Evolution Again Credited with Creation

Whitcome, Shapiro, and Lieberman, in “How Women Bend Over Backwards For Baby,” in the journal Nature, report that a difference between men and women in one vertebra and in a key hip joint help women to bear children.

This is certainly interesting science, but I am especially interested in one researcher’s religious interpretation of the findings.

Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press reports:

Harvard anthropology researcher Katherine Whitcome found two physical differences in male and female backs that until now had gone unnoticed: One lower lumbar vertebra is wedged-shaped in women and more square in men; and a key hip joint is 14 percent larger in women than men when body size is taken into account.

The researchers did engineering tests that show how those slight changes allow women to carry the additional and growing load without toppling over — and typically without disabling back pain.

“When you think about it, women make it look so very damn easy,” Whitcome said. “They are experiencing a pretty impressive challenge. Evolution has tinkered ... to the point where they can deal with the challenge. [My italics]

“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said. “A little bit of tinkering can have a profound effect.”

Whitcome ascribes intelligent design to Evolution, in a very commonly expressed “scientific” attribution of Providence to evolutionary processes.

Scientists rightly object to Creationists’ attempt to supplant science in our schools. (See Sacrificing Our Children to Their God.) We should also notice the inclination of some scientists to promulgate religious doctrines whose religious nature is not made explicit.

I have no objection to the expression of the belief that Evolution (capitalized suitably to its divinity) has created a wonderful world for us. But I would like to see an acknowledgment that this is an expression of religious belief, especially when beliefs like this are introduced into our educational systems.