A Matchmaker’s Advice for Evo

A Response to Scott Gilbert’s essay “Finding a Mate for Evolution”

Scott Gilbert’s ” young, lonesome stud ‘Evolution’ –‘Evo’ to his friends–
who is in search of a mate of suitable temperament” offers a definitechallenge for a matchmaker. Evo must understand his limitations and berealistic about who will be suitable for him. If he desires a True mate hemust be willing to do some self-evaluation. So here is some advice from onewho has a slightly different perspective on the “Interpreting Evolution”Conference held at Haverford College.:

Evo should be aware of his limitations. His boasting that he can do it allreveals a strong underlying egomania. Alternatively he could suffer frompartial blindness. The poor fellow is like a shadow boxer who constantlymisses the reality that is there but nevertheless continues to pretend thatthere is meaning and purpose to what he is doing. This has lead to a stateof denial of what his natural intuition tells him. Repeating his mantra”there is no need for God— there is no rneed for God- he goes on living ina world that constantly confronts him with the fact he is denying.

Evo’s best quality is his rational capacity, however even in this he goes toextremes and attempts to rationalize everything to fit his needs. Hisnarrow, materialistic, approach to reality severely limits his ability toappreciate the more subtle spiritual nature of life.

Don’t give up hope however. Although prospects may seem slim to find a matewho will over look these faults, clearly history has proven there are plentywho have. He should always use his rational powers to detract critics fromhis faults. The cloak of Science provides an excellent disguise for histrue philosophical nature.

My best advice for Evo is to look for a mate of the same faith. Do not getinvolved with theists. Such relationships will eventually turn sour due toirreconcilable differences. Also, the offspring of such aunion–theistic-evolutionists- will be repugnant to both parents. Althoughhe may decide to court Intelligent Design, for appearance sake, I predict hewill find her too domineering.

No, find him a true blue naturalist –the materialist kind– if you want topropagate his myth. Even if he does not find a mate he need not fear beingalone in Western society, where minds have been programmed to think the wayhe does. Also, since a large segment of humankind desires to be free of therestraints of religion he will always have friends in this life.

Donald Ewert, Ph.D., a biomedical research scientist and Director of ResearchAdministration at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia