In the first column "Men and Women are equal" in this three-part series titled “Liberals and Intelligent Design”, [http://rffm.typepad.com/republicans_for_fair_medi/2007/08/liberals-and-in.html] I discussed the liberal concept of male and female equality. In this column, I will discuss the liberal concept of species equality.
When it comes to species--other than the human species--there are many “Intelligent Design” theories from the secular Left. The best-known example is the concept of the need for “species diversity”. Thus we should save Lyme-disease vulnerable deer and bird-flu vulnerable Canadian geese, even if this harms our own species. And we should reintroduce coyotes, wolves and bears to our environment and even share our backyards with them. This is not Darwinism at all. Darwin would say kill the predators before they kill us and harvest the prey to feed our children and community. Anything else is a religious belief system unfounded in science and completely lacking in empirical evidence. In other words, leftist Intelligent Design that should not be taught in our schools.
Darwinian facts state if 90% of all species had not been destroyed by some unknown calamity 300 million years ago (the Cambrian Extinction) we, the human species, would not be here. Ditto for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65 million years ago when 85% of those species remaining from the Cambrian de-specification were destroyed, including dinosaurs. So, if you believe in Darwinian logic, saving species now--as liberal secularists want to do--is denying future species their rightful place in the inexorable march of Evolution. To deny that is to practice “Intelligent Design’ i.e., we humans know, because we are so intelligent, which species should survive. Very God-like, but very unscientific.
A more recent example would be the ground sloth, which died out about 10,000 years ago. To visualize what a ground sloth looked like imagine an 800 pound possum in your back yard. Here’s a way to test the liberal's “all species must survive” theory. At your next barbeque, ask your neighbors this question: “Which of you have been negatively affected by the ground sloth’s extinction?” My guess is the barbeque attendees will give you a look something on the order of “He’s been spending too much time at the beer cooler”. No one cares because it has had no effect on us. Unfortunate for the ground sloth perhaps, but, to all the remaining species, it is a non-event because our species survived and there is now one less competitor for resources. That’s Darwinian logic at work.
And you will notice that the species “Intelligently” chosen to survive by the liberal elite tend to be the cute ones – deer (remember Bambi?), wolves (they look like Rover), dolphins (they’re just like us), baby seals and, inexplicably, killer whales whose favorite meals include baby seals and dolphins.
When was the last time you saw anyone protesting to save sewer rats or baby cockroaches? Isn’t choosing to save baby seals over baby cockroaches “Intelligent Design” and intruding liberal elitist secularist religion into science? Why aren’t liberals throwing themselves on Roach Motels to save baby cockroaches from evil exterminators rather than attacking destitute Eskimos for harvesting baby seals?
Darwin said there is no “feel good” about other species, as liberal theology would have you believe. In fact, Darwin’s theory explicitly and demonstrably states that if any species must kill (and eat) every other species in order to survive then indeed, that is what it should do. Darwin said we have one job and one job only: to make certain our species survives at all costs. We pass the genetic baton on to the next generation, just as our parents passed it on to us.
For example, in 10,000 B.C. there were three million humans and 20 million wolves. In 2000 A.D. there were six billion humans and 200,000 wolves. Who then is the master Darwinian survivor? Humans, of course, because we killed them before they killed us. For now at least we have won that Darwinian battle.
And that is what elitists cannot tolerate. In their view, humans do not deserve to win--we are a curse and need to be held in check. Bring back the wolves, they are better than us. Plus, they are really cute--except, perhaps, when they are disemboweling fawns and family pets.
In the end, the argument is this: are human beings special, chosen, designed, created differently than all other species or are we just one of many--meaningless as flat worms and amoebas, doomed to be cast to the side of the evolutionary road as our betters, mutant replacements, pop up.
Leftists would have us believe that we are special in the sense that we know which species should survive and which should die (preferably humans) and we are all in this together, philosophically speaking. But we are not really, really special in the sense that we are chosen and have an innate moral sensibility given to us by a superior intelligent designer. Liberals would have us believe that we are the “choosers” but not the “chosen”.
But how can that be? If we are not chosen, but just one of the many, then how can we be morally superior to the cockroach? Deciding which species lives or dies is a moral decision: where does that moral superiority come from, better mutations?
So you must make a choice: either accept that Darwin is right and we are an inexorable accident and, like the wolves, in a fight for survival at all costs against all other species; or admit there is some a priori moral intelligence in our birthright that allows us to decide right from wrong, who lives and who dies.
You cannot have it both ways.
In the third and final column on “Liberals and Intelligent Design” I will explore the mathematical probabilities of human existence in an un-designed universe.
Bill Zettler is a contributing editor to RFFM.org.
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