An evolutionary debunking, sometimes referred to as an evolutionary debunking argument or evolutionary debunking thesis, is a

philosophical argument An argument is a series of Sentence (linguistics), sentences, Statement (logic), statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the Logical consequence, conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give Reason (argument) ...

which holds that, because humans (like all organisms) have an

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

ary origin, the principles of

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

and

morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...

that we have devised are invalid and cannot be considered objective knowledge. Proponents of such arguments argue that they refute, or at least cast doubt on,

moral realism Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that t ...

and/or

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...

. However, critics have argued that these arguments are themselves invalid.

References

Further reading