Can Human Evolution Survive Silly Storytelling?

One would think a scientist would be embarrassed to put forward such ideas. Why do Darwinists get away with it?

Do bullies have more sex? (Science Daily). Don’t tell this one to young people. Right when sexual harassment claims are destroying careers, and right when schools are campaigning against bullying, evolutionists come along and justify these behaviors on Darwinian grounds!

Researchers believe that bullying might be more than just objectionable behaviour. It might, in fact, have evolved as a way for men to show dominance and strength, and to signal to women that they are good breeding stock, able to protect their offspring and provide for their needs. From an evolutionary perspective, a man’s dominance may make him more attractive to his potential sexual partners, as well as scaring off potential rivals.

As one might suspect, this is another awful idea coming from evolutionary psychology—up there with the notion that rape is an evolutionary strategy. It’s bad enough to to stamp the imprimatur of science on such notions, but it’s not even true. If bullying were so successful, every man would be a bully harassing women, and the gentlemen would go extinct. And evolution would also select women who love to be bullied. Obviously, even from within Darwinian theory, this idea doesn’t wash. Like everything else in Darwinism, this notion evaluates everything in the world through the lens of “reproductive success” without any moral considerations at all. That’s why you can ignore the open-access paper in Evolutionary Psychological Science, a misnomer of a name if there ever was one. Dr Jerry Bergman’s book (pictured, right) is a much better resource, documenting how evolutionary thinking about human nature destroys everything good in human society.

The evolutionary advantage of the teenage brain (Medical Xpress). Here’s another corrosive idea from evolutionary psychologists at UCLA, showing not only how you can fit any situation into Darwinism, but the conclusions are bad for society.

The mood swings, the fiery emotions, the delusions of immortality, all the things that make a teenager a teenager might just seem like a phase we all have to put up with. However, research increasingly shows that the behaviors of teenagers aren’t just there to annoy parents, they serve a real evolutionary purpose.

It’s hard to describe just how dumb this idea is. First of all, not every teenager acts this way. And if the idea were to be taken seriously, they would have to say that parents evolved to be exasperated with teenagers. And evolutionary psychologists evolved to make up stupid stories. You can bet that if teenagers were models of rationality and wisdom, evolution would have a story for that, too.

Upper body strength key factor in men’s bodily attractiveness (Phys.org). This silly article begins with a photo of an ugly, skinny guy flexing. It proceeds to announce, “In many mammalian species, females evolved to prefer the strongest males. According to research from Griffith University, the same is true of humans.” This statement proves that any ridiculous notion can be blessed with the honorable label of “research.” Yes, folks, this ‘research’ explains why fat men, smokers, and sensitive wimps get married, right? Ask most dating women, and they will tell you that kindness, personality, a sense of humor and thoughtfulness are much more desirable than muscle, which tends to be low on the attraction scale. In particular, most women are not attracted to narcissistic musclemen who constantly flex in front of the mirror. Isn’t that true, ladies?

What do the new ‘gay genes’ tell us about sexual orientation? (New Scientist). Answer: not much. Some ‘researchers’ in Illinois made another attempt to find genes for homosexuality. According to this idea, most gay men tend to have one or more straight older brothers, because of some genetic tweak that happens in Mom after her firstborn son. Every straight second-born or third-born man should be incensed at the suggestion that they have a predisposition for being homosexual. “It adds yet more evidence that sexual orientation is not a ‘lifestyle choice’,” says Dean Harmer of the National Institutes of Health,” putting his blessing on this fallacy of association. “But the real significance is that it takes us one step closer to understanding the origins of one of the most fascinating and important features of human beings.” No it does not. For a Darwinian, who views everything through reproductive success, this would be a very un-Darwinian thing to have ‘evolved.’ And for reasonable men struggling with homosexuality (or any other disorder), it robs them of any hope of change, making them out to be puppets of their genes.

If You Suck at Dating, It’s Not You — It’s Evolution (Live Science). At the risk of running out of synonyms for dumb, this article hits a new low.

