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Lecture and Discussant Text Michael
Ruse Discussant: Bruce Tiffney, Department of Geological Sciences All text below is in unrevised form exactly as presented. Do not cite without permission of author. Do you have thoughts on the Ruse lecture or discussant
comments below? In the past decade, there has been an interesting meeting of minds. One finds, as one would expect, that the Christian fundamentalists -- the biblical literalists or so-called "Creationists" -- have argued that Darwinism and Christianity are incompatible (Johnson 1991, 1995). This they have argued for the past century. For these Christians, every word of the Bible must be taken at immediate face value: the early chapters of Genesis tell truly of a six-day period of Creation but a few thousand years ago, of humans appearing miraculously at the final moment, and of a universal flood destroying all but a chosen few of those animals living in the earliest times. Hence, understanding by "Darwinism" the belief that all organisms living and dead have arrived by a slow process of evolution from forms very different and probably much simpler, and that the process of change was natural selection -- the survival of the fittest -- the incompatibility follows at once. On this version of Christianity, one simply cannot simultaneously be a true Believer and a Darwinian evolutionist. Since the fundamentalists tend to regard anyone who does not subscribe to their beliefs as denying just about anything of ontological theological worth, they therefore regard Darwinism and atheism -- the absolute rejection of God 's existence -- to be tightly linked. Indeed, for the Creationist, Darwinism is simply atheism given a scientific face, and it has to be the main reason why anyone would reject the belief in a Christian God. What one also finds today, and this perhaps one might not expect, is that a number of articulate, prominent Darwinians agree entirely with the Creationists. They too see science and religion in open contradiction.
In this essay, I shall look at this claim
that Darwinism and atheism are different sides of the same coin. I shall
consider what connection exists between the two. Deliberately, I shall
limit my discussion inasmuch as I shall not consider the truths of either
Darwinism or atheism as such. And in another way I shall limit my discussion,
in that I shall not look directly at the arguments of the Creationists,
the biblical literalists, on this matter. As it happens, I have written
extensively on these matters elsewhere (Ruse 1982, 1988). So my silence
does not imply a lack of interest. Rather, my focus in this discussion
now is on the arguments put forward by the Darwinians. Or, not to be
unduly coy on this matter, "by me and my fellow Darwinians."
For let there be no concealing of the fact that I am as ardent an enthusiast
for evolution through natural selection as anyone, not excluding Dawkins
himself (Ruse 1986a, 1989, 1995). Nothing I have to say now qualifies
or mutes that enthusiasm.
Although my interests are conceptual -- looking
at the connections between Darwinism and atheism as put forward by contemporary
Darwinians -- as an evolutionist I like to set discussions in historical
frameworks (Ruse 1979a, 1996). Hence, I shall begin with a brief historical
overview of the perceived relationships between evolution and religious
beliefs, especially Christian religious beliefs. This will introduce
the topic and provide a background against which the main discussion
can occur. (There is more to evolution than Darwinism and there is more
to religion than Christianity, but it is the supposed clash between
these two belief systems which has been the focus of recent attention
and on which I shall concentrate in this discussion.)
Charles Darwin and religious belief
Evolutionary thinking is the child of the
eighteenth century: the Age of the Enlightenment (Bowler 1984; Ruse
1996). More specifically, such thinking is the direct offspring of the
most popular ideology of that period, the belief in the possibility
of upward social and cultural and intellectual progress (Bowler 1976;
Ruse 1993). People believed that through their own efforts it would
prove possible to improve the social state of humankind as well as its
store of knowledge. Starting from this belief, a number of thinkers
argued that one should expect to find such a progressive upward rise
in the world of nature. From the most simple to the most complex, ending
ultimately with humankind. This they tended to find and then, in a circular
fashion, such thinkers would use the upward progress of nature as a
justification for their belief in social progress!
One such early progressionist-made-flesh was
the grandfather of Charles Darwin, the British physician Erasmus Darwin
(1789, 1791, 1794). He was forthright in seeing upward trends in the
organic world: trends of a kind which we today would label "evolutionary."
(The word "evolution," meaning transformation of forms, tended
not to come into general use until the middle of the nineteenth century.)
Erasmus Darwin was much given to expressing his views in verse, as in
the following passage:
The ideology of progress was seen (with reason)
to be a challenge to a Christian view of history (Bury 1924). For the
Christian, Providence is the key factor in events over time. We humans
are fallen sinners, and it is through and only through God's great love
-- as shown by His sacrifice on the cross -- that we have hope of ultimate
salvation. On our own, we are as nothing. Indeed to think that, without
God's grace, we can raise ourselves up at all is one of the oldest and
deepest heresies of Christian faith (Pelikan 1971-1989). Which heresy
is the very backbone of progressivism, for the doctrine or ideology
is committed to the belief that upward improvement is possible in all
realms at the social and at the intellectual and -- the crucial "and"
- that this is something which comes about through unaided human effort.
There is no need or place for outside intervention and especially not
for intervention of a supernatural or divine kind (Wagar 1972).
Early forms of evolution were therefore seen
to be incompatible with Christian belief. The kinds of organic progressivism
which lay at the heart of Erasmus Darwin's thinking -- as well as of
other early evolutionists, like the French biologist Jean Baptiste de
Lamarck (1809) -- were rightly taken to be at odds with Christian Providentialism.
And it is worth noting that early critics of organic evolutionism, as
often as not, based their critiques precisely on the perceived progressionism.
Adam Sedgwick, for example, the Cambridge Professor of geology and teacher
of Charles Darwin, made explicit the way in which he linked evolution
and progress. "I am no believer either in organic or social perfectability
and I believe that all sober experience teaches us that there are conditions
both moral and physical, which must entail physical and moral pain so
long as the world lasts" (letter to Herbert Spencer, July 29, 1853).
But while early evolutionism was rightly taken
as a challenge to the Christian view of creation -- parenthetically,
I would note that since by the beginning of the nineteenth century serious
thinkers had come to realize that at least some metaphorical interpretation
was demanded of the early chapters of Genesis, their possible incompatibility
with evolution was not a major stumbling block (Gillespie 1950; Ruse
1979a) -- it should not thereby be assumed that the early evolutionists
thought that they were therefore promulgating or promoting atheism.
In fact, to a person one can truly say that all of the early evolutionists
were sincere believers. However, their belief was in a God as unmoved
mover, rather in a Christian providential God. That is to say, early
evolutionists like Erasmus Darwin tended toward deism (Benn 1906). They
endorsed the idea of God as one who perhaps creates (certainly designs)
but does not intervene, rather than the theistic idea of God as both
Creator and intervener in the creation. Indeed, it seems not unfair
to say that for people like Erasmus Darwin the law-like nature -- "natural"
as opposed to "supernatural" -- of the evolutionary process
was taken as a confirmation of the deism, rather than as a general challenge
to any kind of religious thought (McNeil 1987). Hence, although evolution
and Christianity were pushed apart, it is in no sense true to say that
evolution was taken as proof of atheism. The very contrary, in fact.
What now of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the
so-called "father" of evolutionism? It is clear that Darwin
-- who in 1859 published his great work On the Origin of Species, in
which he introduced the mechanism of natural selection as part of his
argument for the very fact of evolution -- has a more complex relationship
with religion in general, and with Christianity in particular, than
has often been thought to be the case. To see this, let us start at
the beginning with the fact that Darwin was educated at conventional
British establishments. First at one of the great public schools, Shrewsbury,
and then at the University of Cambridge, he received an orthodox Anglican
(Church of England) education (Desmond and Moore 1992; Browne 1995).
This had its effect for, as a young man, Darwin intended quite sincerely
to be a clergyman: the early Darwin was a Christian of a conventional
British Protestant variety. This did not last: in the course of the
voyage which he made on H.M.S. Beagle around the world (1831-1836),
Darwin's Christian faith started to fade away. A major reason here was
that he no longer found miracles to be overwhelmingly certain, and that
having being brought up on Archdeacon Paley's Evidences of Christianity
which makes miracles such a central part of Christian belief, Darwin
started to challenge the beliefs themselves.
It is pretty clear, indeed, that by 1837 --
by which point Darwin had become an evolutionist -- he was no longer
either a practicing or a believing Christian, that is one who took Jesus
Christ as his savior. However, like his paternal grandfather, and indeed
like other members of his family, particularly his uncle and his future
father-in-law Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin had not slipped into atheistic
non-belief. He had rather developed an inclination for some form of
deism, that is to say, of God as unmoved mover. In other words, Darwin
had become convinced that God works through unbroken law: for him, as
for other evolutionists, the belief in organic evolution was both a
consequence and a justification of his religious position. I should
say also that, combined with this, in Darwin one had a strong commitment
to social and intellectual progressivism (Ospovat 1981). This was very
much the political philosophy of his (upper-middle-class) family's segment
of society. Whilst it is true that, over the years, Darwin wrestled
more with problems of organic progress than did his contemporaries,
he always regarded the evolutionary process as progressive. Conversely,
he took this progressiveness as a justification of his own socio-political
philosophy (Greene 1982).
There is more to the story than this. Uniquely
for Darwin among evolutionists, as a consequence of his education, was
the major influence of the natural theology of his day. Following Paley
(1802), everyone at Cambridge took it as axiomatic that natural theology
reenforces the beliefs of revealed theology: one finds evidence of design
or functioning throughout the world, especially throughout the organic
world (Whewell 1840). The hand and the eye, to take the classic examples,
were thought to be more than randomly organized: they were thought to
show evidence of functioning, which was taken to be evidence of a wise,
all-powerful designer, the Christian God.
