (and often quite militant) form.
I doubt the vast majority of fundamentalists (of any stripe) have actually sat down and worked out these details in their heads; I had to think about them for a while myself to clearly quantify them. I suspect, rather, that they grasp it more on an unconcious/intuitive level; this might explain the more visceral "reptile brain" response one often gets when one suggests evolution and Abrahamic monotheism might be compatible.
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nolongerwaiting
Vidiot - I remember that project as well ... I encountered it about the same time. The Nature article suggested that Neanderthals might have 48 chromosomes, compared to human's 46. I pointed my mom at this research, and she responded with the trained cult reaction: "if any evidence casts doubts upon my beliefs, then the evidence is wrong." She keyed in on the article's discussion of how they worked to avoid bacterial contamination in the DNA samples, and suggested that they didn't do a good enough job. I then asked if this was the case, why did the article indicate that Neanderthal and human DNA has 10x the differences of even the most divergent present-day humans ... to which she had no particular reply. (Bacterial contamination would no doubt produce a far more divergent result.)
Of course, today the more complete picture is that Neanderthals did have 46 chromosomes, but they were none-the-less different from modern day humans in many ways. We still call them "extinct", not "ancestors". One of the great things about science vs. religious creed is that it is acceptable to say "I don't know." Science does not have the answers for everything, and our understanding will change as the evidence becomes more refined. The evolution theory as a whole seems unlikely to be disproved at this point. It's easy to imagine what evidence that disproved evolution might look like (a fossil of a modern day mammal in the Jurrasic period for example), and such evidence has never been found. By counterpoint, try asking a theist what evidence that God did not exist would look like.
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tec
Am I the only one that's nerdy about evolution? Or worried that kids are being brainwashed into creationism?
Honestly, I never even knew that very people really believed in a 'young earth' or 'creationism' without any form of evolution until I came here to this forum and got into more fundamentalist beliefs. (hadn't gotten to that with my bible study - although I do remember a woman once in a playschool group for kids telling me that she believed dinosaurs were a hoax. I just said, 'oh', and let it be). But I went to a Catholic school, I learned evolution and paid as much attention as any other teenager in science, I suppose. I mean, is this everywhere, or is this mostly just a 'States' fear? Schools teach evolution of species and the long age of the earth. I don't know any that teach creationism. I'd have to check out the Christian school to see if they do or not, I suppose.
Tammy
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Vidiot
Nolongerwaiting – “I pointed my mom at this research, and she responded with the trained cult reaction: "if any evidence casts doubts upon my beliefs, then the evidence is wrong."
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt; I would have responded to your Mom’s statement with “If you believe that someone is innocent of a crime, yet the evidence convicts him, would you believe that evidence was wrong?”
When I tried to discuss this with my Mom, plus mentioning that some of the most successful breakthroughs in gene therapy (which almost certainly have the potential to improve the health of - and even save - thousands of lives) have occurred as a direct result of medical scientists applying an evolutionary model to the research and tailoring their efforts accordingly, her response was “Well, scientists sometimes lie…” (this coming from a university graduate with a Master’s Degree in education). * repeatedly thumps forehead against wall in exasperation *
The other variation I heard was the suggestion that since the whole world was under Satan’s influence, he probably had manipulated the evidence to produce a false result. And this was from another person who I knew was capable of thinking outside the WT box.
Those moments, plus an Awake interview with The Discovery Institute’s Michael Behe (a "Christian Nationalist" who’s embarrassing testimony at Dover’s ID school board case was the highlight of that event, IMO) helped me realize that the vast majority of JWs – even the smart, intellectually-inclined, liberal-leaning ones - simply had too much invested in the Watchtower Worldview to even consider reversing course on this issue (and thusly, on most of the other big ones, no matter how much they might need to).
That essentially, even the most well-intentioned, fact-based, logically reasoned internal reform within the WT Org had become virtually impossible.
I took that line of reasoning another step, and concluded that if significant internal reform DID occur, they would arguably no longer BE Jehovah’s Witnesses. From an evolutionary standpoint, the WTS (as a social organism) has become so specialized that it can arguably no longer proactively adapt to its changing environment. (Another take on this is the suggestion that the WTS's modus operandi has become "unsustainable", but to successfully reform it at this point would effectively change it into something completely foreign to its own core membership.)
Organisms that cannot or will not adapt to a changing environment are desitned for extinction.
At that point, I had to ask myself; "In light of this, what real value (to me or may family) is there in staying?", and the fade began...
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eric356
As a fellow nerd, evolution is fascinating. I can't stand people teaching kids creationism. Part of the reason I wrote this: http://www.mediafire.com/?3wil5bzi59b2l8f