Why Salmon Don’t Celebrate Christmas

A very well-known example of this is idea of the “Selfish Gene” in the same named book by Richard Dawkins.  He is an evolutionary biologist and describes himself as an atheist and a humanist who thinks “a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”  He’s right that biological evolution is a theory supported by mountains of circumstantial evidence and that as a theory based on two observable and quantifiable concepts, natural selection and genetic mutation, evolution is a sound scientific theory. 

But science cannot address all truth, only the physical part of it.

He and other evolutionary biologists, however, depart the realm of science when they try to explain human behavior in purely physical terms (not that all do).  Human behavior presents evolutionary biologists who, in their efforts to reject God must also reject metaphysical concepts, argue that our mental process are functions of only the physical realm with quite a dilemma.  If they themselves are only a function of matter acting according to the physical laws of nature, then how do their arguments have any more credence than, well, that smallpox virus that is easier than religion to eradicate?  There is no sense in that, no free will, no mind, no soul, all sacrificed to rid the word God.

The idea of the “selfish gene” came about to explain, in part, altruistic behavior in humans.  Altruistic behavior doesn’t fit with natural selection; giving to others, caring for the dying, even a willingness to die for someone you love.  All of that flies in the face of purely materialistic evolution.  Selfless love gets dangerously close to Christian love, and so to avoid using those words they use physical genetic terms to explain our human behavior as animal instinct for survival.

“Science explains Christmas goodwill“

Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Roch and Nowak



From Wikipedia, Salmon

If man were merely an animal with no mind, and only natural instincts we’d just do this and never give a single thought to any other aspect of survival or human suffering.  Giving would only be a survival tactic done of no free will.  That humanists focus so intently on survival and suffering is evidence that they know we are human, and we do not just lie down and die without ever giving a thought to the human condition and our world.  They don’t realize it or admit it, but they argue Christian love. 

We are consciously aware of our suffering and of our inevitable death.  We are consciously aware of a fact no human can deny…the desire to love and to be loved.  Evolutionary science cannot address this, ever!, because it is not science.  It is beyond science.

The believer who draws from faith in Christian love as shown us by Christ, in the assurance that God the Creator made our world in a sensible order that we can learn and study, and that the Holy Spirit guides us in how to unify our knowledge from both physical and metaphysical concepts has no problem understanding why salmon don’t celebrate Christmas.

It is simply Christian love, born of sacrifice and faith in something greater than ourselves.  There will be plenty of time to suffer, and we know it.  But at Christmas we put that aside and celebrate life…and appreciate it with our God-given human intellect using an emotion called gratitude.