Why Should Evolutionists Care about Endangered Animals?

On one level, someone who cares about living creatures feels sadness about the suffering and death of an animal. There's a fascination with another living thing that is quite different from us, for one thing. People get troubled when creatures are endangered and could become extinct. Why do proponents of goo-to-gorilla care? To say that extinction is "wrong" is appealing to morality, and morality comes from God, not evolution, and saying extinction is wrong is appealing to the morality that our Creator instilled in us.

Image credit: Morguefile / Sgarton

Some evolutionists get mighty emotional about the status of gorillas in the wild. Although their appearance and some traits are a bit humanoid, they are not our "relatives" — that concept is strictly an evolutionary assumption and a convenience of classification. We're very different, having been created in God's image, and not co-evolved, old son.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed their latest Red List of Threatened Species at their World Conservation Congress in Hawaii on September 4, 2016. There, thousands of scientists and celebrities discussed recently extinct plants and others nearing extinction, but the primate declines grabbed the headlines.1 Two of the three great-ape kinds are rapidly shrinking. Illegal hunting continues to diminish the now "critically endangered" gorillas and orangutans, while chimpanzees are listed as merely "endangered." Why should these losses sadden those concerned?

IUCN Director General Inger Andersen told IUCN News, "To see the Eastern gorilla—one of our closest cousins—slide towards extinction is truly distressing."

To read the rest, click on "Gorillas, Endangerment, and Evolutionary Morality".

For an evolutionist to be concerned about the extinction of animals (especially our alleged "cousins") is inconsistent with an evolutionary worldview. Morality comes from the Creator, not evolution.