Do you want to be descended from a monkey?
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Contents |
Claim
Evolution says you are descended from a monkey. Do you want to be descended from a monkey?
Source
- Moon, Rev. Sun Myung, 1976 (7 Mar.). The central figure and the transitional period. [1]
Responses
- Do you want to be descended from a pile of dust, as the creation story in Genesis 2 claims? Since Creationists don't seem to mind being modified dirt, it's not clear why they have a problem with being modified monkeys.
- Do you want to be descended from people who personally wrecked the entire Universe, as the Biblical creation story claims? Creationists pin the blame of The Fall squarely on the shoulders of Humanity's legendary ancestors, Adam and Eve, and yet, somehow presume that these two troublemakers are more acceptable ancestors than monkeys.
- Science is not about what we want, it is about collecting, testing, and explaining data. Do you want deadly earthquakes to happen? Most people do not, but that does not prevent them from happening, nor should it prevent people from studying earthquakes.
- As the old truism goes, "we can pick our friends, but we can't pick our family." It would be very nice to be the son/daughter of (insert name of celebrity, potentate, or historical figure), but, sadly, science is about what the evidence says about reality (in this case, the ancestry of humans), and not wishful thinking.
- First, evolution says both Homo sapiens and "monkeys" are descended from a common ancestor living 25 million years ago, during the Oligocene. Second, what may be particularly interesting, from recent molecular studies and other data, that common ancestor may be more like us than monkeys. Therefore, perhaps the more accurate questions is whether monkeys would want to be descended from us!
- Do you have a choice whether you want to be descended from a monkey? I don't think so.
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Fallacies contained in this claim
- Wishful Thinking ("What ought to be true is true").
Related claims
- If man comes from random causes, life has no purpose or meaning
- Without a literal Fall, there is no need for Jesus and redemption
- Animals are not moral, esthetic, idealistic, or religious
- Death and suffering before humanity implies an unmerciful God
- Pope's statement about evolution was mistranslated
- The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built