Darwin never relinquished this belief that
the organic world seems as if designed. It stayed with him until his
dying day. And indeed, such a belief is even to this day the chief mark
of being a Darwinian: no one is more strident in his commitment to the
design-like nature of the living world than is Richard Dawkins (1976,
1986). (Conversely one finds the contemporary critics of Darwinism,
like Stephen Jay Gould (1977a, b), are inclined to play down the design-like
nature of the empirical world.) What Darwin did was to propose a mechanism
-- natural selection -- which would explain how the design-like nature
of the organic world could come into being without need of a direct
miraculous intervention of a creator (Young 1985). Natural selection
specifies that, thanks to the struggle for existence, more organisms
are born than can possibly survive and reproduce and that as a consequence
only a few will become the ancestors of future generations. These successful
few (the "fitter") will be different from the losers and that
therefore, over the generations, there will be a natural equivalent
to the breeders' selecting of certain specified forms. A struggle for
existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic
beings tend to increase. Every being, which during its natural lifetime
produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during some
period of its life, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise
on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly
become so inordinately great that no country could support the product.
Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there
must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual
with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct
species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine
of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable
kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food,
and no prudential restraint from marriage.
Then, after this, we get the inference to
natural selection:
Most importantly, this natural equivalent
to the process practiced by breeders will lead not only to change, but
change of a particular kind: change in the direction of design-like
attributes, or (as they are commonly known) "adaptations".
It was Darwin's aim, particularly as expressed in the Origin of Species,
to show how through natural normal laws (working as they do in the form
of natural selection) one can get design-like effects without need of
miraculous intervention of a great designer in the sky.
Initially, Darwin certainly did not think
that his evolutionary argument challenged the fact of a designer. Rather,
what was challenged was the need of such a designer to work through
special directed laws, or to intervene miraculously in his creation.
In fact, there is good reason to think that right through the publication
of the Origin Darwin remained committed to the belief in a deistic designer:
a designer who works through unbroken law, and who is thereby that much
more magnificent because he has had no need of miraculous intervention.
Throughout the Origin there are unembarrassed references to the "Creator"
and there is no reason to think that Darwin meant these in anything
but a sincere manner. For Darwin, as for others of his time (notably
the Reverend Baden Powell (1855)), a God who could work through unbroken
law was as far above a God of miracles as the British industrialist
working through machines is above the cottage artesian working by hand
in isolation. God designs, but a distance.
Towards the end of his life, particularly
under the influence of his great supporter Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's
deism started to fade into agnosticism. Darwin never became an atheist,
in the sense of an out-and-out nonbeliever in a deity. But increasingly
he found it difficult to reconcile belief in a Creator with what he
took to be the unambiguous facts of evil in the world. The early death
of his favourite child, Annie, preyed constantly on his mind (Desmond
and Moore 1992). Such emotions as this pushed Darwin towards some form
of scepticism. Yet, not only was this not atheism but it was in no sense
promoted or caused by his belief in evolution as such. Perhaps the belief
in evolution made it possible to move to some form of agnosticism. Without
evolution through natural selection it would be difficult to see how
design comes into being, save one postulates some kind of intervention
by an external deity. (More on this kind of point in the discussion
of Dawkins.) But the evolutionism as such did not make Darwin a non-believer:
indeed, given its stress on design was perhaps a factor in his not making
this move.
Religious responses
After the Origin was published, there was
much controversy over Darwin's ideas and in this controversy Christian
opposition figured in a major way. The classic case of disagreement
occurred in 1860 at the annual meeting of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, when the High Church Bishop of Oxford Samuel
Wilberforce squared off against Huxley, then professor of geology at
the London School of Mines (Desmond 1994). Their debate ranged over
many factors including science, but there is little doubt that religion
was a major dividing point. Wilberforce was certainly no biblical literalist;
but he felt most uncomfortable at the implications of Darwinism for
humankind: particularly at the suggestion that we members of Homo sapiens
might have a purely naturalistic origin (Wilberforce 1860; Huxley 1863).
Also, Wilberforce felt that -- for all Darwin claimed otherwise -- natural
selection failed to speak adequately to the question of design.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding the iconic status
of the Wilberforce-Huxley clash, one should not over-estimate the extent
to which there was Christian opposition to evolution in general and
to Darwinism in particular. As in Falstaff's encounter with robbers,
much of the opposition grew in the telling. People like Huxley were
fighting at that time for a secular professional civil service and state-supported
meritocracy: a meritocracy that would include science and science educators
at the school and university level (Ruse 1996; Desmond 1997). It suited
them therefore to portray their opponents as being more religiously
bigoted then they truly were (Huxley 1893). And then, in the years to
come, when Huxley and his friends came to tell the history, there was
strong tendency to portray the religious opposition to Darwinism --
a religious opposition which they claimed to have conquered -- as being
far more strident and formidable than it truly was. More than one Christian
chided Huxley himself on his almost deliberate misrepresentation of
their beliefs and of his ascribing to them far stronger opposition to
evolutionism than they truly felt.
In fact, for all the opposition, historians
of the period suggest strongly that Christianity - certainly main-stream
orthodox Christianity in Britain, and Germany and America as well --
rapidly found an accommodation with evolutionism (Durant 1985; Moore
1979). There were two main strategies. On the one hand, there were the
more liberal kinds of Christians -- theologically liberal, that is,
but often also socially liberal. These were the ones who had taken to
heart the critical attacks of the Enlightenment as directed towards
conventional Christianity. They accepted for instance the full implications
of so-called "higher criticism," which suggested that the
Bible is a far more human document than hitherto recognized. They accepted
also many of the criticisms of the philosophers, notably Hume and then
Kant, suggesting that traditional natural theology is a lot less secure
than was believed back at the time of Saint Thomas Aquinas. They saw
also the need to accommodate Christianity to changing social situations,
particularly the coming of industrialism, the consequent move from the
countryside to the cities, the alienation of modern life, and much,
much more. These liberal Christians prided themselves not simply on
the accommodation with science, but their positive enthusiasm for it.
This enthusiasm included evolution. Although
to be candid, the reception of evolutionary ideas by liberal Christians
towards the end of the last century was in major respects not overly
Darwinian. Far more influential on the theologies of such thinkers were
the ideas and speculations of Darwin's fellow Englishman, Herbert Spencer
(1852a, b, 1857, 1864, 1904). Particularly this shows itself over the
mechanism of natural selection, which liberal Christians tended to find
harsh and unfeeling. In fact Spencer had independently discovered selection,
but always he put far more emphasis on a Lamarckian-fueled process (inheritance
of acquired characteristics) as we strive to overcome life's challenges
and thereby move progressively upwards to higher forms of life (Duncan
1908). This was much more to the liberals' tastes, especially since
Spencer (1862) himself was prepared to talk of the "unknowable":
which might have been a purely material base to all existence and then
again might have been something more. If one thought in terms of a world-picture
which was forever moving upwards, through effort, leaving the struggle
behind (something to be conquered and transcended), then a Christian
message could be grafted on seamlessly - or so was the opinion.
People were even prepared to break into verse:
What about the ethical questions? Did not
these cause problems for the liberal Christians? It is well known that
there were those who took Darwinism or rather took Spencer's ideas and
converted them into rather harsh neo-liberal systems of economics, so-called
laissez faire. The "social Darwinians" supposedly argued that
life is a bloody struggle and that in society as in nature, the weakest
will and must go to the wall. Would this not sit uncomfortably for liberal
Christians? As it happens however, not all social Darwinians, including
Spencer himself, were enthusiastic advocates of unrestrained heartless
laissez faire, although some were (as they are today) and found that
this sat very comfortably with their Christianity. But, more generally
at the end of the nineteenth century one finds amongst social Darwinians
a range of philosophical and moral commitments, including socialism
(Russett 1976; Crook 1994; Pittenger 1993)! Hence, there was generally
seen as no great tension between the ethical implications of evolutionism
and Christian imperatives. Overall, it was progress that counted: a
progress the liberals found sitting comfortably with their theology.
This was a bastard form of evolution. Was
there no one to say that this was a bastard form of Christianity? Surely
there must have been some who were uncomfortable with all of the talk
about progress? What had happened to Providence? And not all can have
felt that any talk of pain and suffering was embarrassing to the Christian.
Interestingly, although perhaps not surprisingly when you think about
it, it was the more orthodox Christians who in respects felt more comfortable
with orthodox Darwinism. After all, as they pointed out, what problems
was Darwin raising that had not already been faced by the traditional
Christian?
Indeed, argued the most orthodox, the great
thing about a Darwinian approach to organic origins is precisely that
it puts design into the action of the laws themselves, thus reaffirming
God's immanence throughout the universe. This was the argument of the
Anglo-Catholic, Aubrey Moore.
Fisher and Dobzhansky
Move forward now and into this century. These
have not been the greatest of times for Christian religious belief:
in Europe, at least, although the Christian religion seems still to
thrive in America. This decline in faith has surely reflected on professional
evolutionists, and I doubt that you are going to find overwhelming support
for Christianity among such people. How much their actual evolutionism
may have been responsible may be questioned - indeed, it is the question
of this essay. Surely, evolutionists are much affected thanks to a general
decline in belief for whatever reason. But, whatever the relative causes
may be, the fact is that some of the most eminent and visible evolutionists
of this century have been sincere practicing Christians. Two men, Sir
Ronald Fisher in England and the Russian-born Theodosius Dobzhansky
in America, might properly be regarded as the pinnacles. Fisher's The
Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930) was the truly great mathematization
of the subject. Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937)
was the inspiration - the paradigm - for a generation of American evolutionists.
