It would have escaped the notice of most of the world that, in recent weeks, threats, bombs and physical attacks have been aimed at the manager of Celtic Soccer club in Glasgow, Scotland.  It’s actually a strange situation in Scotland, and Glasgow in particular.  The two biggest teams in Scotland are Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic.  Religion is thread right through them, with Celtic being formed specifically as a fundraising exercise for a religious charity.  The rivalry between these two highly successful clubs goes beyond the soccer pitch.

Roughly speaking, 70% of Celtic fans are Catholic whilst 70% of Rangers fans are Protestant (source [PDF]).  This creates a rivalry that goes beyond that usually seen between local teams.

This rivalry has really boiled over this season, and taken an ugly turn.  The focal point of the troubles has been Celtic manager Neil Lennon.  Apart from being a rather controversial individual, with a temper and taste for provocation, Lennon is of Northern Irish descent and was raised a Catholic.  Lennon’s personality, religion and nationality has created somewhat of a perfect storm in the already cloudy city of Glasgow, where sectarianism has been a long standing issue.

And it’s important to point out that this is sectarianism.  These two factions believe in the same God, the same book, and share broadly the same values.  It makes the events that have been unfolding over the years even harder to understand for those of us not clouded by the idiocy of religion.

Neil Lennon is not a stranger to sectarian trouble.  Whilst still a player he had to retire from international football after receiving death threats from certain sections of the Northern Irish fan base.  Northern Ireland being the spiritual home of sectarian violence and other idiocy.  Even back then he was being sent bullets in the mail.  Lately the issues surrounding Lennon have escalated somewhat, culminating with a “fan” attacking him on the side of the pitch during a recent cup game.

Make no mistake, this is a real mess.  And these are not idle threats being made, a viable parcel bomb has been sent to Lennon and other high-profile Celtic fans from a Scottish address, whilst another was intercepted on its way from Ireland.  It’s also entirely unfair to paint the Celtic party as the victim, as this is a rivalry that goes both ways.

The links to Northern Ireland are both prominent and disruptive.  It’s not unusual to see the Union Jack being displayed at Rangers whilst the Ulster Banner hangs at Celtic, demonstrating the desire to remain in/separate from the United Kingdom.  Much of the racism that rears its head around these events is linked to Northern Ireland, and not Scotland (although some of it is anti-Irish and emanates from the Scots).

Whilst the source of these issues clearly go beyond religion, touching on ideology, politics, regional tribalism, racism and lots of other shameful traits, the pervasive core is sectarianism.  Scotland is making attempts to address these issues, but clearly they underestimate the amount of hate certain factions feel towards those who believe in the same God.  And this is all happening against a background of an increase in hate crimes, with a 10% rise in sectarianism.

The reason I’ve brought this up is that these troubles simply do not get enough coverage.  Soccer, especially Scottish Soccer, doesn’t exactly set the heart a flutter for many, so these things can get glossed over.  You’ll notice that the links scattered throughout this article are to British media sources, as very few American or International agencies have decent coverage of the events and underlying issues.  After picking up on this story a few weeks ago, and doing a bit of research, I’m staggered by the actions of those involved, and I think many would share that opinion if only they knew about it.  The fact that someone can be threatened, attacked and ostracized simply for subscribing to a certain ideology and being associated with a Soccer club, in a developed country, in the 21st Century should be a source of shame not just for those directly involved, but Scotland and the rest of the world.

To an atheist such as myself, the entire concept of sectarianism is baffling.  It’s as if Team Edward and Team Jacob started sending letter bombs to each other.  These are groups of people arguing, fighting, over the way a book is to be interpreted (and the scope of influence of things outside of the book – for a quick reference to the differences between Team Edward Catholics and Team Jacob Protestants there’s a handy chart here).  It’s a step beyond the idiocy involved in arguing which fictional book you should base your life on, the usual source of religious hate.

Madness doesn’t begin to cover it.  Oh, and on the pitch?  Glasgow Ranger won the Scottish Premier League Title whilst Glasgow Celtic won the Scottish Cup, not that anyone cares.

