Sunday 23 October 2016

The Darwinian Roots of Lethal Violence



Ape morality? Image courtesy of Eleifert, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Evolutionists do not seem to have a solution for violence.

A new paper published in Nature sees lethal violence in humans as a trait we inherited from our (assumed) animal ancestors over millions of years of Darwinian processes.

This is a handy way of blaming evolution for our evil deeds.

The logical (Darwinian) take away lesson from this study is that since violence ts natural, we might as well forget its moral implications.

But that is not what the researchers have in mind. They cannot consistently follow their worldview, as deep down they realise that violence is wrong.

A little voice within us tells that killing is wrong.

It does not make much sense in a Darwinian world that does not allow for immaterial explanations.

But it is exactly what we would expect in the biblical worldview.

We could actually blame the acceptance of evolution for a lot of bloodshed. It is no secret that belief in Darwinian evolution has caused several major wars and even holocausts.

Source:

Gómez, José María et al. 2016. The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence. Nature 538, 233–237.