They were both Christians and worked hard to integrate their religious
beliefs with their evolutionism.
Fisher, a member of the Church of England,
saw God as having set himself the task of creation through the process
of evolution through natural selection (Box 1978). So likewise humans
have a task of improvement here on earth, which for Fisher translated
into the improvement of the human species through eugenics.
Fisher drew a remarkable parallel between
faith and works and Lamarckism and Darwinism:
Dobzhansky was by birth and allegiance a member
of the Russian Orthodox Church, but doctrinally he subscribed to a kind
of pan-Christianity. The big influence, particularly in his later years,
was the French Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1955), who
saw the whole of existence in an upwards progress towards something
he called the "Omega Point," a peak to be identified with
the godhead as manifested in Jesus Christ. In some sense, Dobzhansky
like the priest saw evolution as an upward process, at least to humankind
if not all the way to God.
Notoriously, Teilhard ran into trouble with
his church, which refused to let him publish while he was still alive,
so I am not pretending that this was a science /religion synthesis that
would have been acceptable to every one. The point is that through this
century we do see committed Christians trying - and feeling that in
some sense they have succeeded in - finding a way of meshing their faith
with their evolutionary science. And with this rather lengthy historical
prolegomenon now completed, let me turn to today's Darwinian evolutionists
who would erect impassible barriers between their theory and the Christian
religion.
Edward O. Wilson
I shall start with the Harvard entomologist
and sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. I am aware that much of what he
wants to say is highly controversial, but this is not the topic of this
paper. I and others have looked at these matters at length elsewhere.
Here I am assuming that the science is well taken. I should add parenthetically
that I am also aware that, in many respects, Wilson owes much in his
thinking to Herbert Spencer, perhaps at least as much as to Charles
Darwin (Ruse 1996). However, in the present context, the thinking is
essentially Darwinian: I shall therefore ignore historical and conceptual
niceties.
Wilson is an interesting case. Although he
is no Christian -- indeed, as we shall see, he wants to replace Christianity
by some sort of naturalistic materialism -- in many respects, he is
significantly more sympathetic to religion in general and perhaps even
to Christianity in particular than many Darwinian non-believers. Here,
there is a stark contrast with the two men to be considered in the following
sections. Wilson recognizes the importance of religion and its widespread
nature: he is very far from convinced that one will ever eliminate religious
thinking from the human psyche, at least as we know it. In his popular
Pulitzer-Prize-winning work, On Human Nature, Wilson devotes a whole
chapter to religion, beginning as follows:
As far as Wilson is concerned, religion exists purely by the grace of natural selection: those organisms which have religion survive and reproduce better than those which do not. Religion gives ethical commandments, which are important for group living; also, religion confers a kind of group cohesion -- a cohesion which is a very important element of Wilson's picture of humankind.
One should note that, although in this paragraph
Wilson talks about cultural evolution, he makes it clear that in fact
he thinks that, in some sense, religion is ingrained directly into our
biology. Thanks to our genes, it is part of our innate nature.
What Wilson argues is that, in some sense,
this will remain for ever. However, Wilson does believe that giving
a Darwinian explanation -- Wilson would call it: giving a "sociobiological"
explanation -- does make possible to deny religion the status of a body
of true claims. And indeed, given our religious needs, this means that
in some sense Wilson's position requires that the biology itself become
an alternative secular religion. (Wilson much admires Julian Huxley,
the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, a leading evolutionary humanist
in the first part of this century, who authored a book entitled Religion
Without Revelation.) Wilson himself writes as follows:
But make no mistake about the power of scientific
materialism. It presents the human mind with an alternative mythology
that until now has always, point for point in zones of conflict, defeated
traditional religion. Its narrative form is the epic: the evolution
of the universe from the big bang of fifteen years ago through the origin
of the elements and celestial bodies to the beginnings of life on earth.
The evolutionary epic is mythology in the sense that the laws it adduces
here and now are believed but can never be definitively proved to form
a cause-and-effect continuum from physics to the social sciences, from
this world to all other worlds in the visible universe, and backward
through time to the beginning of the universe. Every part of existence
is considered to be obedient to physical laws requiring no external
control. The scientist's devotion to parsimony in explanation excludes
the divine spirit and other extraneous agents. Most importantly, we
have come to the crucial stage in the history of biology when religion
itself is subject to the explanations of the natural sciences. As I
have tried to show, sociobiology can account for the very origin of
mythology by the principle of natural selection acting on the genetically
evolving material structure of the human brain.
As I have said, I am not interested here in
critiquing Wilson's scientific position; although, I would agree with
critics that what Wilson writes here seems to be rooted in his own childhood
experiences of fundamentalist baptism in the American south, as much
as in any knowledge or study of empirical reality. But let us take his
position at face value and ask what Wilson's implication has for Christianity,
particularly vis-à-vis the whole issue of atheism.
I take it that, in Wilson's own mind, what
is happening is that Darwinism is explaining religion (including Christianity)
as a kind of illusion: an illusion which is necessary for efficient
survival and reproduction. Once this explanation has been put in place
and exposed, one can see that Christianity has no reflection in reality.
In other words, epistemologically one ought to be an atheist. As I have
said, what makes Wilson particularly interesting is that -- atheist
although he may be - he still sees an emotive and social power in religion.
He would therefore replace spiritual religion with some kind of secular
religion. Which secular religion, as it turns out, happens to be Darwinian
evolutionism. (Actually, although no part of my argument, I would suggest
that when Wilson articulates his secular alternative -- one making progress
absolutely central -- he starts to sound a lot more Spencerian than
Darwinian.)
Of course, the kind of argument that Wilson
is promoting is hardly new. Both Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud proposed
similar sorts of arguments: trying to offer a naturalistic explanation
of religion, arguing that once one has this explanation in place, one
can see that the belief system is false. So already I doubt the absolutely
essential Darwinian component to the general form of the argument. But,
this apart, is the inference in general well taken? And even if it is
well taken, what of the specific case of Darwinism and Christianity?
First the general case. It is certainly true
that, sometimes, an explanation of why someone holds a belief suggests
that, with respect to truth, the belief is not particularly well taken.
Consider for instance the instance of spiritualism, particularly as
it pertained to peoples' beliefs and practices in the First World War.
Many bereaved people turned to spiritualism for comfort: indeed, they
derived such comfort, for they heard or otherwise received messages
from the departed. However, I suspect that all of us would agree that,
even in those cases where no outright fraud was involved, it was unlikely
that the dead soldier was in fact speaking to those remaining. Peoples'
strong psychological desires to hear something comforting led them to
project and receive the desired messages, and so they heard them. Once
one offers this explanation, seeing how unreasonable it is to expect
that the departed were in fact speaking, the whole spiritualist position
collapses. (A particularly powerful consideration here comes from those
instances where people received messages, believing that the departed
were speaking to them, but where, at a later point, it turned out that
the departed were in fact only wounded and still in the land of the
living. The messages received were just as "authentic" as
any of the others.)
Yet, not all explanations of why we or how
we get to believe things are necessarily such as to debunk the veracity
of the belief systems. Suppose, for instance, one gives a physiological/optical
explanation of sight, showing how it is that some one is able to spot
a speeding train bearing down on them. The fact that one can give an
explanation -- in terms of the eye's physiology and of light rays and
so forth -- in no sense demotes or discredits the belief that a speeding
train is indeed bearing down on one.
The question we must ask now is whether religion
is more like the spiritualism case or more like the speeding train case
-- and it is surely pertinent to note that this is a question which
is neither asked nor answered by Wilson. This omission does not mean
that Wilson's preferred option for religion -- spiritualism rather than
train -- is wrong. But it is to say that some additional argument is
needed, in order to show that religion is more like the spiritualism
case, than like the speeding train case. The point I am making is that,
in a way, arguments like that of Wilson -- as indeed like those of Marx
and Freud before him -- are arguments that, to a certain extent, come
after the event rather than before. One realizes religion, let us say
Christianity, is in some sense, inadequate or false. Then, one is led
to ask why exactly it is that people are led to believe it and one offers
some kind of materialistic or naturalistic argument to explain it. I
am not sure that the explanation in itself is sufficient to show that
one's belief is false, or at least I think one needs some further information
as to why the explanation itself shows the belief false.
This brings us to the particular Wilsonian
case of Darwinism and Christianity. And here the missing elements in
Wilson's case become crucial. The fact that one has an evolutionary
explanation of religion is surely not in itself enough to dismiss the
belief system as illusory or false. We might offer an evolutionary explanation
as to why somebody spots a speeding train, but the fact that it is an
evolutionary evolution does not make the existence of the speeding train
fictitious. Indeed, if anything, the evolutionary explanation convinces
us that we do have a true perception of the speeding train. If evolution
led us think that it was turtle dove rather than a train it would not
be of much survival value.
None of this is to deny that people have proposed
arguments suggesting that belief in Christianity is unsound, ridiculous
even. There are all sorts of paradoxes which the Christian must face.