However, Family Radio is an organization that managed to raise in excess of $85million (some have put the figure closer to $105 million).  So there’s clearly enough people out there willing to believe their madness.  Harold Camping isn’t just a misguided man, he’s an incredibly irresponsible misguided man.  There’s a also a case to be made that he’s manipulative and dishonest.

Whether you think of Camping as just an every day crazy, or an evil, manipulative, wicked old man will depend largely on one thing, whether you think he truly believed the world was going to end on May 21st 2011.  Given the energy and enthusiasm he put in to the claims, one might lean towards believing in him, but scratch beneath the surface and there’s a little more going on.

Firstly, let’s establish why making claims of imminent rapture is an incredibly irresponsible thing to do.  Even the most outrageous claims run the risk of being believed, just look at all the tragic cults we’ve had over the years. And, as it turns out, people believed Camping’s claims.

Unfortunately, believing the world is genuinely going to end makes people do crazy things, they have nothing to lose.  They do stupid things.  REALLY stupid things.  Selling all your belongings is one thing, murdering your child is another.

Those people really believed the world was going to end.  Harold Camping planned to spend the day at home, watching TV.

“I’ll probably try to be very near a TV or a radio or something,” he said. “I’ll be interested in what’s happening on the other side of the world as this begins.”

You’d think that if he were really confident in his prediction, he’d have some sort of rapture party for the saved.  Unfortunately, appearing in public would have left Camping somewhat exposed to the very much still here public. Note that he’s also not sold his house, or his possessions (unless he’s got some sort of magic rapture TV or Radio).

So is this where the fun really begins?  Where we watch Camping trying to backtrack and explain his way out of this? Or will he just return the millions of dollars he misappropriated from vulnerable individuals?  If past raptures are anything to go by, we eon’t get anything.  Camping’s original Rapture prediction wasn’t May 2011, it was September 1994.  Again, this was fairly widely publisized and obviously never happened.  The real shocking thing though, is that Camping has, to this day, never explained why he got it wrong.  So I wouldn’t bet on getting an explanation out of him this time either, perhaps he wasn’t meant to know.  After all, when you’ve got close to a hundred million dollars in your back pocket, there aren’t many questions you need to answer.

State Visit

As pointed out in the open letter to UK paper The Guardian, much of the opposition to the Pope’s visit is the way it has been funded. The Pope was invited by Queen Elizabeth II as a head of state, thus rendering the visit an official “State Visit”. This means that the UK taxpayer picking up the tab for large portions of the visit. The cost of letting a Pope into your country? In excess of $20 million not including police protection, which would probably run another $10 million. For a country which has more non-cathcolics than Catholics, it seems a bit on the expensive side.

Third World Country

Prior to the visit, one of the Pope’s official advisors, and member of the visiting party Cardinal Walter Kasper, made a statement that the UK was like a “third world country”.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion, regardless of how ignorant.  But the noble Cardinal went on to clarify…

Cardinal Walter Kasper told German magazine Focus that someone landing at Heathrow airport might think they were in a ‘Third World country†as there are such a variety of multicultural faces there.

Oh, so he’s not just an idiot, he’s a racist idiot.  Such was the backlash that he pulled out of the tour before it started.  But of course, this is the Catholic Church, so they can’t just apologize and state that Cardinal Kasper is pulling out of the tour to prevent any offence, no, instead they are claiming illness.  but once again, public relations aren’t their strong point, so the illness that they chose was gout.

Affecting around 1–2% of the Western population at some point in their lives, gout has increased in frequency in recent decades. This is believed to be due to increasing risk factors in the population such as metabolic syndrome, longer life expectancy, and changes in diet. Gout was historically known as “the disease of kings” or “rich man’s disease”.

I’m sure the starving Catholics in third world countries who are dying of AIDS, and spreading AIDS because this Pope has forbidden the use of condoms have real sympathy for someone suffering the “disease of kings”.

The Pope’s Views

If you’ve read this blog before you’ll no doubt be aware that I find the Catholic Church to be one of the most despicable organisations on the planet.  We’ve had the the Church, or representatives thereof, claiming child abuse is linked to homosexuality, abusive clergymen weren’t technically pedophiles and generally sweeping the problem of child abuse under the carpet.  It is not a nice organisation that refuses to face up to its problems whilst simultaneously blaming everyone else for it’s own problems.

