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Essay:Why Evolution Gives More Value to Humanity than Creationism Does
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This essay is an original work by Thunderkatz. It does not necessarily reflect the views expressed in RationalWiki's Mission Statement, but we welcome discussion of a broad range of ideas. Unless otherwise stated, this is original content, released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 or any later version. See RationalWiki:Copyrights. Feel free to make comments on the talk page, which will probably be far more interesting, and might reflect a broader range of RationalWiki editors' thoughts. |
One of the major talking points of creationists is the claim that evolution gives no value to the status of humanity, that we are no better than animals. Besides in no way disproving evolution, I think this argument is wrong.
Creationism says that we are the dominant race because God chose us to be the dominant race. That's it. It was an arbitrary choice. God could have picked gorillas to be the dominant race. He could have picked antelopes. He could have picked goats. It was an arbitrary decision. In a sense, we are no better than animals. An all-powerful God could easily have given the traits humans use to be dominant to any other animal.
Evolution says quite the opposite. It says that to get where we are today, we had to be the smartest, the most adaptable. Humans achieved their dominance not because of some random lottery, but because of their intelligence. Humans are the dominant species because we worked our way to the top on our own, without any outside help.
In comparison, creationism says that we are the random rulers of species that could just as easily be our rulers, while evolution says that we deserve to be dominant. Which do you think gives more value to the human race?
Editor's note: This essay came about suddenly and quite randomly. As a result, it could very well have major logical flaws. If that is the case, please make it more intelligently designed (though that gives it less value).