Creationist studying evolutionary biology

There’s a guy, let’s call him Mike… because that is his name. Mike’s in two of my university units, namely vertebrate zoology and vertebrate adaptations. The latter unit has a group assignment component, and Mike happens to be in my group. In a group meeting, Mike said that he was a creationist. I was pretty curious as to how a creationist can reconcile his beliefs with the science that he is learning, and so in hope of a intellectually stimulating conversation, I probed him on it.

What follows is an unedited record of the conversation:

Mike: i don’t go to church (mostly cause im too lazy) but i do believe in God and Jesus, and I believe he died for our sins
so I try to live my life being as a good of a person as I can

Bef: so you believe the bible is the literal word of god?

Mike: not really
it’s been translated so many times to so many different languages that so much could have been lost
i just believe in the morals and values it tries to teach

Bef: morals and values like genocide, persecution, gender inequality etc.?

Mike: like i said, it’s been translated so many times, who knows what the origanl word of God is, besides, those are beliefs put about by peoples interpritation of it
its their twisted view and hatred of whats different that leads to those things
not Gods word

Bef: So you pick and choose from the bible, thus you’re using your own common sense to determine what is moral right?

Mike: yes, i guess you can put it that way

Bef: So if you’re using your own common sense, don’t you think that perhaps people did that before religion? So if morality preceeded religion, then religion didn’t make us moral, but we introduced morality and moral codes to religion.

Mike: no,
if you look at caveman, they didn’t have any morals
they raped and killed because they could
maybe God saw this and gave us morals and values

Mike: im not the person to argue religion with, i don’t know enough about it to put up a good arguement about it
but your not going to change my mind about it

Bef: So you accept that your position is fundamentalist; unchangeable?
I’d dispute humans exhibit morality that is anything more than an adaptation, and most if not all features of our perceived morality are present in other species (extant or extinct).
I don’t really understand how you can study evolutionary biology if you believe that somehow the human species is special and different, I’m really curious to know how you can come to terms with that in your mind

Mike: i guess im just special
and i don’t study evolutionary biology
i like to study animal behaviour
besides, i look around and i see the beauty of nature, of animals, how delicate and perfect everything is
and i can see how this can’t be by chance, that there must be something out there that had it;s hand in it
my question is that how can you be a biologist and not believe in some kind of creator

Bef: So you pose an argument from incredulity; you think that nature is too complicated to have evolved through purely natural means?
Just to make sure I’m in understanding of your position; you do or do not think that evolution is fact?

Mike: the moment you decide to discredit some based on their belief, to not like that person just because they have a religion, thats the moment you lower yourself to the levels of those who held back sciene because of religion
i don’t know enough about evolution to say that
and i don’t care

Bef: But you’ve just stated that you can’t fathom that the complexity of nature is explicable through natural processes

Mike: exactly

Bef: Thus clearly you can’t think that natural selection is responsible for the variation we see today

Mike: i don’t know enough about it

Bef: So simply you think that because you don’t understand something, it cannot be true?

Mike: no
i believe that it can be so complicated and so intrecet that there must have been a higher power that had some influence in it

Bef: intelligent design?

Mike: maybe
God is pretty intelligent

Bef: I really don’t understand how you can sit in lectures learning about adaptations that are such incredibly complex and indirect solutions to problems and think that such things could be products of foresight and concious design

Mike: i guess i see the world differently than you

Bef: I, too, think that nature is incredibly beautiful and complicated; though I see no need to invoke supernatural beliefs to explain such complexity, in fact natural processes explain the nature of the variation so much more succinctly than theological explanations

Mike: but what interests me is that you don’t see that

Bef: well, I would suggest that clearly we have different views. Unfortunately, yours is contrary to the science that you’re studying

Mike: so

Bef: and I simply can’t understand how you are able to make peace with that.

Mike: i don’t know either, maybe it could be because when i was younger, i was in trouble, my life was going down the wrong road and could have cost me my life
then i was draged to church by my parents and the preacher looked at me and told me god wants to talk to me
that no matter what i have done in my life, God loves me and wants me to be happy
that he forgives me and doesn’t want me to end my life
and thats what saved me and the reason im still here today

Bef: So you believe that an interfering god saved your life, and thus you must accept ideas which are contrary to reality?

Mike: ……or it could be because im stubburn
and can’t spell

Bef: I think that if you study science, you ought to be prepared to consider ideas which challenge your preconception given that science is about objective analysis, as opposed with subjective arguments such as those you’ve just posed from religious experience

Mike: and you would try to take away the one thing that brings hope to someone, that the belife that someone out there loves them and is looking out for them, the only reason that person hasn’t tooken their own life because they believe that someone out there has a plan for them
and you don’t think i do that?

Bef: From what you’ve said, I would say no.

Mike: then you don’t know me
and what i live with day to day

Bef: I don’t want people to be deluded, regardless of whether that delusion makes them happy or not. I’d far rather accept reality than a comforting myth.

Mike: sometimes that comforting myth is the only thing keeping them alive
so by what you said, you would rather them be unhappy to the point they take their own life

Bef: I’d rather people find natural things which are substantive and tangible to base their love, devotion and loyalty in.

Mike: what if they don’t have anything like that
what if they have nothing but hope

Bef: Then I think having hope in something which isn’t there is delusional, and particularly unhealthy

Mike: how?
what do you have hope in?

Bef: I have people who care for me and who I care for, whom I depend on and who I converse with and trust. The difference between me and somebody who believes in and confides in god is that these people have the capacity talk back, and invest the same things in me.

Mike: how do you know that God doesn’t talk back to me
he speaks through the love and support that my family gives me

Bef: Do you believe that God literally answers you, as in the same way that you and I are having this conversation?