The Catholic Church needed a bold leader who would front up to its problems and weed them out.  A leader who would change the public image of the Church by being more open, honest, accountable and inclusive.  Instead they got Pope Benedict XVI.

His views on contraception and women’s rights are antiquated.  His protection of those who abused children is disgusting. His demonisation of homosexuality appalling.  This does not make him popular in relatively liberal developed countries, such as the UK.

His Speech

Given the controversy of the visit for the points noted above, the Pope (or his advisors assuming he is not the one who writes his own speeches) chose to court yet more controversy.  In his opening speech he decided to associate atheism with the Nazi party.

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regimeâ€s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny”

There are a few things that need to be pointed out in response to this ridiculous gibberish.

Firstly, perhaps we should consider that this isn’t an insult at all.  After all, he was in the Hitler Youth and later served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the German army during WWII.  He knows Nazis, and maybe he liked them.  He may have been comparing us to people he likes.

Furthermore, I’d like to refer you to this:

Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germanyâ€s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany’s entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years.

A reasonable person might draw some similarities between the views of Pope Benedict XVI and the speech above.  So who is this person that seems to share the Pope’s views?  Why it’s everyone’s favourite Nazi, Adolf Hitler.

So what other pearls of wisdom did the Pope have to pass on?

As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny.

What are the “sobering lessons of atheist extremism”?  Let’s take a stab at them, shall we?

1. Don’t put people who are ordered to suppress their sexuality in charge of minors and entrust them with their care.
2. Allow the use of condoms because they prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS and HIV.  Emphasise this especially in poorer countries where good healthcare is not available.
3. Don’t oppress women.
4. Don’t oppress homosexuals.

Ah, I see the problem there.  Those are the lessons we’ve learned from the actions of the Catholic Church, not atheist extremism.  The problem being that the Catholic Church has not learned these lessons, and probably never will.

The Demonstrations

Sir Ian McKellen at the protest

As I write this there are reports coming in of more than 10,000 people peacefully protesting against the Pope’s visit in London.

What’s interesting about this protest is the wide range of communities it has pulled together.  In many ways, this is one of the great benefits of the Pope’s visit.  There are secularists, gay rights activists, women’s rights activists, people campaigning for justice on the issue of child abuse and even Catholics who are opposed to the direction in which their church is heading.

But of course, despite all the negative media coverage world wide, the criticizm from all corners and now a major protest, the catholic Church still thinks the Pope has been “well received”.

That level of ignorance is so out of character for the Church and its leaders I’m shocked.

Apparently, theists don’t quite follow that logic.  A recent article in the Washington Post has highlighted the way some Christians approach the Bible, in particular the inconsistencies found within.

Some scholars “get fixated on some of the marginal issues about who was where and when,” said Craig Evans, professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia.

In the Gospels, “the discrepant witnesses are allowed to stand side by side, and I think that’s a strength in the end, not a weakness. But the naive reader — the person beguiled by the notion that discrepancies somehow cast doubt on the truth of the entire report — might not know that,” Evans said.

There are two alarming aspects to that quote.  Craig Evans seems to think that having a book with inconsistencies in it is a strength, rather than a weakness.  It’s also alarming that he treats this wholly misguided opinion as fact and suggests that less knowledgeable people may not know that inaccurate sources are better than accurate ones.  Note that he uses the word “know” rather than “believe” or “think”.

The implication that those who demand consistency and unambiguity are “naive” seems particularly irrational and disingenuous.

The obvious response, and one that’s been thrown around in faith discussions for some time, is “how do you know which bits to believe?”  In this case, I’d like to propose a different approach for dealing with Professor Evans.  Let’s accuse him of something criminal and make him stand in front of a judge and jury.  Then, let’s parade witnesses in front of said judge and jury, some of which are to lie with the aim of incriminating the good Professor.  And furthermore, let’s tell the judge and jury that they should treat the lying witnesses with more respect than the ones telling the truth.  Maybe this scenario will hammer home the reality of just how mind-numbingly stupid his statement is.

