Frederick Turner has identified three sins of evolutionists. It's at Tech Central Station, so you know it's gotta be good (no, I don't usually read TCS: blame Orac for telling me about this).

The first is a profound failure of the imagination, which comes from a certain laziness and complacency. Somehow people, who should, because of their studies in biology, have been brought to a state of profound wonder and awe at the astonishing beauty and intricacy and generosity of nature, can think of nothing better to say than to gloomily pronounce it all meaningless and valueless. Even if one is an atheist, nature surely has a meaning, that is, an abstract and volitional and mental implication: the human world and its ideas and arts and loves, including our appreciation for the beauty of nature itself.

Oh.

Well.

When a critic starts off like that, one is tempted to just dump the idiot's screed in the incinerator and be done with it. Seriously...becoming a biologist takes four years of undergraduate work, four years of graduate study, a 2-3 year post-doc, and a great deal of desperate scrabbling to land one of the all too rare university positions. More than a decade of training isn't exactly a commitment one makes out of despair.

Obviously, Mr Turner has us confused with the goths. Goths believe in vampires, wear lots of eyeshadow, and have interesting piercings. Evolutionists are typically nerdy and read lots of books and get all goo-goo-eyed over squid and leeches and beetles and tropical birds. I hope that helps.

The second sin is a profound moral failure -- the failure of gratitude. If one found out that one had a billion dollars free and clear in one's bank account, whose source was unknown, one should want to find out who put it there, or if the donor were not a person but a thing or a system, what it was that has so benefited us. And one would want to thank whoever or whatever put it in our account. Our lives and experiences are surely worth more than a billion dollars to us, and yet we did not earn them and we owe it to someone or something to give thanks. And to despise and ridicule those who rightly or wrongly do want to give thanks and identify their benefactor as "God" is to compound the sin.

Oh, yes, that is a nice example. So, if I were to find a surprising billion dollars in my bank account, the right thing for me to do is to go to my local priest, who will announce that he knows who put it there, but he can't show me the guy...but he is authorized to collect 10% of the money. The wrong thing to do would be to actually go to the bank itself, ask them to trace the deposit, and figure out exactly what material agent was responsible for the dramatic mistake. I think I like that analogy.

I also shouldn't be surprised, because it isn't just me that got a billion dollars: every person on the planet got it. Every nematode, fruit fly, and musk ox, too. When it's something ubiquitous and bestowed upon every living thing, maybe we shouldn't regard it as a personal gift, but as a basic property. And that just maybe it wasn't a present from some invisible anthropomorphic Superman, and there isn't anyone to whom we should be thankful.

I also think that if every fruit fly was buzzing around with a billion dollar portfolio, my own account would be radically devalued. There's some economic principle behind that, I think.

The third sin is again dishonesty. In many cases it is clear that the beautiful and hard-won theory of evolution, now proved beyond reasonable doubt, is being cynically used by some -- who do not much care about it as such -- to support an ulterior purpose: a program of atheist indoctrination, and an assault on the moral and spiritual goals of religion. A truth used for unworthy purposes is quite as bad as a lie used for ends believed to be worthy. If religion can be undermined in the hearts and minds of the people, then the only authority left will be the state, and, not coincidentally, the state's well-paid academic, legal, therapeutic and caring professions. If creationists cannot be trusted to give a fair hearing to evidence and logic because of their prior commitment to religious doctrine, some evolutionary partisans cannot be trusted because they would use a general social acceptance of the truth of evolution as a way to set in place a system of helpless moral license in the population and an intellectual elite to take care of them.

Oooh. He used the "proved" word. I hate that, even if he's saying it in support of a good, well-supported theory.

Unfortunately, after starting off with a nice sentiment, Turner sinks quickly into the usual ignorant atheist-hating babble.

Who are these mysterious "some" who do not care about evolution, but use it only as a tool for atheist indoctrination? That's a very silly accusation.

Who is promoting atheist indoctrination at all? I know a fair number of atheists, and that's an extremely poor characterization of their goals. As long as we're left alone, you can believe any ol' goofy myth you want. It's true that we do oppose religion when it makes its proponents stupid (case in point: Mr Turner), but we'd rather alleviate that problem with education, not indoctrination.

Oh, and once again we see the ridiculous canard that atheists believe in "moral license" and only religion can provide "moral and spiritual goals". Please. Religion has set a very poor example of moral guidance, so don't try to tell me that a book full of war, rape, genocide, and slavery sets the principles by which I should live. Atheism is not nihilism, gloom, and decadence.

Hmmm. Maybe Turner has confused atheists with goths, too.

^*Yes, I know goths can be polite and well-mannered and good people, too. I'm playing with the goth stereotype, OK?