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And by what means was nature supposed to have installed this sense? The study authors wrote,
"Natural selection works on every individual's relative advantage compared with others," then they
explained how nature might have selected those individual primates which were able to "compare
one's gains with those of others."1 But this rhetoric defies reason.
For example, it still doesn't answer the question: Did the ability to compare gains just magically appear
in those individuals that nature supposedly selected? Also, it assumes that natural selectionwhich
could only select physical entities, namely whole individual organismssomehow selected the nonphysical attribute of fairness.
Plus, often monkeys with and without a sense of fairness live in similar environments today, indicating
they bear similar selective pressures. Proponents of selection as the creative cause of fairness need to
explain why similar environmental stresses wouldor how they know outside factors were different
enough toproduce fairness in one kind of monkey but none in a neighboring kind. From the creation
perspective, God could have made some animals with certain senses, like fairness or for that matter
electroreception, and others without it, just to display His creativity.
Naturalism's off-track circular reasoning and leaps of logic give its adherents an unfair disadvantage
when they try to unravel the origins of fairness, which we can attribute to God's creative decisionmaking.
References
1.Brosnan, S.F., and de Waal, F.B.M. Evolution of responses to (un)fairness. Science. 346 (6207). Published online before print, October 17, 2014,
accessed October 21, 2014.
2.Naturalism is the philosophy that nature alone explains everything, thus defining a reality with no supernatural elements allowed.
3.The terms "fair" and "just" should be distinguished, with fairness comparing two similar objects or situations, and justice comparing a moral act or
thought with God's objective moral law. Romans 2:15 notes that man has a conscience that notifies him when an act or thought misaligns with that which
is right. See Budziszewski, J. 2011.What We Can't Not Know. Spence Publishing Company: Dallas, TX. Scripture does not indicate that animals have a
conscience or the sense of justice to which a conscience refers, but appears to leave open the possibility of them having a sense of fairness.
4.Thomas, B. 2013. The Unpredictable Pattern of Bioluminescence. Acts & Facts. 42 (4): 17.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.