Evolutionist: “Jesus had nothing to say about … abortion”

And So This Is Christmas

On this 2017 Christmas holiday an evolutionist has proclaimed that the man whose birthday is celebrated today did not come out against abortion. She wrote:

Jesus had nothing to say about … abortion … He did have quite a lot to say about the poor and the vulnerable, and maybe that’s a good place to start.

Readers shouldn’t need a lengthy explanation of the problem here. Theologians refer to this as imposing an idea onto Scripture rather than reading it out of Scripture. To say that Jesus said nothing about abortion but—in the very next breath—admit that He did instruct us to protect the vulnerable, does not make sense.

It would be like saying Jesus said nothing about stabbing people in the back, though he did admonish us not to murder, but that’s different.

Or again, it would be like saying Jesus said nothing about being nice to people, though he did tell us to do to others as we would have them do to us. But that’s different.

No, it isn’t different.

The problem here is that babies are, if anything, “vulnerable.” One need not stretch definitions to see the problem. One does not need an imagination here to get it.

Babies. Are. Vulnerable.

It is not that this writer made a minor slip here. This assertion is nothing short of absurd.

In fact, the claim is so silly and ridiculous, I would not normally bring it to the attention of readers. If you showed me this quote, I would assume it is from some phony troll or chatroom.

But it isn’t, and this is where the problem becomes more important. The quote is from a newspaper article. And it is not from just any old newspaper. It is from, err, the top newspaper in the world—The New York Times.

Nor is the article deeply buried somewhere. It is prominently displayed above the fold, top right on the website.

Nor is the author someone who accidently slipped a piece into The Gray Lady. In fact, the piece was written by, err, Contributing Op-Ed writer Margaret Renkl.

Renkl’s point is that followers of Jesus need to get with the program, and drop the whole pro life thing. After all, Jesus had nothing to say about abortion.

Right?

The argument isn’t even wrong, and yet there it is. Complete absurdity parading as words of wisdom, as if in some Hans Christian Andersen story.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Evolutionists: Our Findings Suggest That Similarities in Bilateria Evolved Independently

Not Even Wrong

This week one of the top scientific journals in the world published what would seem to be a ground breaking paper. The paper claims to have found evidence for the independent evolution of nervous system similarities across the Bilateria. As the abstract explains:

Our findings … suggest that the similarities in dorsoventral patterning and trunk neuroanatomies evolved independently in Bilateria.

By the end of the manuscript the authors are even more confident:

Therefore, the expression of dorsoventral transcription factors evolved independently from the trunk neuroanatomy at least in certain bilaterian lineages

This is a monumental claim, but there is only one problem: It is blatantly false. The paper’s findings did not “suggest” the evolution, independent or otherwise, of the transcription factor expression patterns. They certainly did not demonstrate, show or find such an incredible conclusion.

It would be difficult to overstate how misleading this paper is. It provided literally zero evidence for any such evolution. Nothing. Nada.

There simply is no such scientific evidence in the paper. The claim that they found that the expression of dorsoventral transcription factors evolved independently in certain bilaterian lineages is not even wrong.

Let’s be clear about this. I am not saying their claim is weak. I am not saying their claim is faulty. I am not saying they failed to make their case conclusively. The problem is they don’t have any case at all.

We cannot criticize the science because, well, there is no science. For a paper entitled “Convergent evolution of bilaterian nerve cords,” one would have expected at least some evidence and explanation for the evolution of bilaterian nerve cords.

Unfortunately papers such as this inform journalists and science writers. They report that scientists have now discovered yet another aspect of evolution. It is yet another example of how science proves evolution.

In fact, if one is looking for a meaningful takeaway, what the study did find is that the expectations of evolution—that nervous system similarities would align with the evolutionary tree—turned out to be, like so many other of evolution’s predictions—false. But that doesn’t fit the narrative.

Religion drives science, and it matters.