But whether or not one can defend Christianity against such charges,
I do not see that the charges themselves have been brought on by Darwinism:
which is the nub of this discussion. Take the problem of the tension
between free will and God's grace: If indeed we are free, does this
mean that we can raise ourselves up in some sense? But if we can, then
what need have we of God's grace? Yet, if God Himself chooses who is
to be saved and who is not to be saved, where then is the bite of human
freedom? I am not saying that one cannot explain away or deal with paradoxes
like this, and of course we have had two thousand years of theological
attempt to do precisely this. My point is that Wilson does not in any
sense show that Darwinism adds to this problem. It is a paradox whether
we evolved or were created miraculously on the Sixth Day. In short,
Wilson's Darwinism does not prove the inadequacy of Christian belief;
rather, his Darwinism shows why one might have a Christian belief, if
evolution be true. (Technically: the truth of evolution is a necessary
condition for the soundness of Wilson's argument; it is not necessarily
a sufficient condition.)
Try again. Could one not argue that Darwinism
shows that there is something wrong with religion, since Darwinism does
not have a built-in teleological progression up to a particular end?
At the least, this non-directedness shows the possibility of reaching
and holding alternative religious beliefs -- each one of which could
do the work selection demands. But, if indeed we could as readily reach
alternative religious beliefs to any that we do hold now, and if all
of these beliefs could be sincerely held, then this suggests that maybe
any religion as such does not exist in its own right because it is true.
It, like all of its possible alternatives, is simply a fiction created
by biology, to enable us to survive and reproduce. In this way, there
is a difference between religion and the train example. It is true that
different beings might -- and indeed do -- evolve different ways of
sensing the train's approach. One uses sight, another uses hearing.
But the long and the short of it is that one is going to have to sense
the train in some fairly standard sort of way, otherwise one is going
to be wiped out. Religion, however, might be effective in achieving
group cohesion, even though it take on very different forms . It might
take on one of an infinite number of forms. All of which suggests that
Darwinism is more corrosive on religious belief than one suspected at
first.
But, obviously, one can mount this argument,
even today, without really bothering too much about evolutionary biology.
We know full well that different people do have different religious
beliefs. Some are Christians, some are Jews, others are Muslim, and
so on and so forth. In other words, what we know already is that cultural
evolution, if we can so call it, has led to different religions that
people maintain sincerely. And so already we seem to have at work an
example of the argument based on the non-progressivist nature of the
creative causal processes. Moreover, I hardly need say that there are
already those today who think the argument is significant and quite
corrosive on Christian belief, or indeed on any specific religious belief.
I hardly need say also that there are standard replies that can be offered.
One can suggest one belief is better than others, and the fact that
some people have been led to mistaken beliefs does not deny the truth
of this one belief. Many people sincerely deny evolution but this does
not make them right. Or one can argue that perhaps there is some common
core to all religious belief and that this is what counts. And note
that as with the main argument, these counter-arguments have little
to do with Darwinism. The point I am making is that for all that there
are important issues here -- and I am sincere in agreeing that there
are important issues here -- I am not sure that Darwinism is particularly
relevant. Christian belief is being judged by other factors.
In any case, somewhat paradoxically, I am
not sure that Wilson himself would particularly want to push this argument
about the significance of the non-directedness of the evolutionary process.
As I have mentioned, he is strongly influenced by Spencer. So although
he clearly allows for cultural variation, when it comes to biology,
I suspect that Wilson would say that all evolved religion shares a common
core. Any new or hypothetical evolution must be similar to what we today
regard as religion: else it would not maintain group cohesion and so
on and so forth. My suspicion therefore is that Wilson would be inclined
to downplay this comparative argument, at least at the biological level.
But what about a pure Darwinian, who would
deny any progress or direction to evolution? Could they not launch some
argument against the validity of religion. Perhaps they could, although
even here whether one now has something which makes Christianity untenable
on Darwinian grounds is another matter. Even if it is possible for people
to be biologically (as opposed to just culturally) insensitive to religion,
it is still open for the Christian to argue that those who did evolve
this way are in some sense religiously blind, as we know some people
are colour blind. I am not sure (without more argumentation) that this
is an entirely effective response, but it is at least a response which
one could make. Or one might say -- an alternative which I prefer --
that it is possible that beings might have evolved without religious
sense, but whether they would count as beings like humans -- beings
that a Christian God would want to cherish and put at the centre of
his Creation -- is another matter entirely. Perhaps beings might have
evolved which did not have a religious beliefs or even a capacity for
religious belief, but who is to say that these are beings "made
in the image of God"? We see lots of examples of evolution which
lead to beings not particularly central to God's purpose. Would one
truly want to say that God cares about the AIDS virus in the way that
he cares about humans? Admittedly, there are passages in the Christian
Bible suggesting that God cares for all organisms. But whether God regards
all organisms as the special focus of his Creation, in the way that
he regards humans, is an entirely different matter. It is not one sanctioned
by Christian tradition. In short, some sort of argument against Christianity
based on the non-progressivist nature of evolution change might end
up with pyrrhic victory. It is not necessarily the case that evolved
begins have to have religious belief; it is not necessary that even
evolved rational beings have to have religious belief. But whether they
would be of special spiritual importance in God's Creation is another
matter entirely.
All in all, therefore, although I think that
Wilson's argument is important, and one that a Christian ought to take
seriously, I am not convinced that Wilson shows that Darwinism implies
atheism. The atheism is being smuggled in, and then given an evolutionary
gloss, which is an entirely different matter.
Richard Dawkins: Exposition
Let me start by quoting a couple of paragraphs
from an interview that Dawkins gave recently.
These paragraphs are very revealing, not
the least for showing the emotional hostility that Dawkins feels towards
religion, including (obviously) Christianity. I am sure the reader will
not be surprised to learn that Dawkins has recently characterized his
move to atheism from religious belief as a "road to Damascus"
experience (Dawkins November 1997). Saint Paul would have recognized
a kindred spirit. But my purpose in quoting Dawkins's words here is
not so much to pick out the emotion, as to point to the logic of Dawkins's
thinking. This comes through particularly in the second paragraph just
quoted. It is clear that for Dawkins we have here an exclusive alternation.
Either you believe in Darwinism or you believe in God, but not both.
For Dawkins there is no question for what philosophers call an inclusive
alternation, that is to say either a or b or possibly both. (The third
way mentioned is Lamarckism, the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
But neither Dawkins nor anybody else today thinks that this is a viable
evolutionary mechanism.)
Why not simply slough off Christianity and ignore it? Things are not this simple: as noted at the beginning of this essay, Dawkins -- like any good Darwinian including Charles Darwin himself -- recognizes that the Christian religion poses the important question, namely that of the design-like nature of the world (Dawkins 1986). Moreover, Dawkins believes (what I suspect many philosophers would deny) that until Charles Darwin no one had shown that the God hypothesis, that is to say the God-as-designer hypothesis, is untenable: more particularly, Dawkins argues that until Darwin no one could avoid using the God hypotheses. (I am not sure that this is historically correct either, but no matter here.) In other writings, Dawkins deals at some length with the arguments of David Hume (1779), showing that although Hume offered a devastating critique of the argument from design (the teleological argument), ultimately he had to agree that there was something there which needed explanation. Moreover, as things stood at the time of Hume, that something by elimination had to be God.
At this point, our historical survey starts to pay off. As things stand, Dawkins has provided an altogether inadequate argument. Why should we not say, with earlier Darwinians who were also Christians, that the alternation is inclusive? Why should we not say that Dawkins is certainly right -- as against say some one like Stephen Jay Gould (Gould and Lewontin 1979) -- in stressing the design-like nature of the organic world, but he is wrong in thinking that it is either Darwinism or God, but not both? At least, even if he is not wrong, he has failed to offer an argument for this, and as we have seen there have been many in the past who quite happily argued that the design-like nature of the world testifies to God's existence? It is simply that God created through unbroken law. Indeed, as we have seen, people in the past would argue that the very fact that God creates through unbroken law attests to his magnificence. Such a God is much superior to a God who had to act as Paley's watchmaker would have acted, that is through miracle. (Note that although in the hands of the deists, the ubiquity of law was taken as proof of God's distance, as rejigged in the hands of Anglo-Catholics like Aubrey Moore, the ubiquity of law was taken as proof of God's constant presence in his creation.) In fairness, I think that at this point Dawkins does have a second argument up his sleeve. It is the venerable argument based on the problem of evil. But for Dawkins it is more than just the traditional argument (which is in itself not particularly evolutionary). What Dawkins would argue is that not only does evolution intensify the problem of evil, but Darwinism in particular makes it an overwhelming barrier to Christian belief. This argument is expressed most clearly in one of Dawkins's recent books: River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life. In a chapter entitled "God's Utility Function," he starts by writing:
Then, later in the chapter, Dawkins talks about organisms being excellent examples of design-like engineering. If we tried to unpack the engineering principles involved in organisms, the problems of pain and evil come to the fore. Meaning by the notion "utility function" the purpose for which an entity is apparently designed, Dawkins writes as follows:
The point seems to be that if there be a God, then He is one who certainly is nothing like the Christian God: He is unkind, unfair, totally indifferent. And indeed, this is the point at which Dawkins ends the discussion of this chapter.
