Today in E.W. Jackson news, we learn that the scientific notion of evolution must certainly be false because communication via talking and writing is simply too impressive a thing to happen unless God Did That, Period, So Shut Up.
From his 2008 book:
Scientist have made much of the fact that chimpanzees have been trained to use sign language. They take this as proof that primates are our ancestors because they, like us, have “language capacity.” It is amazing the length to which people will go to prove what is so palpably false. The ability to make sounds which serve to communicate the simplest to most complex ideas is an astounding thing, almost supernatural in itself. Equally remarkable is the ability to reduce those sounds to written symbols universally understood and capable of conveying the ideas that those sounds represent. To suggest that all this is an accident of evolution belies the intellectual power language represents. Those are gifts given to mankind by God who created us. He gave those gifts to no other creature. There is an unfathomable gulf between humans and all other creatures because creation was designed that way. No amount of time or theorizing will ever bridge that gulf. Only mankind was made to represent the divinity and genius of God himself.
I'm not sure that language capacity in chimps is being used to "prove" evolutionary theory per se, considering how many animals are now known to have considerable communication skills, and since most evolutionary links are typically demonstrated via a careful tracing of the fossil record. It is a useful exploration of how human linguistic skills may have developed
given the close biological relationship, mind you, but if you don't believe in the plain lines of bones stretching from one particular species to various others, I'm not sure a round of monkey flash cards is going to prove much of anything to you.
Writing, now, writing is more interesting still, though I challenge anyone to read the
Twilight saga and tell me afterwards they still believe in a divine being.
Overall, I give it a weak C. Argument via assertion, a conspicuous misunderstanding of the opposing arguments, and a concluding assertion of divine genius that does not take into account my lower back pain. A decent attempt at stringing sentences together, but not exactly college essay material.
I feel a need for a disclaimer of sorts here: I am perfectly fine with religious folks holding office. No, really, I promise. The narrow evangelical techniques of declaring God Did That or God Wants That or God Told Me We Should Do This offered in place of any more substantive evidence or discussion, however, shows a lazy, calcified mind. (Assuming, of course, that the God Told Me part does not immediately descend into outright grift, which it does with uncanny regularity.) I wouldn't want such people housesitting my cat, much less coming up with laws on how our children should be educated or what our country should be doing with all its gay people.
And yet "lazy, calcified mind" seems to be a necessary qualification for all new Republican candidates. Why?