Creationism, Evolutionism, and Categories

I’ve been thinking about the progression of ideas about natural categories, such as “men” and “women,” “cows” and “mules,” “English” and “Polynesian.” Not exactly our high philosophical progression, but a somewhat commoner one.

It seems that 100 years or so ago, most people would have explained the differences between things with a simple, “Because God wanted them to be that way.” And if God wants it that way, then the way they are is good and you should leave them alone.

I have heard my [sibling] wax practically poetic about the way God made mules and horses for farm work, and why you should not yoke together an ox and a donkey. (One of the interesting parts of meeting my siblings for the first time as an adult was realizing that dorkiness is genetic.)

The evolutionary perspective is that evolution created things (or, as we like to call it around here, GNON, the God of Nature and Nature’s God.) Gnon and God are functionally rather similar, for Gnon also made things in natural categories, and while we may refrain from deeming them “good” in quite the same way as religious people, we certainly believe that each group’s features serve purposes that have helped members of that group survive where others did not.

The conservative creationist denies the role of evolution, but he does not deny that categories exist. He merely disputes their method of creation. To quote Answers in Genesis:

So, a good rule of thumb is that if two things can breed together, then they are of the same created kind. …

As an example, dogs can easily breed with one another, whether wolves, dingoes, coyotes, or domestic dogs. When dogs breed together, you get dogs; so there is a dog kind. It works the same with chickens. There are several breeds of chickens, but chickens breed with each other and you still get chickens. So, there is a chicken kind. The concept is fairly easy to understand.

But in today’s culture, where evolution and millions of years are taught as fact, many have been led to believe that animals and plants (that are classed as a specific “species”) have been like this for tens of thousands of years and perhaps millions of years. So, when they see things like lions or zebras, they think they have been like this for an extremely long time.

From a biblical perspective, though, land animals like wolves, zebras, sheep, lions, and so on have at least two ancestors that lived on Noah’s Ark, only about 4,300 years ago. These animals have undergone many changes since that time. But dogs are still part of the dog kind, cats are still part of the cat kind, and so on. God placed variety within the original kinds, and other variation has occurred since the Fall due to genetic alterations.

For all that people accuse the Answers in Genesis folks of being crazy, and for all that they are trying awfully hard to re-invent the wheel, this is an unobjectionable approach to species and hybridization.

By contrast, the liberal creationist, since she cannot fall back on God in his rejection of Gnon, asserts that the categories themselves do not exist. “Race is a social construct. Gender is a social construct.” etc. Dr. Zuleyka Zevallos, who is definitely not a crazy Creationist with no respect for science, writes:

When people talk about the differences between men and women they are often drawing on sex – on rigid ideas of biology – rather than gender, which is an understanding of how society shapes our understanding of those biological categories.

Gender is more fluid – it may or may not depend upon biological traits. [bold mine.] More specifically, it is a concept that describes how societies determine and manage sex categories; the cultural meanings attached to men and women’s roles; and how individuals understand their identities including, but not limited to, being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, gender queer and other gender positions. …

The sociology of gender examines how society influences our understandings and perception  of differences between masculinity (what society deems appropriate behaviour for a “man”) and femininity (what society deems appropriate behaviour for a “woman”). We examine how this, in turn, influences identity and social practices. We pay special focus on the power relationships that follow from the established gender order in a given society, as well as how this changes over time.

And the New York Times writes:

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa.

Answers in Genesis understands genetics better than the New York times or people with doctorates from actual universities. That is pretty damn pathetic.

crayon map of racial distribution. Not guaranteed correct

Of course, some of our ideas about what “men” and “women”  or “blacks” and “whites” are like are cultural (especially any that involve technology, since technology has changed radically over the past 100 years.) As an amateur anthropologist, I am quite aware that different cultures have different ideas on these subjects. This does not negate the fact that “maleness” and “femaleness” are basically biologically-driven. Female interest in babies and male interest in violence has its roots in biology, not culture. Genetics have a huge effect on personality. Likewise, races are absolutely real, biological categories, which no doctor attempting an organ transplant can afford to ignore.

The idea that races don’t exist in some kind of genetic way is absurd. Let’s just take the EDAR gene:

Ectodysplasin A receptor (EDAR) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the EDAR gene. EDAR is a cell surface receptor for ectodysplasin A which plays an important role in the development of ectodermal tissues such as the skin.^{[3][4][5] …}

A derived G-allele point mutation (SNP) with pleiotropic effects in EDAR, 370A or rs3827760, found in most modern East Asians and Native Americans but not common in African or European populations, is thought to be one of the key genes responsible for a number of differences between these populations, including the thicker hair, more numerous sweat glands, smaller breasts, and dentition characteristic of East Asians.^[7]… The 370A mutation arose in humans approximately 30,000 years ago, and now is found in 93% of Han Chinese and in the majority of people in nearby Asian populations. ^… The derived G-allele is a mutation of the ancestral A-allele, the version found in most modern non-East Asian and non-Native American populations.

Most East Asians and Native Americans (that is, the greater Asian Race,) have the G-allele of EDAR. Most non-Asians have the A-allele.

World map of Y-DNA Haplotypes

If you don’t have some form of causality to explain how the world’s variation came to exist, I guess you fall back on “it’s totally random and meaningless.”