Richard Dawkins: Critique Now let us look at the worth of these arguments of Dawkins, remembering that the question at issue is not whether atheism is a sound religious position to take, but rather whether there is something inherent in Darwinism which pushes one towards atheism. My suspicion is that Dawkins still fails to make his case, although I do not want to minimize the importance of his arguments. I should say that (amusingly) my suspicion is reenforced by the fact that Jean-Henri Fabre, whom Dawkins cites in his own support, was in fact a Creationist opponent of Darwin thinking that one must invoke a designer: evolution on its own is inadequate (Tort 1996)! (Whether or not Dawkins was the first to put forth the arguments that he parades, or whether there were others who spotted these points earlier is not something with which I shall concern myself. I am not particularly interested in this question.) First let me start by saying that I think Dawkins is absolutely right in his belief that Darwinism does impinge on the argument from design. More than this, at a conceptual level I would agree with Dawkins that in some sense Darwinism does make it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, or some such thing. I agree that before Darwin conceptually it was difficult to see how design could be explained naturally and that design certainly did need an explanation. I agree with Dawkins -- and of course with Darwin and with Paley -- that the design-like nature of the organic world is a major problem standing in need of explanation. I agree incidentally that Hume saw this as an insuperable objection and this (and not some false sense of expediency) is why he equivocated after providing so many devastating arguments against the teleological argument. Thus far I go along the same path as Dawkins. But what happens next? Darwinism may open the way to atheism, but does it necessitate atheism? Does it necessitate a rejection of Christianity? Rejecting Christianity is a rather weaker option than accepting atheism (one could accept deism for instance); but perhaps an argument for something along these lines influenced Darwin, particularly in his debate with his great American follower Asa Gray. One might argue that natural selection works on random variation and the very fact of randomness in some sense weakens any kind of Christian design. Gray wrote against Darwin:
Against this Darwin responded that this was
really most improbable. One "would have to believe that the tail
of the Fantail was led to vary in the number and direction of its feathers
in order to gratify the caprice of a few men." Later he added:
"I to say that I come to differ more from you. It is not that designed
variation makes, as it seems to me, my deity "Natural Selection"
superfluous, but rather from studying, lately, domestic variation, and
seeing what an enormous field of undesigned variability there is there
ready for natural selection to appropriate for any purpose useful to
each creature" (quoted in Moore 1979, 274)
Darwin's point seems to be that, although
the world is indeed design-like, the mechanism of natural selection
somehow precludes any kind of God except at a very distant sort of way:
eighteenth-century deism rather than nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholicism.
Darwin's argument bears on the unlikelihood that the Christian God would
have been quite as indifferent to organic need as selection supposes
at this point. However, interestingly, with respect to this line of
argument, Dawkins stands very much in the tradition of Sir Ronald Fisher,
rather downplaying the whole significance of variation. At least, downplaying
the significance of the randomness of variation -- and thus coincidentally
removing any bias towards deism and away from Christianity. Fisher's
point was that in some sense variation is so common and so small that
it swamps out or eliminates the effects of its randomness -- the randomness
becomes unimportant.
A similar sort of argument is endorsed by
Dawkins, particularly in a brilliant chapter of The Blind Watchmaker
in which he shows how computer programmes can, very rapidly indeed,
generate order from randomness. Opening this chapter, Dawkins writes:
Precisely! The randomness of mutation is reduced
to a mere technical detail. It is not something with profound implications,
and certainly not something with profound theological implications.
It is simply the raw material on which evolution builds: the fact that
it is random is really quite irrelevant given the swamping nature of
the selective process. Of course, the randomness is important for Dawkins
in other respects: it does mean that there will be no pre-ordained plan
which we know in advance will be fulfilled. Selection is opportunistic.
Not only are there no immediate good mutations but the very standard
of "goodness" is relativized -- which at the least is going
to call for some deep thinking by the Christian who surely supposes
that the emergence of humankind was not pure chance, but in some sense
intended by God. There is the problem of all of those non-needed unpleasant
mutations - more on this point in a moment -- and of the need to argue
that God is really controlling his creation for all that the science
suggests a lack of direction. Interestingly, however, if anything Dawkins
once again takes a position more favourable to the Christian than one
might think demanded by strict Darwinism. I wonder indeed whether Dawkins
really thinks that selection is so very non-random, or rather non-directed.
Notoriously, Dawkins differs strongly from Stephen Jay Gould over the
progressiveness of evolution. Against Gould's claim (in such places
as his book Wonderful Life), Dawkins argues that the evolution of intelligence
is not just a matter of chance. Dawkins promotes something which he
calls the "evolution of evolvability"-- something which is
a kind of almost preordained upwards stepping of the evolutionary process
(Dawkins 1988; Dawkins and Krebs 1979).
Whilst I am sure that Dawkins does not think
that humans had to evolve exactly as they are, he certainly thinks that
our evolution is more than just chance -- in the sense that, given natural
selection, anything could have happened. He invokes the idea of an "arms
race" where lines of organisms compete against each other, improving
adaptations: the prey gets faster, the predator gets faster. Dawkins
(1986, 1997) thinks that intelligence is something which virtually had
to emerge out of this process, as electronic devices (like computers)
have emerged from and now dominate human arms races. So as I say, I
am not at all sure that Dawkins thinks that the evolutionary process
is so very non-directed. In this respect, a Christian might well claim
Dawkins as an ally. (More of an ally than I would be at this point,
for I am with Gould and against biological progress. Historically, Dawkins
is updating an argument found in Darwin -- someone I have already labeled
a progressionist -- so although I deny that progress is a consequence
of Darwinism, I agree that Dawkins is more in the tradition of Darwin
himself than I. For more on this whole question of progress in biology,
see Ruse 1993, 1996; McShea 1992.)
What about the next string to Dawkins's bow:
the argument from evil? Dawkins thinks that the problem of evil is incompatible
with a good God. More than this, Dawkins clearly thinks that natural
selection -- relying as it does on a struggle for existence and producing
adaptations which will aid organisms in the struggle for existence --
leads to an intensification of the problem. The evil was there and identified
before Darwin set to work, but natural selection not only draws attention
to it, but essentially suggests that evil and pain is bound to come
through the selective process. This is something that one would expect
from the most basic workings of nature, rather than existing (as it
were) tacked on. Dawkins does not get into detailed theological argument
at this point; but his case seems to be that, in the world that we have,
evil is neither contingent -- perhaps a result of human action -- or
something readily eliminable. It is as much a part of the essence of
the organic existence as it is possible for anything to be. It is something
incompatible with a good God, nor (Dawkins does not bring this out explicitly)
does it seem that traditional counters will make it acceptable. It is
stretching credulity to suppose with Augustine that evil is merely a
privation, a lack of good. Selection positively produces evil - the
parasite who exists only through the destruction of its host, for instance.
Although do note that Dawkins's desperate desire to get to atheism takes
him right past another Christian heresy, that of the Manicheans. He
does not want to argue that natural selection points us towards the
existence of an evil God. Rather, he argues that there is nothing at
all. Nature is, as he says, "pitiless".
I should say that I am not entirely happy
with all of Dawkins's metaphors at this point. Emotional dislike of
religion rather than reasoned discussion is driving the argument at
this point. Heinrich Himmler was pitiless towards the Jews. It is inappropriate
to speak of the laws of nature as being likewise pitiless. Things which
are pitiless are things which ought to show pity, but which do not.
That is why Himmler was such an evil person. The laws of nature are
not things which should in any sense show pity. To speak of them as
pitiless is a rhetorical trick: straining the metaphor in directions
favourable to Dawkins's atheistic conclusion. Indeed, if not straining
it is stretching the metaphor even to say that the wasp which paralyzes
the caterpillar is pitiless. Again that rather implies that the wasp
is an entity which has the capacity for showing pity, but from which
it has regretfully turned away -- which is obviously not the case. So,
as I say, Dawkins's metaphors make me somewhat tense, although we all
know full well why he has chosen them (Ruse 1999).
But let us go to the main argument about the
problem of evil. My reaction is very much akin to that of the nineteenth-century
Calvinist, whom we saw quoted earlier. The problem with evil is indeed
a significant problem for the Christian believer. Moreover, Dawkins
is surely right in thinking that natural selection does draw attention
to the existence of evil -- an evil which is particularly acute for
the Christian believer, because it involves precisely the kinds pain
and discomfort which cannot be explained away by the traditional defense
of free-will. Things like the caterpillar being eaten are not things
where we think naturally of free will and the same goes for the cheetah
and the gazelle. At least one can say this: even if the cheetah has
the freedom not to chase the gazelle, an omnipotent omniscient God might
have decreed things otherwise, since a vegetarian cheetah would last
a very short time in the wild. Its eating apparatus is not suited for
a vegetable diet, neither is its stomach. Gazelles conversely would
probably suffer through over-breeding and so forth. So I do think that
we have a serious problem here for the Christian believer. However,
this is a problem that the Christian believer surely had all along and
has had to wrestle with quite irrespective of Darwinism. Although to
a certain (significant) extent Darwinism intensifies the problem and
makes it more acute, it is certainly not something that one had to be
a Darwinian to appreciate. If Darwinism points to atheism, it is not
a new signpost.
It is worth remembering at this point that
Fabre, on whom both Darwin and Dawkins are relying at this point, did
not feel that his discoveries were such as to plunge him into a Darwin-inspired
atheism. It is true that his position might not have been tenable ultimately,
but it does make one wary of assuming that all discussion is now closed.
