Arguments XI -- Intelligence and Evolution

One of the arguments for Creationism/Intelligent Design centers on the mistaken belief that human beings are in some ways the end all or pinnacle of life. This goes hand in hand with the religious idea that we are somehow made in God's image and that we have some special sort of relationship with God.

I cannot answer the God's image and the special relationship with God because, as I have stated many times, those are metaphysical questions and best left to a more appropriate venue. But I do want to question whether or not we are the pinnacle of life -- and the answer I have to say is "No -- Freaking -- Way" What a huge presumption on some people's part. Doctors have stated for years we are still evolving to do things like walk upright. We have pieces and parts that have apparently been deprecated (pinky, appendix . . .). The actual design in many ways is still considered pretty poor. Sure lets put an object that gets all nasty and runny when we have a cold right above the mouth, the main intake port. Does that sound like sound engineering to you?

All I am trying to say is Evolution isn't done with us. The human being is a few thousand years might be noticeably different than the human being of today. Go further into the future and you might find new species of human, homo-superior, has replaced the old fashioned Homo-sapians. Evolution is not a guided process, there is no plan and the current human being is the end all of creation. Like many processes, it keeps going and going and going. Many scientists believe that evolution has actually sped up, partly because of the huge human population. The next 50 or 60 thousand years will be most interesting to watch and if we could set the Way Back machine to jump us ahead in few million years, we might be extremely surprised a the results! At least a good evolution education can help prepare us for that!