BEWARE
THE NEW ‘EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY’
Just when we Christians
were enjoying the fact that the ‘house
of cards’ which make up evolutionary
theory were coming under increasing
stress with attacks from within its own community (Michael Denton for instance), as well from reputable
scientists outside of the
evolutionary establishment (Michael Behe, for
instance), it becomes necessary to warn about an increasingly influential new
threat, that of ‘Evolutionary Psychology’
Evolutionary
Psychologists are interested in human behaviour and they have a passion to
interpret everything which people might do in a purely Naturalistic light. That is, they set out with a determination to reject any
concept that there is any higher moral authority. Earlier schools of psychology certainly did
not necessarily promote religious belief, indeed, much of the influence was
Freudian and Freud happened to be an atheist, yet there was no interest in promoting
a decidedly anti-supernaturalistic worldview.
But the new
psychology is different. Like all areas of evolution, the underlying assumption
is always that God does not exist, therefore everything which we see on this
planet which suggests design or morality must have a purely Naturalistic explanation provided
for it. The particular discipline of
evolutionary psychology now surges ahead, blithely unconcerned that its
under-girding paradigm is now – in the opinion of many astute observers – no
more than a hollow shell of a theory. Indeed, macro-evolution seems to be a
theory that would have to fall were it not for the fact that atheistic scientism (we
speak of that branch of “science” which is actually an anti-God philosophy, not
of reputable empirical science) needs another anti-supernaturalistic
worldview before that can be allowed to happen.
Evolutionary
psychologists are determined to interpret human behaviour in terms of what has
been called the ‘selfish gene’. The
basic idea is that everything which we humans do which may appear to be loving
and caring is entirely selfish. There is simply no concept of unselfishness
within this new discipline. We do what we do only in order to advance the
likelihood of our own genetic make-up perpetuating itself. In other words, we
want to survive and we want to reproduce and everything we do is all about that
or about advancing the particular gene pool which produced us. Unselfishness
does not exist although we may deceive ourselves that it does! To people like
Richard Dawkins, perhaps the chief populist propagandist of evolution, we are
simply ‘survival machines’.
However, the
assertion that if we can clearly show that unselfishness does not exist, that
love is a mere delusion
and that we are all just machines fitted for survival of our own
gene pool, then we can proudly proclaim atheism from the rooftops, appears to
be logically inconsistent; the very best conclusion one might ever draw from
all this would not be to question the
existence of God, but to question His benevolence!
Evolutionists
just love the concept of ‘blind
irrational forces’ driving evolution forward, but could such forces really
be that “blind” or “irrational” to have accomplished so
much? Moreover, while much of what they set out to do is to disprove the
concept of intelligence and design, surely – if evolution were true – there
would be powerful evidence for intelligence, purpose and design within their
own theory??!! Please don’t forget that the evolutionist must
start off his or her theories with life already existing and with an universe behaving in a more or less dependable and
predictable way and according to various physical laws! This would already
comprise what a Christian would call ‘Creation’.
Evolutionary
psychologists have made several suggestions as to how people who are simply
guided by the ‘selfish gene’ have some sense of morality and decency. Within
this schema, morality must – in some
way or other –
serve this principle. The sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson
sees all human behaviour as :
“…the circuitous technique by which human
genetic material has been and will be kept intact. Morality has no other
demonstrable ultimate function.”
(Source:
‘The Unmoral Prophets’, Philip
Yancey, Christianity Today, October 5th,
1998, p77).
Some see human
lust as an ally which comes to the rescue of evolutionary psychology. Why? Because lust is utterly selfish and only wants self gratification
and satisfaction. In the process, lust serves to advance ones own genes
and ones own ‘gene pool’. For
evolutionary psychologists,
lust evolved as
nature’s own way of getting us to behave in a way which would produce lots of offspring (again, there would
be intelligence, purpose and design here which this branch of psychology is
apparently blind to!).
But many concede
the moral problem and doubt whether evolutionary psychology has yet found an
explanation which would be widely acceptable. After all, if a man deeply loves
his wife and children and wishes to protect them, he has already embraced a
morality which he must see as meaningful.
If, as an evolutionary psychologist, he says that that morality is no
more than an illusion,
he not only denies the validity of family love but all the core values of any civilized society.
One of the logical outcomes of his position means that even his career and,
therefore, his work as an evolutionary psychologist become meaningless. Why
even work? He might as well become a full-time thief or ‘beach bum’!! It seems
certain that evolutionary psychologists, many of whom live pleasant and affluent
lifestyles, will not follow their convictions to their logical end but will
search for a better explanation for morality, rather than teaching that it is a
wholly meaningless illusion which the ‘selfish gene’ uses to advance itself.
Otherwise, they have already sown the seeds of their own demise and will finally render their own understanding and intelligence as
completely meaningless!
One of the most
serious and worrying trends which is emerging from this new discipline is the teaching
that since Humankind simply evolved from these apparently blind, irrational yet
powerful sources (whatever they are???!!!), then human beings have no more
value than animals. And if that is really so, why not perform vivisection
(medical experiments) on retarded humans?? This loathsome thought has already
been voiced several times and a hideously evil scenario which sends us straight
back to the concentration camp mindset has been voiced by apparently reasonable
and respectable western psychologists!
Philip Yancey’s Christianity Today article of 1998
further states the following:
‘Evelyn Pluhar takes that logic further down the road, arguing that
in certain cases, an animal’s rights should take precedence over a human’s. For
example, as one reviewer of the book suggested,
“Compare a normal chimpanzee to a severely
retarded human child unable to take care of itself or to speak or to reason.
Given that neither qualifies as a rational moral being, capable of asserting
its rights, why do we allow vivisection of the chimp but not of the child?
Surely, if moral significance attaches only to full persons, then the child
should be granted no more protection than the chimp, or the pig awaiting
slaughter.”’
(As
earlier source, p79).
Some are now
even saying that humans are no more ‘moral’ in their behaviour than animals in
any case, so why the fuss? Yet none of this takes account of mankind’s
considerably greater intelligence. Do animals experience conscience? Do animals
compose great symphonies? Do animals become architects?
Do animals
become great religious leaders? Do animals open huge ‘human being’ nature
reserves’?
Scientists are
increasingly recognising that the difference in the human mind and animal mind cannot be explained by brain size
(several animals have larger brains than human beings) though no consistent
explanation has yet been offered.
And regarding
the argument that all morality is sheer illusion and is just a mask for us to
perpetuate ourselves, what of such truly selfless people as Mother Teresa of
BE WARNED ABOUT ‘EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY’ BECAUSE IT IS
LIKELY TO BECOME INCREASINGLY INFLUENTIAL AND PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATES CAN BE
EXPECTED TO BE INCREASINGLY IMMERSED IN IT!
Robin Brace
2004.
© This article is Copyright Robin A. Brace 2004. If you want it on your own website please do the honourable thing and come to us for permission first. It is forbidden to excerpt this article without our permission.
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