Professor Evans and his ilk are not demonstrating faith in these cases, they are demonstrating delusion and a complete failure to utilise the logical capacity of their brains.

I am, of course, referring to the ongoing, and growing, child sex abuse scandal.

They could have admitted responsibility, fronted up to their issues and addressed them.  This might then give the church an opportunity to grow after the events.  To be reborn, if you will.  And while I’m not particularly keen on a zombie Pope, it’s painful watching the Catholic Church lash around, in its death throws.  Someone needs to put them out of their misery.

But rather than taking responsibility, and fronting up to a problem that’s been described as “systemic“, the Church has continued with its tactics of misdirection and avoidance.  The latest developments are nothing short of shocking.

Let’s start at the top.  The Pope, himself accused of shielding abusers in the Church, avoided the topic entirely in his Easter Sermon.  There were mentions of  profound crisis facing humanity and the need for a “spiritual and moral conversation”.  I’ll offer a tip here, if you genuinely want a “spiritual and moral conversation” avoiding the topic at hand yourself is not conducive to triggering an open conversation.  But perhaps that’s the point.  I doubt many other people feel like we need a conversation on this point.  We know what the individuals is wrong, and we know they should be punished.  We know the actions (or inactions) of local, national and international Church leaders were wrong, and should be punished.  The average person on the street does not need to discuss these issues, they need action to be taken.  And that goes doubly for the victims.

Taking a step down, The Pope’s personal preacher, Raniero Cantalamessa, decided to compare the current position of the Church to anti-semitism.  To quote from the sermon, which was published in full on the front page of the Vatican’s NewsPaper:

The use of stereotypes and the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism

It should be noted that Father Cantalamessa was supposedly quoting a letter from a “Jewish friend”, however I’m yet to meet any Jewish person who would compare the atrocities committed in the name of anti-semitism with the fair and justified accusations being levelled at the Catholic Church.

At a time when the entire Church should be grovelling for the world’s collective apologies I find it one of the most tasteless remarks ever uttered.  Even the apology stinks of self-righteousness and arrogance:

If I inadvertently hurt the feelings of Jews and pedophilia victims, I sincerely regret it and I apologize

If you, like me, are still getting the impression that the Church isn’t taking the sex abuse scandal seriously, then the latest remarks should really seal the deal.  Cardinal Angelo Sodano said the following:

The people of God are with you, and they won’t let themselves be influenced by the gossip of the moment, by the attempts being made to strike the community of the faithful

In one sentence that concisely sums up the Church’s position on the matter Cardinal Sodana called the somewhat proven pedophilia scandal “gossip” and then claimed that the accusations, mostly coming from victims who were abused as children, are attacks on the “community of the faithful”.  Quite frankly, the “community of the faithful” could do worse than completely distancing themselves from an institution that seems to entice, groom and protect pedophiles.  If there is a God, and if he/she/it/them does pass final judgement, one would imagine that the Catholic Church and its associates would be at the sharp end of a swinging axe.  And don’t think you’re safe because you weren’t directly involved, considering this is a God that is willing to punish us all for “original sin”, guilty by association seems to be in season.

Over the last few weeks the remarks coming out of the Church sends out a message that suggests a number of things.  Namely that they still aren’t taking the allegations seriously, and that there is some ongoing attempt to discredit and splinter the Church through such allegations.  The Church will never get through this problem until it faces up to it.

One might ask where the Catholic Church might start if it were to clear its ranks, purge the offenders and the conspirators.  Well, one of the most sickening cases of child abuse was a case of Father Lawrence Murphy, who for almost 25 years abused deaf children.  He was the only one they could communicate with, and he took advantage of that, and their trust.  Father Murphy died in 1998, so he’s off the hook.  So how about the person who hid him in the Church?  The person who allowed him to continue to work with children.  The person who was head of the Vatican department who dealt with Child abuse claims during that time.  Who was that again?