In the study, the researchers found that roughly 50 percent of people have trouble finding or keeping a romantic partner. And if this characterization applies to your life, the study authors offer a glimmer of encouragement: It’s not you — it’s evolution.

So aren’t you encouraged? Rejoice! There is nothing you can do about it. You’re a loser, and it’s evolution’s fault. Buck up and get used to it. “In the study,” the sentence began. Study. What is a study? For an evolutionist, it is any activity in storytelling, no matter how lazy or inane. Why, you ask, would Darwinism, which treasures reproductive success as the highest good, ever produce losers at dating? Darwinians have gotten so good at confabulation, they have an answer for that, too:

From an evolutionary perspective, it seems counterintuitive that a behavior as important as mating would prove so challenging for so many individuals. But the reasons may be rooted in a social science phenomenon known as the “mismatch problem,” Apostolou told Live Science. Though humans are generally skilled at adapting to new conditions, it can take many generations to dramatically alter our behavior, he said. So, by the time humans properly adapt to one set of new conditions, their environment may have already changed significantly, in ways that they’re not prepared for.

Let’s try to understand this idea, even though we know in advance it will be an exercise in futility. Guys are having a hard time getting dates because they’re still genetically programmed to club the woman on the head and drag her off to the cave by the hair. But the environment has changed. Now, the modern male is expected to bring flowers, dress nice, wear deodorant and act like a gentleman. Is that the implication of the hypothesis? If so, then evolutionists have also lagged behind. They are still acting like cavemen, too, swapping stories around the campfire, but the environment has changed. Since Galileo, Kepler and Newton, evolutionists are expected to produce research valuing truth and empirical rigor. But they “suck” at science, and so now they have an excuse: “it’s not you – it’s evolution.”

Evidence of directional and stabilizing selection in contemporary humans (PNAS). Maybe you are thinking that silly evolutionary stories come from simple-minded reporters. Here’s one that got published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by an international team of experts in Darwinism: “Evidence of directional and stabilizing selection in contemporary humans.”

Combining high-throughput molecular genetic data with extensive phenotyping enables the direct study of natural selection in humans. We see firsthand how and at what rates contemporary human populations are evolving. Here we demonstrate that the genetic variants associated with several traits, including age at first birth in females and body-mass index in males, are also associated with reproductive success. In addition, for several traits, we demonstrate that individuals at either extreme of the phenotypic range have reduced fitness—the hallmark of stabilizing selection. Overall, the data are indicative of a moving optimum model for contemporary evolution of human quantitative traits.

It seems audacious to have to remind top scientists publishing in the most prestigious journal in America that human beings are all members of the same species. But we must. Stabilizing selection is not Darwinism; it is homeostasis. And to say that variation within the human species is a case Darwinian fitness risks bringing back evolutionary racism. Does “natural selection” mean anything at all, scientifically? This would be a good time to review our analysis of Darwin’s theory of natural selection (10/03/15).

The headline asked, “Can human evolution survive silly storytelling?” Sadly, the answer is yes. It already has survived for over two centuries, beginning with Comte de Buffoon (pun intended), down through Erascal Darwin (pun intended), on through to Vestiges and The Water Babies, reaching its apex with the storytelling wizard himself, King Charlie the Incredible. Reasonable scientists have complained about this storytelling habit for all this horrid history, but it goes on and on and on, with no sign of slowing down.

We have a song that illustrates the problem, to the tune of Battle Hymn:

1. No eyes have seen the story of the origin of life,
It’s an empty speculation and the obstacles are rife;
But we must explain it somehow, ICR will give us strife–
’Tis ruthless marching on!

Chorus
Gory, gory evolution,
Gory, gory evolution,
Gory, gory evolution,
’Tis ruthless marching on!

2. Now the fit will be survivors, and survivors will be fit,
And survivors will survive to prove the fitness of the fit,
O, this natural selection, it’s so simple, isn’t it?
’Tis ruthless marching on.
Chorus

Slower, with emotion
3. Now we’ve conquered education; evolution rules the land,
God is just imagination; there’s no purpose, right or plan;
As we face a brave new world without a moral high command,
’Tis ruthless marching on.
Chorus