Perhaps then the Christian does have an answer to this kind of pain
and discomfort. Perhaps the Christian does not have an answer to this
kind of pain and discomfort. But this is more the Christian's problem
than the Darwinian's special insight. My own feeling is that such an
answer can be given, then it will be one which comes in some way because
of the pain and discomfort -- the pitilessness of nature in Dawkins's
language -- rather than despite it. Darwinism will thus become part
of the solution rather than despite it. My point is that of Kierkegaard,
that without the human experience of pain and trial here on earth, faith
would become altogether too easy and meaningless - the separation and
alienation from God at the heart of Christianity would be a sham. The
crucifixion would become unnecessary. Frankly, I am myself not at all
sure that this line of argument can be pursued to its end, but if it
can be done, then as I say then not only does the Darwinian position
fail to negate Christianity, it becomes part of the solution. But my
main point here is that, whether or not the Christian has an answer,
Dawkins has not shown that Darwinism as such is a crucial motivating
force towards atheism. Someone who is an atheist already on the grounds
of evil would find Darwinism a comforting support; but if one rejects
the atheism despite evil, I do not see that Dawkins has provided any
argument for suggesting that one ought to change one's mind.
Dawkins and the Pope
Before leaving Dawkins, I want to look briefly
at some new arguments he has penned in response to the "Message
to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences" sent by Pope John Paul II
on October 22, 1996, in which he states that new discoveries have made
the theory of evolution more than a mere hypothesis. To say that Dawkins
is less than overwhelmed or grateful is to understate matters considerably.
"Given a choice between honest to goodness fundamentalism on the
one hand, and the obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink of the Roman
Catholic Church on the other, I know which I prefer" (Dawkins 1997,399).
I suspect that someone who thinks that the Catholics have an exclusive
lien on "obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink" has not be
reading the Creationist literature of the past twenty years, but no
matter. What of Dawkins's new arguments to make his case that Christianity
and Darwinism are incompatible?
There are two anti-Christian arguments which
he offers in his response, although by his admission, the first is not
really one based on evolution as such. It is rather one against any
claim to authority by Christianity, especially any claim to moral authority.
Dawkins writes:
Since this argument is (as Dawkins allows)
an "aside" to the main issue, I will not spend long on it.
What I will note that an identical role seems to be played by Darwin
in Darwinism as by Scripture in morality! No one today, certainly not
Dawkins, accepts every last word by Charles Darwin on the subject of
organisms. His thinking on heredity, for instance, was essentially based
on the quite out-dated Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics.
But this does not mean that Darwin is irrelevant or not a - the - major
authority on matters evolutionary, or that we need never again look
to Darwin himself for insight. Our thinking is based on Darwin's achievements,
as refined by more than a century of study in the light of the flame
he kindled, and sometimes it does help to go back to the sources. Much
nonsense about selection benefitting groups would have been avoided
if only people had looked at Darwin on the subject (Ruse 1981).
Similarly it is open to us to look at the
Bible as a font of moral learning, without at all feeling that we must
accept every last word which is within it. Indeed, in respects it seems
to me easier to extract moral messages for today from the Bible than
it is to discern the lasting worth of passages from Darwin, because
the Bible is so clearly a historical document in which one can see a
maturing of moral sensibility as one moves from early Old Testament
times to the Christian era. (I am not now saying that only Christians
have morality, or that those who do not take the New Testament as canonical
are morally handicapped. Simply, in line with my overall interests,
I am concentrating on Christianity.) I think Dawkins does make a point
which should be taken seriously - indeed, as you will see later, I myself
have concerns about Darwinism and Christianity on the moral front. But
as it stands, what Dawkins writes invites a tu quoque counter-argument.
Dawkins main argument against the Pope, one
which does see explicit conflict between Darwinism and Christianity,
comes over the evolution of humankind. Dawkins quotes the Pope's message,
commenting on it:
Revelation teaches us that [man] was created
in the image and likeness of God if the human body takes its origin
from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created
by God Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with
the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from
the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter,
are incompatible with the truth about man With man, then, we find ourselves
in the presence of an ontological difference, and ontological leap,
one could say (John Paul II 1996, this issue p 383)
To do the Pope credit, at this point he recognizes
the essential contradiction between the two positions he is attempting
to reconcile:
In Dawkins's thinking, the coming of the soul
not only infringes on the domain of science, it is profoundly anti-evolutionary.
It makes for the arrival of a new entity in a way incompatible with
a Darwinian perspective. But is this so? The answer obviously depends
on what precisely one is supposing to have arrived. Unfortunately at
this point the English translation of the Pope's message is not very
helpful, or rather is distinctly unhelpful to the side of the reconciler.
The suggestion is that it is the mind which separates man from beast
and which thus cannot be a product of evolution. To requote a pertinent
passage:
I shall shortly (in my section on Dennett)
go more into the relationship between body and mind; but, however one
regards this scientifically, qua Darwinian one is indeed going to think
that it is a product of evolution and came about naturally and gradually.
There is no such ontological gap between humans and animals. There does
here seem to be a clash between Darwinism and Christianity. But in fact
-- for all the influence of Greek thought (which as against Jewish thought
did identify the mind as the distinguishing and separable characteristic
of humankind) on early Christianity -- it is not part of Christian theology
that it is the mind which separates us from the beasts. Rather it is
our souls. New-born babies have no minds but they have souls. In fact,
speaking of minds, the Biblical term is less that of "mind"
and more that of "spirit"; although even with this clarification,
there is no clear guidance on the exact relationship between spirit
and soul - trichotomists separating them (with body as the third element)
and dichotomists putting them together. (The Fourth Council of Constantinople
AD 869-879 condemned the trichotomous view, but there is Biblical support
for it.)
One helpful student of "Christian anthropology"
writes on this whole matter as follows:
What is clear from this discussion is that
the Christian notion of soul and/or spirit is not simply that of mind
- which latter is the natural entity (whether or not material) which
is the subject of evolution. You may not think that the notion of soul
is coherent or makes much sense - I am not sure that I do. But that
is another matter. The point is that the Christian notion is very clearly
not something which is a natural entity and as such is not subject to
scientific understanding. I agree that the Christian now has problems
about when exactly humans got souls and whether it was a one-shot event
for a limited number of humans or whether (contrary to the Pope) souls
evolved in some way. Do dogs have souls? Did the Neanderthals have souls?
But these are surely theological questions which, although they may
be influenced or constrained by science (if full intelligence is needed
for souls then one doubts that four million years ago there were beings
- beings such as Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis - which had souls),
are not themselves scientific questions. In other words, I do not see
that Dawkins's critique is well taken. (I would feel more confident
of this conclusion if Dawkins had made more effort to wrestle with Christian
theology - starting by trying to understand it. The discussion is so
sparse that one is not really sure that one knows what Dawkins is -
or thinks he is - attacking. Having spent many years complaining that
Creationists do not understand Darwinism, I find it ironic - although
true - to be complaining now that Darwinians do not understand Christianity.)
(I should say that this whole discussion of
the Pope's message is made more difficult by the sloppy English translation
of the official French text. One clear mistranslation is where "nouvelles
connaissances conduisent a reconnaitre dans la theorie de l'evolution
plus qu'une hypothese" is wrongly rendered as "new knowledge
has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory
of evolution" rather than as the more correct translation of "new
knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more
than a hypothesis." In the key passage where the Pope denies philosophies
which "consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living
matter" , the French word is "esprit". But while this
English version is technically correct - distinguishing mind/esprit
from soul/ame - it is clear from the passage given immediately before,
where the Pope approvingly quotes Pius XII "if the human body takes
its origin from pre-existent matter, the spiritual soul is immediately
created by God", that the meaning of "esprit" in the
key passage is better given by "spirit" or "soul".
The point is that the Pope is not talking simply of what Dawkins and
I would both take to be the natural entity of "mind".)
Daniel Dennett
It would be unfair to describe the philosopher
Daniel Dennett simply as cleaning up loose ends from Dawkins's position,
but it is certainly fair to say that Dennett follows very much on from
Dawkins. He accepts the science in the way that Dawkins does and he
accepts the same kinds of philosophical inferences. In fact, in the
mid 1970s, long before Dawkins began his anti-God campaign, Dennett
was putting forward some such argument as Dawkins later endorsed:
Now in his most recent book on the subject,
Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett follows up on this. With approval,
he reiterates Dawkins's point about Hume being caught in the fix of
knowing the fallacious nature of the argument from design but of not
having a satisfactory alternative.
Even more than Dawkins -- perhaps because
he is a philosopher -- Dennett endorses the kinds of critical comments
made by Hume:
Where Dennett goes beyond Dawkins is in criticizing
of anyone (like me above!) who wants to argue that, although Darwinism
may be correct, one can still accept design. He wants to counter the
person who wants to say this design can be accepted on faith or some
such other nonscientific grounds. About this, Dennett writes as follows:
To reply to this line of argument, and at
the risk of sounding like a broken record which simply repeats itself,
let me say again what I have said above: Although I think that Dennett
certainly puts his finger on significant problems for the Christian
theist, I fail to see in any way that these are problems which are brought
on by Darwinism specifically. I would grant that there are problems
with -- certainly questions which need answering about - Christian faith.
I would grant Dennett that, all too frequently, faith is simply a form
of irrational commitment to believe something because you want to believe
that something, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Faith in the
promise of eternal life is often much akin to faith that one's lottery
ticket will win the grand prize: in both cases one wants something very
much and so one has willed onself to believe that one will get it.
But suppose one takes the position that there
is more to faith than -- as at the end of the last paragraph -- autobiographical
references to the hopes of the infant Ruse. Suppose one argues that
existence poses questions which are simply unanswered by science --
Why are we here? Why do good people suffer? And so forth -- and that
the fact that science fails to answer them is no good reason for saying
that they are unanswerable or that we should not seek answers. Suppose
that one says that it is appropriate to turn to something outside of
science and that faith (however construed) can start to bridge the gap.
