divisionbyzero

I’ve been schooling myself on Evolutionary Biology for about 3 or 4 years.
I dropped out of college after my freshman year because Undergrad was then,
and is still is today a lifeless process of rote memorization.  During that
time, I didn’t learn to learn, or learn anything more than “here are the
rules, and if you don’t follow them, there will be consequences.”  I’m not
sure if the topic of this essay is relevant to anyone outside of
Catholicism, but I’ve not heard much about it in the Skeptic / Science
Community.

I attended public school through the 5th Grade  then and did very well.  I
was placed in the “Gifted and Talented” program in 4th Grade and maintained
advanced placement in Math through 5th Grade.  I earned a coveted “Student
of the Year” Award for my participation in extracurricular activities and my
high grades in the most advanced classes.

In 6th Grade, I was accepted into a Private Catholic School.  I was a good
student for the rest of my Middle and High School careers, but not
exceptional.  In grade school, I had asked and received answers to my
toughest questions.  In Middle and High School, the questions became
increasingly complex and more subversive to the Dogma.  My questions were
discouraged, or worse punished, and I fell out of love with school.

In 10th Grade, I took my first “Biology” Class.  Biology in quotes because
this was a Catholic High School.  We learned about cells, cell structures,
dissected disgusting owl pellets, and covered Evolution.  It wasn’t really
emphasized, and questions about it’s conflict with the Bible were glossed
over by the generic “Helping Hand” Argument.  For an aspiring Devotee to
Catholicism and Diligent Seeker of the Truth, this idea seemed amazingly
beautiful and perfect.

There needs to be a distinction here between “Helping Hand” and “Intelligent
Design.”  Intelligent Design is uneducated rubbish.  Had ID been
presented to me at age 14, I would’ve laughed it straight out of the
classroom.  ID looks at Life Forms and finds intricate, beautiful pieces of
those organisms that seem unlikely to have arisen from pure, unadulterated
random chance.  The eye and the Bombardier Beetle are prime examples of ID’s
misinformation.

The convincing “Helping Hand” argument irresponsibly pitched to me by a
well-meaning Biology Teacher essentially stated “God started the
evolutionary process and made sure that the correct random mutations were
selected for by shaping the environment in which our evolutionary ancestors
arose.”  The fact that the ID Camp has not latched onto this concept
demonstrates just how astoundingly stupid they are.  As a political idea,
this “Helping Hand” argument appears to be a harmless means for religion to
reconcile it’s Dark Age, Anti-Intellectual Dogma to modern science’s most
powerful ideas.

So, why is this idea dangerous, idiotic, and offensive?  It’s simple.  The
“Helping Hand” concept is irresponsible because it’s not necessary.  More
than unnecessary, it exposes dangerous flaws in the Religion itself.
Consider that religions consider God to be a fairly “Perfect” being.  Often
God receives All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Ever Present status.  If that’s the
case, then the “Helping Hand” argument serves only to expose God as an
incompetent hack.

If there were intelligence behind the Evolutionary Process we should be able
to see it in Humans.  After all, we are created in His image?  That doesn’t
appear to be the case.  As products of Evolution, you and I are scarcely
prepared to exist in the Modern World.  Our tongues sense Salt, a necessary
mineral to help us maintain our overwhelmingly liquid existence.  We crave
sugars, some of the most efficient mechanisms for transferring energy.  We
sense bitterness, because in our evolutionary past bitterness often
indicated poisons.  We crave savoriness because the protein of meat has
encouraged the rapid, outpacing expansion of our brain.  We also taste and
sense sourness, which identify acidic compounds necessary to maintain the
alkalinity of the body.

All of these evolutionary processes served our ancestors incredibly well.
They are indispensable in the shaping of Homo Sapiens.  This might seem
neutral in our “Helping Hand” vs Natural Selection argument.  But, that’s
not the case.  These cravings served us well in the past, but how are they
affecting us these days?  Imagine this process was aided by an All-Knowing,
All-Powerful Creator, targeting the emergence of Homo Sapiens as he zapped
Reptiles and Bacteria from a cloud, patiently paving the road for us.  The
Hands guiding us to where we were in 1 CE.

And then what?  These very simple and basic taste sensations that were
necessary for a caloric scarce existence in the past, are literally killing
us en masse in our Caloric Rich “Industrialized” existence today.  Has He
stopped paying attention?  Did He get bored?  Hello, is this thing on?

By inserting the “Helping Hand” idea into Evolutionary Biology, theologians
have created far more serious problems than they answered.  Taste is but one
small, fairly simple demonstration of this fallacy.  Consider the #1 killer
in America, Heart Disease.  The problem is compounded by our taste for
calorie rich food, but that is overshadowed by the catastrophic design
failure of the magnificent Human Heart.  If there was someone nudging
evolution, who could see the future, surely they saw this problem coming.
Back then, it would’ve been trivial to correct.  I’m not a Cardiologist, or
Evolutionary Biologist.  I’m a Software Developer and System Administrator,
so I’ll have to invoke one of the first design problems I was taught in my
limited schooling: Single Point of Failure.   The Human Heart has 1 Major
Artery into, and out of the Heart.

If I were designing, or nudging the process of Human Evolution, as an
imperfect, under-educated, simplistic, narrow-minded Human Being, I’d say
“maybe we should have some redundancy in such a critical element!”  Surely,
that adaptation could be demonstrated to be benevolent and useful.  Surely
it would exhibit the foresight of some intelligent being edging towards a
perfect being.

The lack of foresight in such an obvious and enormous problem as Heart
Disease, is Yet Another demonstration of the logical fallacies committed by
the most well-meaning religious people.  It doesn’t need to be there.  It
doesn’t answer any questions, it only creates more questions.  Science can
only deal with questions that can be answered.  The “Unmoved Mover,”
“Creationism,” “Intelligent Design,” and “Helping Hand” in-dignify the
amazing brilliance of Human understanding, creativity, and intelligence.

If you’re reading this, and you’ve reconciled your faith with science in the
same way I did in High School with this ludicrous idea of “Helping Hand”
evolution, please stop deluding yourself, your neighbors, your friends, and
most importantly your children.  You may think you’re helping, but you’re
not.  The fact is, you’re lying and deceiving everyone.