Darwinists Animalize Humans

We share many physical traits
with primates, but our minds
are exceptional.

 

No philosopher has ever questioned our similarities to animals: we grow from embryos, we eat, we sleep, we reproduce, we express emotions, and we form social groups. But are humans mere animals? That is the key philosophical and theological question.

Human exceptionalism is notable in language, art, abstract reasoning, civilization, a thirst to know God and find ultimate meaning beyond our physical existence, and to anticipate life after death. This makes sense if we are “souls cast in animal bodies” as Wernher von Braun expressed it: a part of creation, but made in the image of God and given a stewardship role over our fellow creatures. Theologians teach that human souls, unlike animals, are created for eternal existence either with or apart from God.

Darwinians, by contrast, have a philosophical need to explain humans as mere animals: beings that emerged through the same mindless, unguided, blind processes of random mutation and natural selection that they think gave rise to all life (22 Aug 2023), originally from material chemical reactions. Human exceptionalism violates Darwinism. The Darwin Party, therefore, focuses on our similarities to animals, striving thereby to “animalize” humans, relegating them to the same stuff found in chimpanzees. To evolutionists, minds and souls (whatever they are) cease at death.

Comparisons can be useful but misleading. Suppose we compare two computer memory chips. Both are made of silicon. One is blank, a shape of unformatted atomic minerals with certain circuits etched into them. The other has embedded on it the entire Lord of the Rings movie series. If scientists focused only on the similarities, they would miss the point, wouldn’t they?

 

We humans love animals and are fascinated by their varieties and exceptional traits, but we study them; they do not study us. Animals come equipped with an operating system embedded with instincts for food, sex, and survival. They experience pleasure and pain. They are attracted to the opposite sex. They seem to experience curiosity. They have the physical and mental tools for getting along in a complex world. Many are social beings with complex interrelationships among their kind and with other animals. They can be trained to do remarkable feats.

Only humans, though, use language and symbols to communicate abstract concepts, like deriving differential equations to describe unobservable realities such as nuclear reactions in the interiors of stars. No birdsong can compete with Bach, no crow’s tool with the International Space Station, no beehive with Notre Dame. It’s not necessary to belabor the contrasts – except when answering Darwinians, who miss the point of the movie on the memory chip. The following news items illustrate the quandary.

The interplay of two genes illuminates how the large human brain evolved (German Primate Center via Phys.org, 26 March 2025). These German Darwinists see our brains as just more of the same stuff as that found in chimp brains. We are the accidental products of time and chance working on matter.

The animals revealing why human culture isn’t as special as we thought (New Scientist, 1 April 2025). Assuming Colin Barras doesn’t mean his article as an April Fool joke on us, the joke is actually on him. His headline says, “we thought”— stop right there. Thinking presupposes abstract concepts of truth or falsehood that do not evolve. His article therefore commits a self-refuting fallacy in the very title with its Tontological formulation.

An end to human exceptionalism (Science Magazine book review, 27 March 2025). Adrian Woolfson reviews Henry Gee’s new book, The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire. Henry Gee, a former editor of Nature, gives a pessimistic view of human future: it all ends with extinction. His book is as gloomy as the Book of Ecclesiastes, where the Preacher concludes that all is vanity when viewed “under the sun.” And doesn’t the ancient phrase “under the sun” capture perfectly the limited scope of the materialists and Darwinists, who have shut out the voice of “eternity in their hearts” (Eccl 3:11) that God put there? Despair is the only possible end for those who didn’t read the final chapter (Eccl. 12).

What makes the human brain unique? We compared it with monkeys and apes to find out  (The Conversation, 24 March 2025). This article by two Darwinian neuroscientists illustrates the attempt to “animalize” humans by emphasizing their similarity to animals. The article opens with a large picture of a chimpanzee under the title.

Applying waves of the Darwin magic wand, these evolutionary neuroscientists reason under the sun:

This insight underscores the complexity of human brain evolution, suggesting that our advanced cognitive abilities arose not from a single change, as scientists thought, but through several, interrelated changes in brain connectivity….

These findings challenge the idea of a single evolutionary event driving the emergence of human intelligence. Instead, our study suggests brain evolution happened in steps. Our findings suggest changes in frontal cortex organisation occurred in apes, followed by changes in temporal cortex in the lineage leading to humans.

Richard Owen was right about one thing. Our brains are different from those of other species – to an extent. We have a primate brain, but it’s wired up to make us even more social than other primates, allowing us to communicate through spoken language.

Like the hypothetical scientists (mentioned earlier) shown two computer memory chips, one blank and one with movies encoded on it, they miss the point if they can’t see behind the neurons that an exceptional human spirit is directing the physical. They also miss the point if they assume that the neurons created themselves by mindless physical processes.

Engineering skills in the manufacture of tools by wild chimpanzees (iScience, 24 March 2025). See, creationists? Chimpanzees make tools like us. Therefore we are just more of the same material stuff. “Chimpanzee toolmaking mechanics may inform on the technical skills of early hominins.” Just wait a few more millions of years and chimps will colonize distant planets and build skyscrapers on them.

Research into chimpanzee ‘engineers’ has implications for understanding human technological evolution (Univ of Oxford, 24 March 2025). Do you notice an inherent desire on the part of evolutionists to try to close the gap between chimps and humans? Why, chimps are engineers, too! Given enough time and random mutations, the blank memory chip will evolve into one with movies on it.

Humans aren’t the only animals with complex culture − but researchers point to one feature that makes ours unique  (The Conversation, 19 March 2025). Notice the title: humans are animals, but they are not the only animals with complex culture. But doesn’t evolutionary anthropologist Eli Elster say that human culture has one feature that makes ours unique? Does that imply exceptionalism? No; it’s Darwin all the way down. “Through open-ended cultural evolution, human beings produce open-endedness in culture,” he says. “In this respect, our species is unparalleled.” It’s unique only in extent, he means, but not in kind.

Could bullying be an evolutionary trait? (The Conversation, 23 March 2025). This piece by Tony Volk reveals the dark side of animalizing humans. Our consciences tell us that bullying is an evil to be confronted. Tony Volk has arrived in his snake oil wagon to give us deeper understanding. It’s not evil. Darwin would say bullying is good!

Is having children early, and more often, a good thing? Given that bullying does appear to be partly due to evolved genetics (with the environment still playing a pivotal role in its expression), reproduction is the ultimate currency of evolution. Passing on genes is, quite literally, the biological meaning of life. So this is strong evidence for the theory that bullying is, at least in part, an evolutionarily successful strategy in some contexts.

Socially, bullies are also more likely to be in the romantic relationship that is typically required to have children. We believe this is because bully’s power is related to potentially positive attributes, like attractiveness, strength and even social skills.

Were Tony’s philosophy to be widely accepted and promoted by government policies, the social wreckage that could result is hard to exaggerate.

Darwinism is not just wrong. It’s evil. It must be opposed. Even the Darwinists above would never want to live in a world created by the ramifications of their beliefs. There’s a historical precedent for saying that (18 March 2019, 9 Oct 2018, 18 Jan 2023, 18 Dec 2023). How convenient for them to say such things in America founded under the self-evident truth that all men are created equal. Let them go to North Korea, where Darwin is worshiped, and be forced to bow to the Dear Leader or starve to death. Hey, they have developed an “evolutionary successful strategy” that works for them. It is certainly more consistent with Darwinism than the American Constitution.

Recommended Reading:

• • Darwin Day in America, by John West
  • The Darwin Effect, by Jerry Bergman
  • How Darwinism Corrodes Morality, by Jerry Bergman
  • The Long War Against God, by Henry M. Morris, Jr.