For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Romans 8:22
"Since evolutionists claim chimpanzees are our closest living
relatives, it’s not surprising that they would look at chimp behavior for clues to that of humans. So when the evidence started to come in that the common chimp (Pan troglodytes) routinely engaged in warfare and killing of its own kind, some were obviously tempted to see in it an explanation for aspects of human sin.Intriguingly, though,
---a more common evolutionist response has been to deny that chimps naturally do these things. When chimps were repeatedly reported to be killing their fellows, it was said to be due to human interference with their natural habitat.
----Several factors likely drive this for evolution-believers.
One may be a simple reluctance to think that we have an inherited propensity for evil. The idea that mankind is ‘inherently good’, which defies real-world experience, is a persistent theme in denying humanity’s need for a Savior.
----For evolutionists concerned with social harmony, there is also a fear that if we are seen to have ‘killer apes’ in our ancestry, we might give up trying to modify our behavior.
This is evident in the ‘deep green’ movement, with its overtones of nature worship.
----Its adherents often romanticize ‘peaceful’ animals like dolphins,
and find it hard to accept the evidence that these, too, engage in killing and torture of their own kind.
----Applied to human society, such thinking is epitomized by the ‘noble savage’ concept of the French Romantic philosopher Rousseau (1712–1778), which still resonates with many. He idealized ‘primitive’ human societies, closer to nature, as unspoilt and harmonious; in this view, modern civilization is allegedly to blame for human problems and conflicts.
*Now a substantial research project, published as a letter in Nature, seems to have discredited such romantic views about why chimps
kill others. The study, by an international community of over 30 scientists, “gathers data from some 426 combined years of observation, across 18 different chimp communities.” It finds that human activity, such as feeding chimps or destroying their habitats, had “little effect on the number of killings”—a total of 152 all up. The kill rate, similar to that in hunter-gatherer societies, goes “up and down as a simple consequence of competition for scarce resources.”Since the Bible indicates that both humans and nature are fallen, it shouldn’t surprise us to find that chimps kill other chimps, or that dolphins do nasty things to other dolphins." CMI
