Evolutionists claim that morality is a product of evolution. As we saw in yesterday’s article, Marc Hauser claims that “evolution hardwired us to know right from wrong.” How did evolution, which is not a person, place, or thing, know what is morally acceptable? Of course, “it” didn’t, since there is no such “thing” as “evolution.” For the sake of argument, let’s suppose, following Hauser, that evolution did hardwire moral clarity. Why is it morally acceptable for a lion to kill and eat a gazelle but it’s not morally acceptable for a human to kill and eat another human being? How did evolution figure this out? There’s a more fundamental question that is rarely asked. Looking back over billions of years, how does the evolutionist account for the idea of morality based on the spontaneous generation of the cosmos?
Forces, ideas, concepts don’t have the ability to “hardwire” anything. Hardware requires software that is designed. What’s true in the lesser case (software designed for an inanimate machine) is ultimately true in the greater case (the creation of human beings with the capacity to think and create analogically). Dr. Werner Gitt, an information specialist, outlines the problem for the evolutionist:
The question “How did life originate?” which interests all of us, is inseparably linked to the question “Where did the information come from?” Since the findings of James D. Watson . . . and Francis H. C. Crick, it was increasingly realized by contemporary researchers that the information residing in the cells is of crucial importance for the existence of life. Anybody who wants to make meaningful statements about the origin of life would be forced to explain how the information originated. All evolutionary views are fundamentally unable to answer this crucial question.[1]
Consider the computer. Not only must all the physical parts work flawlessly—parts which were designed and manufactured by people with minds and hands—the programming necessary to run the parts also must function without error. No one would ever propose that the computer evolved spontaneously or that the programming appeared out of thin air and found its way into the computer’s internal parts without some form of outside design and directive to operate the machinery in a specific way.
In an article titled “The God Debate” that appears in the April 9, 2007 issue of Newsweek, atheist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, dialogs with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and pastor of Saddle Church, over the existence of God. Here’s how one series of exchanges went after Warren said that he believed in the biblical account of creation:
HARRIS: I’m doing my Ph.D. in neuroscience; I’m very close to the literature on evolutionary biology. And the basic point is that evolution by natural selection is random genetic mutation over millions of years in the context of environmental pressures that selects for fitness.
WARREN: Who’s doing the selecting?
HARRIS: The environment. You don’t have to invoke an intelligent designer to explain the complexity we see.
WARREN: Sam makes all kinds of assertions based on his presuppositions. . . .
Warren did a great job in asking the question “Who’s doing the selecting?” It’s unfortunate that he did not press Harris after he answered “the environment.” Warren asked “who,” and Harris answered with a “what.” How did the environment get here? Does it have a mind? Why is it always imbued with personality?
These evolution articles remind me of a Danny Shanahan cartoon that appeared in the June 14, 1999 issue of The New Yorker. A Pterodactyl is perched on a limb talking into a tape recorder. The caption reads: “Memo to self: ‘Feathers?’” In his attempt to be humorous, Shanahan points out a fundamental flaw in the theory of evolution. There needs to be some personal intelligence behind the process. How did reptiles conceptualize the need for feathers? Of course, they didn’t. They couldn’t. Harris claims that it was “environmental pressure” that caused favorable evolutionary results to take place, including morality. The problem is evident: How does he know this? He doesn’t.
Footnote:
[1]. Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information: A Scientist Explains the Incredible Design of Nature (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, [2005] 2006), 99.