Even if one disagrees with this move, I do not see that Dennett has
shown that Darwinism strengthens the disagreement. Dennett seems to
think that Darwinism implies materialism, but he has given no grounds
for believing that this is so. Apart from the fact that, in this day
and age of electrons and so forth, materialism is a bit of an old-fashioned
philosophy anyway, it certainly seems to me possible for someone to
be an ardent Darwinian evolutionist and yet argue that the mind is not
something which can be reduced to material entities. The late Karl Popper
(1976), for one, was both a Darwinian and a mind-body dualist.
As is well known, it is true that Dennett
himself is a materialist with respect to minds, thinking that minds
are somewhat akin to the software used by the hardware of our brains.
But others, most particularly the Berkeley philosopher John Searle (1997),
would dispute this strongly. And I too see no reason at all why one
should not be a Darwinian evolutionist and think that in some sense
minds involve the nonmaterial in some sort of way. Not a mysterious
nonmaterial substance akin to a life force or vitalistic entelechy or
elan vital, and certainly not necessarily a supernatural nonmaterial
substance. But more than just material physical objects. And analogously
-- if the nonmaterial is not ruled out by fiat -- it seems quite open
for someone to argue that they are a Darwinian but that they think that
this proves design, rather than detracts from it. I am certainly not
saying that you should go this route. What I am saying is that, if you
want to go this route, there is nothing in Dennett (other than blunt
assertions) to stop you. Indeed, there is nothing in Dennett to stop
this person from arguing that Darwinism confirms and strengthens the
inference rather than the other way around.
As I leave Dennett, let me reiterate my already-made
qualification agreeing that Darwinism is relevant to Hume's argument
and agreeing that after Darwin it was possible to be an atheist. The
question is whether one has to be an atheist. I still see nothing which
suggests that if one is a Darwinian then necessarily one must be an
atheist.
Richard Lewontin
I am not sure if it is truly appropriate to
include the eminent population geneticist Richard Lewontin in this discussion,
because his pronouncements on Darwinism tend more often than not to
be critical. He is scathing in his assessment of the work of Wilson
and Dawkins. But he has recently entered the science/religion discussion
in a way which certainly bears on the Darwinism/atheism issue, and since
if for no other reason that his ideas have been seized greedily by the
Creationists, it is worth quoting his most pertinent passage on the
subject.
At least some of this argument, the final
part where Lewontin quotes Beck, seems to parallel that of Dennett,
so I will say no more about this here. Certainly it is not an argument
which involves Darwinism. It is the first part, the main part, of the
argument which interests me. Essentially Lewontin is saying that one
can have science or religion but not both, which means that one can
have Darwinism or Christianity but not both. Unfortunately neither here
nor elsewhere does Lewontin go into varieties of Christianity to see
if this conclusion holds through all that people have wanted to claim
in the name of the religion. Later in the article from which this passage
just above was quoted, Lewontin talks of the clash between the fundamentalist
religion of the American South and the evolutionism of the American
North, but he shows no awareness of (or at least insufficient sympathy
to discuss) more sophisticated forms of Christianity, including those
which have tried to accommodate the challenge of science.
And this is surely a weakness - a fatal weakness
in our context - for Lewontin does not argue against the Christian who
would argue that science has its sphere and religion its sphere and
the two do not necessarily clash. He does not argue against someone
like the Pope who sees no conflict between science and religion. He
does not argue against someone claiming either that science is bounded
by religion (the person who thinks that the laws of science hold, but
that there were genuine miraculous interventions involving the breaking
of law as in the Resurrection) or that science is unbounded but only
speaks to one domain of experience (the person perhaps who thinks that
even the Resurrection required no breaking of law, for it was an event
of a different kind - something felt in people's hearts perhaps). Paradoxically,
not only does Lewontin not argue against these people and their positions,
but he even allows that in other societies and at other times people
have combined scientific and religious belief.
The mutual exclusion of the material and demonic
has not been true of all cultures and all times. In the great Chinese
epic Journey to the West, demons are an alternative form of life, responsible
to certain deities, devoted to making trouble for ordinary people, but
severely limited. They can be captured, imprisoned, and even killed
by someone with superior magic. (p. 31)
Why is this not an option, here and now, in
North America and Europe?
In the absence of further argument and in
the light of our history and our subsequent discussion which shows that
there were and are people who hold both to science and religion (including
Lewontin's own teacher Dobzhansky!), we can pass on from Lewontin's
somewhat dogmatic pronouncement. In a way, it is not surprising that
he has become the darling of the Creationists, for not only does his
great authority give support for and credibility to their claims, but
at bottom he shares their premises and conclusions. They (Phillip Johnson
particularly) argue that science is materialistic and as such necessarily
precludes religious commitment. When challenged on the grounds that
they confuse the methodological assumption of the scientist that the
world works as if it were simply brute material following blind law
with the metaphysical belief that there is truly nothing more than brute
material following blind law, they respond that ultimately methodological
materialism collapses into - reduces to - metaphysical materialism.
Such seems also to be the position of Lewontin, although apparently
it is so obvious to him as not to need any argument at all in its favour.
Michael Ruse
Somewhat immodestly let me elevate myself
up to the status of Wilson, Dawkins, Dennett, and Lewontin, and consider
a Darwinism-based argument which I have myself put forward against Christian
belief. This is an argument which centres in on the moral aspects of
Christian belief: in particular, the claims by the Christian, based
on the sayings of Jesus and his followers, that one has a moral obligation
to love one's neighbour as oneself. (There are of course other aspects
to Christian moral law, but let us centre right in exclusively on the
Love Commandment.) Basically the argument which I have given can be
divided into two. The first part of the argument centres on the whole
question of substantive ethics, that is to say on the question of what
one ought to do. The second part of the argument centres on questions
of metaethics, that is to say on foundations: why one ought to do what
one ought to do?
As far as the substantival ethical question
is concerned, my worry is that there are good biological reasons for
thinking that morality will be a differential affair. That we will (and
do) have a moral sense which leads us to think that we have special
obligations to our closest relatives. Then we will feel lesser obligations
to those further from our central bloodline. Next, to our own particular
group of acquaintances. Finally, we reach out morally to strangers in
other lands. I am not saying that Darwinian biology suggests that we
have no obligations whatsoever to total strangers. What I am suggesting
is that we will feel that we have stronger obligations to close relatives
and that this is the way that morality functions. And my worry is that
this belief or conclusion clashes with the Love Commandment there is
a clash here: Jesus intends us to love everyone, friend and stranger
indifferently, not just our children and siblings. (See Ruse 1986a,
b, 1989, 1995.)
As far as the metaethical or foundational
argument is concerned, what worries me is some version of the comparative
argument that I introduced when dealing with Wilson. What I have suggested
is that, since evolution is non-progressive, we could as well end up
with one of a range of entirely contradictory ethical codes: hate your
neighbour rather than love your neighbour, because you know he or she
will hate you. Not merely that you do hate your neighbour, but that
you feel a positive sense of moral obligation to do so. But since there
are these possibilities, and since ethics evolved simply to allow social
beings like humans to get along, hopes of metaethical justification
become remote. Who is to say that one system is superior to any other?
Ethics is, in my words, "just an illusion of the genes" (Ruse
and Wilson 1985, 1986). To this offensive conclusion, I have added the
twist that recognizing that ethics is (at the metaethical level) just
an illusion would lead to a rapid collapse of substantive ethics as
a functioning social facilitator. Hence, evolution is surely going to
make us think that ethics is more than an illusion, that substantive
ethics can be given objective backing. So, although in fact metaethically
speaking ethics is nothing more than emotion, we "objectify"
this emotion, thinking that it is given to us from above or some such
thing. And if this is not all counter to conventional Christianity,
then nothing is. The Love Commandment is intended to be something absolutely
binding on all humans, at any place and at any time.
How does one set about countering these claims?
Obviously, I am not the best of all possible people to do this; but
let me at least try to probe weaknesses in my own position. At the substantive
level, there are two tacks that one can take. One is simply to agree
that the Love Commandment has a somewhat restricted differential import.
One suggests that when Jesus told us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
He was not telling us to go off and seek out absolute strangers, willy
nilly. Certainly Jesus intended us to care for strangers when they come
into our orbit: remember the parable of the good Samaritan. But, basically,
what Jesus expected of us was good behaviour towards those in our immediate
group. The centurion did not get a dressing down because it was his
own daughter which caused him concern. Jesus obviously intended that
we should look after our children and our aged parents and the like,
and then our friends in distress and so on and so forth, as the circle
widens out. This kind of interpretation of the Love Commandment fits
in absolutely with the biological interpretation and seems to cause
no tensions whatsoever.
The other way in which one could set about
to try to solve this problem would be by agreeing that the Love Commandment
does reach out over all people indifferently: I have as much of an obligation
to the unknown starving child in central Africa as I have to my own
children. Here, one has to recognize that the biology does not fit well
with the Christian imperatives. But surely it is open for someone to
say that that is precisely the point! When Jesus was preaching the binding
nature of the Love Commandment, he was not preaching to the converted.
He was rather addressing people who fell badly short of this. The relevance
of biology at this point lies in the way that it points to our limited
nature: in some sense, one might say that it picks up on the Christian
notion of original sin. Not that biology supports the idea of a literal
Adam and Eve eating the apple that God had forbidden; but rather that
Darwinism picks up on the essential truth behind the doctrine of the
original sin, namely that we humans fail abysmally against the moral
standards that God has set. Here then one could argue that far from
Darwinism undermining the Christian position, in a way it could be seen
to support it.