Mike: no
he speaks to me through trials and challenges that turn me into a better person
he speaks to me by protecting me when i’ve been in the hospitall because i stopped breathing
he speaks to me in things that get me out of bad situations

Bef: whilst I appreciate your emotive responses, I don’t think one can substitute them for logic and claim to have a rational position

Mike: let me ask you this, why do you care?
i don’t care that your athiest and have a different belief than me
i don’t act suppior to anyone cause i believe in God
what i believe in makes liitle if any consequence to you and your life
but it makes a difference to me
and yet you sit here, trying to tell me that everything i believe in, the things that keep me from killing my self
is all a lie
you have been trying to take away my hopes
that there is some one out there with a plan that will make me a great person

Bef: I care because I am a very rational person, and I would love people to think logically rather than seek supernatural explanations simply because they don’t want to come to terms with reality or have to try and understand something which might be more complicated than blind faith

Mike: why?
are they keeping you from living your life
from what i’ve seen , they are not

Bef: and I’d far rather that someone like you seek comfort from things which actually exist, because ultimately that is a far more sane position.

Mike: why is it more sane
my belief will never go away
but what if i believe i will become a great scientist, that ends world hunger
only to be rejected from getting my phd
then what?
if i didn’t believe it was for a reason, i wouldn’t have anything

Bef: I think you answered your own question; having belief in things that are real is to have an adaptive world view, to be capable of considering that you may not be right about things and be open to new interpretations – that is the nature of science. I don’t think people with fundamentalist perspectives on anything make particularly good scientists, because their faith-positions are contrary to, as I’ve just stated, the nature of science itself.

Mike: how did i answer my own question?
what if i believe in god
and i believe in natural selection
what if god helps
by giving these animals the tools they need to survive?

Bef: You can’t say that natural selection is guided by something supernatural

Mike: why not
how can you say it’s not?

Bef: Because that goes against the definition of the word natural.

Mike: how?

Bef: The whole logic behind natural selection is that it is a natural process, it is not consciously controlled.

Mike: we based this definition on what we’ve seen
God is nature
how we say that it has had no help, it’s all a matter of chance
how can we not say that maybe something has guided it
has helped it
that we can’t see how or who

Bef: Your position seems incredibly flexible, as if you expect me to forget your previous arguments.

Mike: what arguments?

Bef: Now you’re positing an argument from ignorance; if we can’t prove that something doesn’t exist, then it does.

Mike: it’s not ignorance

Bef: By the same logic Bertrand Russell’s invisible teapot must exist.

Mike: i simply said that it can’t be ruled out

Bef: Unfortunately it’s not a logically valid argument, Mike, to state that because I can’t prove a negative that my position is incorrect.

Mike: ok let me ask you this

Bef: There is substantive, empirical evidence for natural selection. There is no such evidence for intelligent design or creationism.

Mike: and i say again, i believe that God had is hands in natural selection
it’s my belief

Bef: and I say again that belief that there is a controlling agent of selection, then it is not natural selection.

Mike: i don’t intend to prove it to you because i know it wont change your mind
God is nature
he has created everything
what if god put obsitecls and enivornments to drive selection to his design

Bef: Your arguments are increasingly reducible.
What you’re now arguing sounds a lot more like pantheism than Christianity
that god IS the universe

Mike:
i never said that
i said that god created everything

Bef: I don’t think you’re being intellectually honest by doing a Gish gallop and throwing as many ill-formed positions as you can at me rather than actually defending a single position soundly and reasonably.

Mike: didn’t i also say im not the person you should argue religeon with?

Bef: I think that’s becoming increasingly evident

Mike: i was just sitting here, trying to work on my powerpoint slides
when you decide that it would be fun to challenge my beliefs
you started this arguement that i didn’t want

Bef: I was hopeful that someone who is studying science, especially zoology which simply is evolutionary biology, would be open to logic and not mystical and supernatural explanations

Mike: again, you ridcule me just because i believe in something?
you basicly saying im insane just becasue i chose to have a believe

Bef: I’m more than happy to stop talking about it, I was simply curious as to how you reconcile your beliefs as a Christian and your acceptance of the fact which is evolution; and I now realise that you do not need to, as you simply deny the reality of natural selection.

Mike: again, your calling be stupid because i have a belief
why, why can’t you live with the fact that some people have different beliefs than you
why does that upset you?

Bef: I’ve answered that question previously.

Mike: no, you didn’t
you just gave me a reason, not the why
why does it upset you?

Bef: I’ve not said any such thing as to call you stupid for having a belief, in fact I’ve been uncharacteristically moderate in my analysis and refutations of your comments
It doesn’t upset me, I am rather calm

Mike: yes you have, you ridiclued me just because i believe in a high power
“simply deny the reality of natural selection”
and im wondering, whats a Gish gallop

Bef: Perhaps that is how you have interpreted my comments, though I would suggest that’s not an accurate reflection of my attitude.

Mike: never heard that before

Bef: It’s a debating technique exhibited by Duane Gish whereby he simply makes as many points as he can as quickly as he can as to drown his opponent in illogic.

Mike: oh cool

Bef: anyhow, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing

Mike: thank you

Bef: talk to you soon

Mike: hopefully not about this

Bef: haha, as you wish

Mike: and i hope you know you have not changed my opionion
or my spelling

I would like to make the point that I’m not hassling some uneducated creationist here and ridiculing them for their ignorance of evolutionary biology; this is a second year biology major. Perhaps I was slightly confrontational, but it took significant effort on my part not to be far more pointed with my responses than I was. I should also note that my hopes of intellectual stimulation were, I suppose, a little ambitious, and I was left quite disappointed.

Advertisement