So it was with great interest I came across a recent study, called “Why Donâ€t We Practice What We Preach? A Meta-Analytic Review of Religious Racism”, that examined racism and religiosity in America. This was a meta-study, which in fact took in data from 55 separate studies, which in turn collected information from 20,000+ mostly white, mostly Christian Americans. Carl Marziali summarised the study on the USC (University of Southern California) website. To quote:

“So perhaps itâ€s no surprise that the strongly religious people in our research, who were mostly white Christians, discriminated against others who were different from them — blacks and minorities”

The full study can be found here (warning, requires subscription).

What’s interesting about this study is that the author has gone some way to show causation between racism and religiosity. The general concept underlying this theory stems from what appears to be two fundamental issues with religion.

The first is that religion tends to be practiced within closed social, geographically limited, racially similar groups. This is a discussion I’ve had many times with many religious friends, that were they born in a mostly Muslim country, rather than a mostly Christian country, they would be Muslim rather than Christian. Replaced country with family, or social group, and the effect is still present and clear. If you have a personality that is predisposed to believe in the intangible and unprovable, you will believe in the most prevalent ideology in your social group.

The second concept revolves around morality. The various world religions attempt to achieve ownership of morality. Each proclaims to be more morally robust than the rest. When this self-important, arrogant and “holier than thou” attitude is combined with the sort of social exclusion seen in religious social groups it is natural to see those who are not part of your closed group as immoral. And therefore inferior.

The study concludes that this correlation is strongest amongst those who are the most devout followers of religion, although a strong correlation still exists even with so-called “moderates”. The study does make reference to the fact that these moderates are more likely to want to appear to not be racist, but this was just “lip service”, and did not represent their true views.

An interesting point that is explored addresses the various degrees of correlation between religiosity and racism when compared to the respondent’s reasons for being religious. Understandably, those who are religious out of some mis-guided attempt to fit in with a particular social group became less racist as it became more socially unacceptable. Note that it is the opinion of others that is important to these people, rather than any internal or external moral compass or the desire to do what is “right”.

Note: I’d like to point out that the potential causation has to be taken at face value. The results of the study do not confirm nor deny this causation. Additionally, the suggested causes are more closely associated with the social situations religious people tend to find themselves in, especially when growing up, as opposed to religion itself. I’ve not seen a similar study that uses respondents from social groups that are closed for reasons other than religion in order to perform a fair comparison. One could certainly argue that if there was no religion, these closed (and closed minded) social groups would not exist in the first place, which would in turn break down certain barriers in society.

Now I’m all for choice, but this doesn’t really feel like a free choice to me.

It’s clearly laid out for us, theists will tell you. You can subscribe to their particular brand of religion, which will result in a fantastic eternity of loveliness, or not, which will result in an eternity of torture. There’s no middle ground here, it’s bliss, or torture. The best possible thing, or the worst possible thing.

The rewards, or otherwise, are important when it comes to deciding whether or not one truly has free choice. If I put a gun to your head and said “sing Happy Birthday or I’ll shoot you”, would you consider that I gave you the free choice as to whether or not you sang Happy Birthday? What if I said “if you sing Happy Birthday I’ll give you a dollar”? Would that be free choice? What if I politely asked you to sing Happy Birthday?

In the hypothetical scenarios above we’re talking about a minor inconvenience (unless you particularly enjoy singing Happy Birthday) being put up against a range of incentives and disincentives, some of which are rather severe. However, neither the incentives nor the disincentives can be said to be anywhere near as severe as those that bind theists (is there anything as severe a disincentive as an eternity of torture?).

With such severe disincentives, it would be logical to assume that the actions which might trigger such disincentives are also severe. But this isn’t necessarily the case. Fundamentally, the differences between the major religions are fairly minor. Slavery, worshiping, suppression of any dissenting voices, oppression of women, genocide, torture – all aspects of the main religions. And while some have moved away from their roots in recent years, Christianity, Islam less so, one would have to question whether the deity that allegedly wrote the key works that guide these religions would be happy with the changes.

Essentially, you have to worship the right fairy and make sure you understand the minor matters of rule imposed by said fairy. So if you’re a Christian, make sure that when you beat your slave they can get up after a day or two. If you’re not a Christian, please see the applicable rule that applies to you. When you’re driving down the road of life, make sure you don’t break the particular speed limit that applies to you.

