RFK Jr. and Evolutionary Disadvantage of Ignorance

*God is sorrowful

I’m a physician and a theologian at this point in my life. I have a medical career at an academic medical center. I also have a DThM for which I have done some writing, including on this blog. One part of my career is mainly objective (medicine) and one part is mainly subjective (theology).

As a result, I often become interested in where science and faith intersect. In a more basic sense, I am very interested in where human objectivity and subjectivity intersect. Fundamentalist religious folks as well as scientism folks would assume that the objective and subjective should never intersect. This is madness as our species has been both objective and subjective for millenia.

The human objective / subjective interaction likely has a genetic and epigenetic component. If one assumes that God is a part of nature (as in natural theology, process theology, or open & relational theology), one can see natural aspects of humans as both organic and metaphysical. We can make particle colliders (organic), and we can or cannot believe in God (metaphysical).

Let’s take war as an example. War is terrible, costly, and immoral. “Costly” is objective. “Immoral” is subjective. However, war also has a genetic cost. I’m not an expert here, but there is a debate if war in H. sapiens is part of a way to remove less fit genetics from the gene pool versus becoming just a terrible part of human culture over time not related to genetics. Margaret Mead has said, “Warfare is only an invention — not a biological necessity.” A good article discussing this perspective is here (sorry, has a paywall). The idea of war being associated with an initially violent species versus an initially peaceful species has interesting arguments either way, and the arguments will wade into philsophical and theological waters.

Normandy Landing

Ideas surrounding human evil and war leads to the controversy of “original sin.” I use the word “controversy” because original sin is more than likely a Christian concept as it is not considered as frequently in Judaic understandings of the Old Testament. We can point to Augustine in his defining of original sin, but very quickly we also find arguments for and against his theory (see Tertullian and Origen). A good review article is here. In a modern setting, original sin seems to be just a theological concept prior to the understanding of genetics.

However, we do see moral evil as in warfare. We see pandemics. Pandemics are a natural evil, but the vaccine denialism, and frankly, science denialism complicates pandemics and increases the death rate by adding moral evil to natural evil. Perhaps moral evil + natural evil equals some type of logarithmic increase in evil (with evil being demonstrated as the uneccessary loss of life — human or otherwise).

In my recent posts, I talked about my trip to the Galapagos Islands. I saw many marine iguanas there, and interestingly, they have pretty stable populations until times of El Nino in which weather conditions can lead to high death rates. It is all very tragic, but imagine the death rate of these animals if we, as humans, didn’t preserve the islands (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), killed the animals indiscrimately, or allowed continuing man-made global warming?

A photo I took of marine iguanas on Fernandina Island (the Galapagos)

How do my random ideas here related to the anti-science push in U.S. top governments picks (such as JKF, Jr.)? Some people have described this anti-science movement as a “post-truth society” which seems extremely accurate.

Tragically, RFK, Jr. is highly uninformed. I am trying to be gracious enough to think that the mulitiple tragedies in his life have contributed to his conspiracy mind set. But he is uninformed, a conspiracy theorist, anti-science, harmful to good religious ideas about caring for the other, and simply wrong.

So, regarding our country’s current anti-science leanings:

1. Natural evil (earthquakes, forest fires) will occur. There are ways to prevent the totality of such devastation with human science and intervention. The subjective and objective come together in a potentially beautiful way here.
2. Moral evil, in my opinion, is simply based on ignorance and not some sort of genetic evil quality. Epigenetics such as cultural racism, religious fundamentalism, woo spirituality, and nationalism contribute detrimentally to one’s personal imprinting of morality.
3. I think H. sapiens probably have always been tribal. Our tribalism allows large numbers to fight off predators and “the other.” Perhaps this activity allowed members of the group to successfully reproduce. However, was this activity moral to the other group next door who needed resources? It may have been evolutionary helpful from a gene transfer sense (objective) but not from a moral sense (subjective).
4. Human warfare accelerated during human cultural development. I do not think the need to kill others in large numbers is not due to evolutionary pressure. I think it involves the hatred of others with different cultures, religions, sexuality, etc. This hatred is based on ignorance. I believe this idea. I don’t know if it is true, but it seems to make sense. The objective and subjective come together here.
5. We have always lived in a world where a metaphorical Eden was possible. Even today, if our various societies would work together for peace or for a stable planetary environment, we would advance so much more culturally and scientifically. I think that presumption could be made with objective modeling. I think this presumption is based on love which is a wonderful subjetive idea. The objective and subjective come together here as well.
6. Thus, this “original sin” is simply ignorance. This ignorance often is based on a refusal to learn although it can be based on an inability to learn. The refusal to learn abounds in world history — think about discrimination based on not understanding different religions, discrimination based simply on melanin, and discrimination based on the sexual “other.”

From a theological perspective, I strongly believe that God does not work this way. I fall into my religious metaphysics from a Whiteheadian perspective in that I think God desires infinite novelty (thus, change). However, I also accept Teilhard de Chardin’s argument that there an overall goal for the good even if we, as humans, cannot define an ultimate divine good. Evolution may have a goal. On the other hand, it may not necessarily have a goal but may have a divine lure in place to potentially make the world better. “Having potential” is different than “having a goal.” I think God lures for the good in all of nature — from atom to human to galaxy. Humans in particular can freely choose — “the good” versus “ignorance.”

My country is currently very much in the throes of choosing ignorance. This is a sin. The consequences worldwide are potentially devastating. We still have time to choose good. If we fail, God will feel sorrow for our country and perhaps our species but will also lure for the good somewhere else in space and time.

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