{"id":3664,"date":"2012-04-25T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=3664"},"modified":"2012-08-10T00:55:35","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T04:55:35","slug":"doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html","title":{"rendered":"Doug Phillips on Evolution and Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I just read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/truth-titanic-denunciations-evolution-feminism\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the following quote<\/a> by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest, there are no differences between men and women, there is no charity, there is no deference, and in an evolutionary world feminism reaches its height and we see no distinctions. The result is babies are killed en masse, women are treated like chattel and men no longer take on their masculine role as defenders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This quote is so out there that I have decided to dissect it. Please join me!<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Actually, evolution says that the traits that are most successful are most likely to be passed on. In other words, a physically stronger man is more likely to have more children than a physically weaker man, thus passing on his genes for being physically stronger. Sure, you could summarize that as \u201cthe survival of the fittest,\u201d but that\u2019s sort of simplistic.<em> <\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026there are no differences between men and women\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Actually, \u201cevolution\u201d does not \u201csay\u201d that at all. There clearly are biological differences between men and women, biological differences that have evolved over time. Also, what\u2019s with evolution \u201csaying\u201d things anyway? Evolution is a theory that describes the evidence we see in the physical world, nothing more, nothing less.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026there is no charity\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Um. No. This does not flow from evolution at all. In fact, I\u2019m pretty sure many scientists have argued that altruism is an evolved trait, because doing good things for those around us has traditionally meant doing good things for our relatives or closely related tribe, and thus helping to pass on our shared genes. A cooperative tribesman, after all, would be more likely to have offspring \u2013 and make it more likely for his siblings, etc, to have offspring \u2013 than an uncooperative, argumentative, lone tribesman would.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026there is no deference\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What? First evolution means \u201cstruggle of the survival of the fittest\u201d and now it means \u201cthere is no deference\u201d? That just makes no sense. There is nothing about the theory of evolution that states that there should be no such thing as deference, and in fact, we see social\u00a0hierarchies\u00a0in essentially every human civilization we know of, thus arguing that the existence of deference is very definitely <em>not <\/em>against the theory of evolution.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026and in an evolutionary world feminism reaches its height and we see no distinctions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, what? If evolution means feminism, then why the heck has essentially every human civilization been patriarchal?<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Phillips means by an \u201cevolutionary world\u201d is \u201ca world in which people accept the theory of evolution.\u201d According to Phillips, accepting the theory of evolution means believing that \u201cthere are no differences between men and women, there is no charity, there is no deference.\u201d However, as I have pointed out, evolution does not rule out any of those things, and actually, the evolutionary process\u00a0<em>has led<\/em> to differences between men and women, charity, and deference. More importantly, evolution does not say anything about whether there <em>should be<\/em> differences between men and women, whether there <em>should be<\/em> charity, or whether there<em> should be <\/em>deference. <em>Evolution is not a worldview that tells people how to act. <\/em>Rather, it is a theory explaining the physical evidence we have. But Phillips does not appear to understand that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even understanding this, the above quotation snippit still makes no sense. When the theory of evolution first became well-known and accepted in the West, society was still <em>very <\/em>patriarchal and remained so for several generations (and to some extent remains so today). Societal acceptance of the theory of evolution did not in any way lead to feminism, nor is there any reason it should have. After all, there are even some atheists who argue based on their incorrect understanding of evolution that men are superior to women \u2013 more rational, smarter, etc. I\u00a0only <em>wish<\/em> accepting the theory of evolution meant that feminism would \u201creach its height\u201d and that we would \u201csee no distinctions\u201d!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The result is babies are killed en masse\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He means abortion, of course, and is apparently unaware that abortion was performed thousands upon thousands of years before <em>anyone <\/em>knew about evolution.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026women are treated like chattel\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, you have to understand what Phillips means. He doesn\u2019t mean that \u201cevolution\u201d results in women being treated as chattel \u2013 he doesn\u2019t believe evolution ever occurred, after all \u2013 but rather that \u201csocietal acceptance of the theory of evolution\u201d results in women being treated as chattel. You know what? I\u2019m pretty sure that women <em>were <\/em>chattel in many if not most societies for thousands upon thousands of years before society knew about evolution. And today? Today women are <em>not <\/em>treated as chattel, at least not in the West. Today women are <em>finally <\/em>treated as equal human beings (for the most part), not as chattel.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026and men no longer take on their masculine role as defenders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ah ha. See, the only way to make sense of the \u201cwomen treated as chattel\u201d bit is to combine it with this and understand a bit of where Phillips is coming from. It works like this:<\/p>\n<p>Women are weaker than men. Men are stronger. Men are supposed to protect women. Every woman should have a male protector, whether that be her father, husband, brother, or son. Without a male protector, women are thrown to the winds because, after all, they are weaker and therefore cannot help but be preyed on by men, who are stronger.<\/p>\n<p>If you \u201cpretend\u201d that men and women are equal, and remove women from the protection of their male relatives, the result is that women will be grossly taken advantage of and \u201ctreated like chattel.\u201d Only by placing women under the authority of male relatives, who fulfill \u201ctheir masculine role as defenders,\u201d can women be protected from being treated \u201clike\u201d chattel. Because\u2026well\u2026then they <em>will be <\/em>chattel.<\/p>\n<p>And now my brain is twisted into a pretzel. My concluding thoughts are simply that Doug Phillips sure doesn\u2019t have a lot of respect for women, since he sees them as always weak and in need of male protection, and that he doesn\u2019t actually understand what evolution is and isn\u2019t about or does or does not predict, and that he is seriously confused when he argues that our modern secular world is based on \u201can evolutionary worldview\u201d that somehow endorses everything about how evolution proceeds (i.e. survival of the fittest). And yet\u2026there are a lot of people who listen raptly to Phillips and believe everything he says.<\/p>\n<p>Please feel free to add any additional perspective you might have on this quote, as I\u2019m sure I missed some things!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just read the following quote by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum: Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest, there are no differences between men and women, there is no charity, there is no deference, and in an evolutionary world feminism reaches its height and we see no distinctions. The result is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,25],"tags":[139,63],"class_list":["post-3664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-christian-patriarchy","tag-humor","tag-vision-forum"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Doug Phillips on Evolution and Feminism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I just read the following quote by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum: Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest, there are no differences\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Doug Phillips on Evolution and Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just read the following quote by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum: Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest, there are no differences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-25T12:00:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-10T04:55:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html\",\"name\":\"Doug Phillips on Evolution and Feminism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-25T12:00:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-10T04:55:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"I just read the following quote by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum: Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest, there are no differences\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/04\/doug-phillips-on-evolution-and-feminism.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Doug Phillips on Evolution and Feminism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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