But I digress. The central question I’m positing is this. Given the severity of the incentives and disincentives, can you really consider yourself to have a free and open choice as to how to live your life? If a deity existed, the only way they could truly provide free choice would be to keep their existence hidden. Or as an absolute minimum, keep the incentives and disincentives hidden. Otherwise, when assessing a person’s validity for entry into “heaven”, it is not their morality that is being judged but rather their ability to suppress free choice and conform to rules. And if it is the suppression of free choice that’s being assessed, does free choice really exist as a viable option for anyone who believe in any deity whom imposes these rules?

The third choice is to embrace free choice, and choose to not believe. This completely nullifies the incentives and disincentives that affect theists, allowing for a more pure brand of free choice (one can argue whether or not free choice exists for anyone, determinists would argue not, but this is not the purpose of this article).

Is this campaign just wanton scaremongering by religious extremists as a cover for retaining the right to irrational prejudice? Or is the government really trying to narrow existing law so as to curtail the exemptions from employment discrimination law to which religious organisations are entitled under the law?

Interesting, no? Interesting not because the British Government is looking to clarify these laws (some might say extend), but rather because the exemption for religious organisations in the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations Act 2003 existed in the first place.

The best part of this debate is, by some way, the statement issued by three Bishops on the matter for the Church of England.  The statement, entitled “Churches must not face further restrictions” could be a work of comedy genius, but instead it’s a rambling, contradictory and bigoted response to a law that should do no more than provide equal rights.  Even the title is telling.  The Church sees this potential change as “restrictive”, despite the fact that any normal person would be hard pressed to describe the law as anything other than removing extant restrictions imposed by the Church.  Are they talking about the Church being restricted from imposing their own restrictions? If so, do they have any concept of just how ludicrous that sounds?

As if that wasn’t enough to make you dismiss them out of hand as a group of outdated hypocrites, they also throw in this:

At stake is how we, as a liberal democracy based on Christian values, strike the right balance between the rights and responsibilities of different groups to be protected from harassment and unfair discrimination and the rights of churches and religious organisations to appoint and employ people consistently with their guiding doctrine and ethos.

I think that’s pretty clear.  On the one hand you have those fighting for “the rights and responsibilities of different groups to be protected from harassment and unfair discrimination” and on the other side you have the Church.  When that’s the argument you’re trying to make, there must a point where you look in the mirror and wonder why you want to discriminate against fellow human beings for no reason other than a 2,000 year old book tells you to (or is it just because they fear change)?

So instead of replying individually to all the questions, I wanted to put together a single post that contains the relevant information.

Evolution, Natural Selection and Speciation

If you browse the comments on this blog, you’ll see me saying “Don’t confuse evolution and natural selection” quite a lot. And it’s an important point to make. To understand how we came to be in the form we currently are, you need to grasp two concepts, Evolution and Natural Selection. So let’s look at them in turn.

Evolution

Evolution is how we describe the changes in organisms between generations. These changes are mutations, changes to the genetic material of an organism. You can see them in every day life, just look at the attributes, or traits, children have that the parents do not. Children do, however, share many traits with their parents, inherited traits.

Natural Selection

As discussed above, the traits of an organism may be inherited from its parent or not. For a parent to potentially pass a trait on to its offspring, it must survive long enough to reproduce. The theory of natural selection tells us that those organisms that are best suited to their environment are most likely to reproduce.  When people talk of “survival of the fittest”, fittest refers to fitness to their environment, or suitability.

The upshot is that the organisms that are best suited to their environments are more likely to survive, and are also more likely to pass on their traits to their offspring. Therefore, their offspring are more likely to be well suited to the environment. This in turn makes them more likely to survive and breed, and so on. It’s a beautifully simple concept at its core.  It’s worth mentioning at this point that mutations, even if beneficial to the organism and the organism produces offspring, are not guaranteed to be passed on.  Likewise, mutations that are not beneficial to the organism may be passed on to subsequent offspring.  There is also the possibility of non-beneficial mutations preventing an organism from procreating but then occurring elsewhere in the same species.  A mutation doesn’t just appear once, either succeed or not and then disappear.

