This is not my are of expertise (if anything is
) but going by the principle of evolution of “survival of the fittest” (or even natural selection since that also means procreation is taking place) would not Pro-Life and Traditional Marriage supporters by definition be more evolved than Pro-Choice/Pro-Homosexual “Marriage”?
I don’t think it makes any sense to say that something is “more evolved” than another.
If you mean “more successfully adapted to its environment,” well, you have to ask, what environment, and successful in what sense?
The only kind of success that matters in evolution is survival long enough to reproduce and bring offspring to the point where they can reproduce themselves. Abortion might in fact be adaptive in a world of low infant mortality, doing the job nature used to do by killing off some individuals to leave more resources available for others. In the nature of things, infants who are aborted are less likely to be cared for and more likely to have defects and abnormalities. Hence, abortion might be very helpful from an evolutionary perspective. (The famous argument that abortion lowers crime works along these lines.)
Yes, I recognize that the above paragraph is monstrous and horrific. But that’s the kind of thing you are asking for when you try to use evolutionary arguments to support Christian morality.
Homosexuality is trickier–but again, a case can be made that it’s to the advantage of the species as a whole for some individuals not to reproduce. Again, this would be
more advantageous in a world with lower mortality rates and higher population density–our world, in short. We don’t need everyone reproducing at peak capacity any more. Hence, one could argue, homosexuality is becoming more accepted and perhaps more common (at least its open practice is more common).
One thing is pretty clear about evolution–its mechanisms are in themselves morally neutral. So I think using evolution to make a moral argument is a very bad idea. In fact, the amorality of evolution is the strongest argument I know against the view that evolution explains life adequately. I know that some folks, most recently Sam Harris, have argued that you can provide a scientific, evolutionary basis for morality. The little I’ve read of the argument seems like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps to me.
Whether this is an argument against evolution itself is more debatable. On the one hand, it understandably disturbs many people to think of God using such a method. On the other hand, some advocates of theistic evolution have argued that it helps solve the problem of evil, since we don’t need to see God as directly creating such things as the egg-laying habits of the ichneumon wasp. On the other hand (as Tevye might say), that seems like a very Deistic, probably unorthodox view of creation. . . . .
Edwin