When you consider this passing on of traits, you also have to take into account inter-generation mutations. An offspring is rarely identical to its parents, even where a parent pair produce multiple offspring there are differences between those offspring. In these cases, again, the best suited to the environment are most likely to survive and breed. Mutations are hard to predict and rarely follow a defined path.

While genetic mutations are easily observed in the human species, natural selection is not. This is due to our species’ ability to prolong our own lives and help those who are in need of help. We don’t see the weaker members of our species die off before they have a chance to breed.  There are, however, mutations that are so severe it prevents that person from breeding.  This does not rule out the possibility of that particular mutation occurring in other members of the same species.

Speciation

While not crucial to the theory of Natural Selection, the way in which species are defined is important. For the purpose simplicity, we can define a species line at the point where organisms can no longer breed. So using the discussion of natural selection and evolution above, if you imagine a species going through these transitions, a new species would be recognised at the point an organisms could no longer breed with members of its former species.

Speciation is an interesting subject, especially when you look at allopatric speciation. Allopatric speciation is where organisms from the same species are separated by the formation of a barrier. Typically this is a geographical barrier. The organisms, originally members of the same species, then evolve independently to the point at which they can no longer inter-breed if reintroduced to each other.

Evidence for Evolution

The ill-informed and the ignorant still claim there is insufficient proof for evolution.  This is, of course, ridiculous.  There is ample evidence for evolution.  In fact, evidence is so comprehensive and robust that the majority of theists have abandoned this course of argument, with many favouring hastily developed reactionary positions such as Intelligent Design.  I won’t debunk Intelligent Design here, I’ll hold that for another day.

As for actual evidence for evolution, there is plenty.  We have evolution that’s been observed in laboratories (even to the point where it’s reproducible, I called it “Evolution on tap”), observed speciation and thousands of transitional fossils.  A transitional fossil represents the preserved (to some degree) remains of an organism that exhibits certain traits which are found in later organisms.  These typically also exhibit traits found in much later organisms.  They represent an organism that bridges the evolutionary gap between species, in evolutionary terms (although it may be a species in its own right).

We are at a point where we can use evolutionary theory to accurately predict where to find transitional fossils, which period they will date from and what forms they will take.  That is the completeness of the theories and how closely tied it is to the discovered evidence.  Any sane person would find the evidence for evolution to be so overwhelming as to be incontrovertible.

Arguments Against Evolution

Despite the mountain of evidence there are still those who try and disprove and discredit evolution.  I’ve picked out some of the most common arguments I’ve come across and responded to them.  As you’ll see, most are either used by the uninformed because they fundamentally misunderstand evolution, or they are used by the informed to mislead

Macroevolution vs Microevolution

If you hear someone roll out this argument, it’s a sure sign that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.  Essentially, proponents of this argument concede that this is ample evidence for evolution, but class all the evidence as evidence for microevolution, and therefore does not qualify as proof of evolution as a cause of speciation.  Macroevolution, which is what they claim there is no evidence for, is classed as evolution at or above the level of speciation.

So, to be clear, as proof of macroevolution, they would expect a member of one species to give birth to a member of another.  i.e. an inter generation change that is far more severe than those typically seen in evolutionary history.  The argument goes that we only have evidence for very small changes as a result of evolution, not the big sweeping changes that result in the formation of different species.

The obvious failing in this argument is that the amount of change that typically causes speciation happens over many many generations and encompasses many different mutations.  Multiple instances of microevolution results in macroevolution.  To use an analogy, spouting this argument is akin to saying you believe in bricks, because you’ve seen them, and you believe in buildings, because you’ve seen them, but you don’t believe that bricks form buildings because you’ve never seen one part built.

Irreducible Complexity

Irreducible Complexity as a concept is particularly popular amongst Intelligence Design proponents.  It argues that certain aspects of certain organisms are simply too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed (they offer to explanation as to whom designed the most complicated being of all, God).  The most famous example used is that of the eye and was one of the cornerstones of the book Darwin’s Black Box by irreducible complexity’s father, Michael Behe.  Yes, that’s the same Michael Behe who openly admitted in the famous Dover case, which completely discredited Intelligent Design as a scientific pursuit, that his own simulations demonstrated that the kind of complex evolution he said couldn’t happen could, and in as little as 20,000 years.

Even under the most casually scrutiny this idea falls apart.  Taking the eye as an example (as many proponents do), we know how the eye evolved in some detail.  Further more, we can look all around us and witness other organisms that have eyes in various stages of development.  We do not have the most complex eyes, many species of birds (e.g. Owls) have eyes that are far more complex than our own.  We also do not have the simplest, there are organisms with eyes that resemble pinhole cameras (i.e. without lenses and the ability to focus).  The evolutionary path of the eye is relatively simple to plot.  Even the most bizarre occurrences in nature, such as the bacterial flagellar motor, can be explained.  This particular example, one used by Behe himself, was covered amply in Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.

The Start of Life

Moving slightly away from the core principals behind natural selection and evolution, many people who accept evolutionary theory still attempt to claim that some sort of deity created the very beginning of life itself, and then allowed everything else to happen (i.e. evolution).  I won’t go into this in detail as I’ve covered the origins of life previously.

Why Do We Still Have Monkeys?

Much like the macroevolution vs microevolution argument, anyone who hinges an argument on this question, or any variation of it, has a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.  And you can put anyone who says anything like “I didn’t evolve from a monkey” into the same bracket.  This idea that we evolved from monkeys has been pushed in an ill-fated attempt to discredit evolution.  Of course, anyone who’s bothered to even look into evolution will know that we did not evolve from monkeys as they exist today but rather we share a common ancestor with monkeys.  IDA, as pictured earlier in this post, is a common ancestor to both ourselves and some modern day apes.  That creature, or rather the particular sub-species that creature belonged to, would have had mutated offspring at some point.  Some of those offspring carried mutations best suited to forest environments and some were best suited to travelling on land.  This is of course a gross over simplification, but is necessary without explaining in detail the complete timeline of human evolution.  Reading through some of the links I provided earlier on speciation will also give reasons for the parallel evolution of species or one species breaking away from another which remains static.

Conclusion

I hope this very brief introduction to the fundamental principals of evolution, written by a layman, helps you understand the theory.  Evolution, and natural selection, is phenomenally simple at it’s core.  It is a concept of such beautiful simplicity that I believe it’s not been matched in terms of human thinking before or since.

What do you think about evolution?  Is there anything I’ve missed out?  Are there any questions you get challenged with regularly that you’d like me to respond to?  Let us know in the comments.

What I find particularly amusing is this attachment to Christmas Day, as if it’s significant in some way, religiously speaking.  In fact, there’s debate over the original origins of 25th December being used as Christmas day.  Many believe it was a carry over from a pagan festival, which was no doubt linked to the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere.  Others, notably William J Tighe, believe that it was down to an attempt by early christians to calculate Jesus’s actual birth date.  Note that Mr Tighe cites no sources.  It’s generally understood that the date of December 25th was decided upon by Pope Julius (I) at around 350AD.

It’s almost certain that if Jesus did exist, he was not born on December 25th.  It seems far more likely that December 25th was chosen as a date because it aligned very nicely with existing religious festivals such as Sol Invictus.  Sol Invictus,  literally referring to the birth of the unconquered sun, was believed to be a Roman celebration that allowed for multiple sun Gods to be worshipped simultaneously during the Winter Solstice.

The significance of the Winter Solstice should not be overlooked.  Prior to the Christian Jesus myth, multiple Religions celebrated significant events on or around December 25th.  This includes Mithra (born to a virgin, could raise the dead, heal the sick and his birth was accompanied by wise men bearing gifts), Horus and Osiris (who was resurrected).  To say the world of religious belief is inbred would be an understatement, no more so than around the time of the Winter Solstice.

So when you’re tucking into your turkey on Christmas day, spare a thought for all the other Gods that happened to be born on the same day, the very day that the sun is also “reborn”.

Nativity scene by alexbruda.