I rather like this second argument. It takes
the offensive, making Darwinism a positive part of the solution, not
merely something to be excused and explained away. But is it adequate?
One might argue that the whole point about original sin is that this
is something that we humans freely choose. Of course, there are questions
about why those of us who are descended from Adam continue to be tainted
with original sin, even though we did not ourselves originally taste
the apple. But, the point about original sin is that it was a free and
conscious choice at some level, whereas the whole point about the Darwinian
explanation is that this is something laid on us by our evolution: which
the Christian must ultimately put down to God's responsibility. So in
a way, the original sin is not our fault but God's!
I expect that there is some way around this
problem, but I draw attention to it to show there is going to be some
tensions at this point. What happens when we go on to the metaethical
discussion? Here, I think it is open to the Christian to make a number
of moves in defense of his or her position. First of all, one can surely
agree that there is no reason to think that morality has to be objective
in the sense that it refers to something "out there": the
foundations of morality like the axles of the speeding train. Even if
one is a Christian, one can take some sort of Kantian position for instance:
one argues that morality is a necessary condition of humans interacting,
and that is where the objectivity comes rather than in reference to
some external thing. Indeed, one can point out that, even if one is
a Christian, the suggestion that morality is an externally existing
phenomenon runs one into all sorts of paradoxes. Suppose one argues
that morality is grounded in the (externally existing) will of God.
At once the Euthyphro problem raises its ugly head. Does God will what
he wills because it is good, or is it good because it is God's will?
All this being so, it would seem that the
fact that evolution suggests that morality is grounded in the emotions
or something like that -- not a reflection of external objective fact
-- is no great worry to the Christian. Building on this, one might argue
that the whole point about morality is that it is a social adaptation
and as such must be one which is shared. It is no good if I am moral
if you are not likewise moral: in the absence of reciprocation, everything
breaks down. In this respect, morality is a bit like language. I may
speak far more beautiful English than anyone else, but if no one can
follow me my perfect accent is totally wasted. Better by far that I
have the appalling accent of my fellows and that they and you can follow
me. In the case of morality it is essential that we all share common
imperatives, or it will come to naught.
This being so, it is open to the Christian
to point to the fact that our evolutionary explanation of morality points
us away from the appalling relativism one often finds in works offered
by social scientists: it demands at least a more absolute morality across
human beings. Does this mean that this morality must hold of all rational
beings elsewhere in the universe? As you might suspect from my discussion
of Wilson, my feeling is that this is not necessarily the case. Elsewhere
in the universe, it is possible that one might have beings who hold
to an entirely different sort of morality, perhaps one based on hatred
rather than love. I suspect that on this basis one could get some kind
of stable situation where people interact socially. After all, this
happened here on earth between nations during the Cold War. America
not only hated Russia but felt an obligation to hate Russia, and conversely:
because of this balance, no nuclear war occurred. So it does seem possible
that a very non-Christian morality might have evolved elsewhere in the
Universe, thereby casting doubt on the absoluteness of Christian morality.
I am sure that by this stage you can almost
predict the two responses which suggest themselves! First, one might
argue that, even here, necessarily one has certain formal rules of reciprocation.
If one does not have these, then any kind of morality will break down
and people will no longer try to cooperate together. So, if nothing
else, Darwinism points to some kind of ultimate absolute formal reciprocation,
even if this is not an absoluteness with an objective external existence.
This being so, even with a weird non-human morality, one still possibly
has a place for things like duty and obligation. I have a duty to behave
in certain ways towards other people just as much as Mother Theresa
felt a duty towards the poor of Calcutta. The fact that my ways on my
world are not her ways on her world is irrelevant. The point is that
at least some of the Christian virtues are possible, even on a very
different sort of morality.
The other argument is that directly invoked
in the case of Edward O. Wilson: one suggests that beings which did
not have something recognizably like a Christian morality and the ability
to respond to such a morality would not be at the center of God's attention
anyway. The kind of morality we have here on earth is only going to
be found in beings roughly like ourselves. Hence, perhaps God has no
interest or inclination to regard other beings, even if they be rational,
as particularly worthy of His special attention. So in the end, perhaps
the Darwinian position points to -- is happily consistent with -- the
special standing of humankind: a conclusion which, for many Christians,
meshes neatly with a significant element in their faith.
I do not offer these as definitive refutations
of my own position. It is always easier to find moats in the eyes of
others, than beams in the eyes of oneself. But these are some attempts
at critiquing the arguments that I have given. Once again, the result
seems to be that a Darwinian position does not necessarily led to atheism.
(I am not sure that my arguments were ever intended to prove that Darwinism
implies atheism, although were certainly intended to throw some doubt
on the existence and workings of the Christian God.)
Conclusion
My conclusion is clear. For all that several
of today's most prominent Darwinians have argued that their scientific
theory throws significant doubt on Christian belief, even to the point
of inviting one to embrace atheism, ultimately none of the arguments
are definitive. The Christian ought to take Darwinism seriously and
this may well demand modification of some of the beliefs that the Christian
held before the Origin of Species was published. But, ultimately, nothing
in Darwinism absolutely forbids a belief in Christianity. Perhaps indeed
there are things in Darwinism which the Christian might find comforting.
This being said, let me leave you with one
final thought -- something made most clearly by the great twentieth-century
evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane (1932) - one on which anyone, Darwinian
or Christian, ought to reflect most carefully. Haldane pointed out that
there is absolutely no reason to think that mid-range primates -- such
as we humans -- have evolved the ability to delve into the ultimate
mysteries of reality. He argued that not only may the real world be
stranger that we think it is, but it may even be stranger than we could
possibly think that it is. Haldane concluded that accepting Darwinism
ought to instill in one a sense of modesty, not only about our abilities,
but about the range over which our abilities can reach and grasp.
This reflection by Haldane does not in itself
now mean that Christianity at once becomes a reasonable position. Indeed,
I think it points one towards a modest scepticism. But this is a scepticism
(perhaps not so very modest!) which ought to be extended also to atheistic
pronouncements by people like Dawkins and Dennett. Perhaps there is
nothing beyond our ken, and perhaps the atheists are right. But as a
Darwinian I think that one ought to be very careful in making such pronouncements.
I have yet to be convinced that Darwinism and atheism is a marriage
made in heaven.
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I would like to thank Jim for inviting me
to participate in this event and Michael for his presentation. As a
practicing evolutionary biologist, I have known and deeply respected
the giants of the modern synthesis of evolution, such as Fisher and
Dobzhansky, for most of my life without being fully aware of their religious
backgrounds. There is certainly a value to reconciling belief in Christianity
and other religions with evolution, even at the practical level of educating
college students. For many years, I taught the evolution segment of
the general biology course here at UCSB. I was occasionally greeted
with hostility by fundamentalists who demanded that I give Creation
Science at least some attention in my lectures. There really was nothing
I could do to satisfy these students. As Michael points out a literal
reading of Genesis is not compatible with evolution and other major
branches of science. Thank you Professor Ruse, for an enlightening presentation. By its nature, science is a cumulative undertaking, each generation building upon the ideas and observations that have survived attempts at invalidation by past generations. As a result, scientists generally focus on the future, and few take the time to trace the intellectual growth of their discipline in the historical past. I think that this is shortsighted, and that all scientists should be required to be familiar with the history of their area of enquiry. At a practical level, this would allow scientists to avoid repeating past errors. But on a more important level, a historical perspective allows recognition of the degree to which science in influenced by the societal norms and expectations that surround it. Prof. Ruse's talk makes this explicit - In a Christian culture, the growth of natural science answered Christian needs and ends, even while it formed the underpinning for our present and future knowledge. Of all scientists, evolutionary biologists should take this most to heart, because evolution is a matter that deeply influences human self-perception. A consistent thread throughout Prof. Ruse's summary has been how evolutionary biologists (whether they were called so at the time or not) sought to use their understanding of the natural world to explain man's place in it. Darwin himself was raised and trained in an environment imbued with the concept of natural theology, the perception that the study of nature, including its driving mechanisms, was an extension of the Christian need to know and understand God. Of course, since this theology taught us that man was the pinnacle and goal of God's creation, it was only natural that natural history should seek to explicate the processes by which we arrived there. However, as Prof. Ruse notes, the late 19th century
was a turning point in biological thought. Natural history evolved from
an extension of theology to a free standing endeavor, becoming a "science"
as we know this mode of enquiry today. By "science", I mean
a cumulative, group process focused on explaining the functioning of
the natural world through repeated observation , testing, and falsification.
In its modern sense, science requires that the observations and hypotheses
be as free of philosophical preconception as is humanly possible. Thus,
explanations of "purpose" and "meaning" sought by
natural theology are no longer acceptable, and we should look Darwin's
theory, evolution by natural selection, directly in the eye. In fact, natural selection is the phrase that we use to describe the outcome of the interaction of two factors that occur "at random". By "at random", I mean not under the conscious control of the organism. The first of these is random genetic variation - the fluctuations in genetic information that arise from mutation, meiosis, recombination and a host of lesser factors. Each organism, as it is born, cannot choose what its genetic complement is - it simply receives it. The second of these is random environmental change. You cannot, nor any other organism, choose where it comes into this Earth in time or space. If you come into this world as a mammal with no fur and the environment has just swung back to glacial, well, the interaction of your random genetic composition and random environmental circumstance dictates your genetic solution will likely be frozen out. This concept of natural selection just given has evolved through the past two hundred years, and may well evolve in the future. But at the present time, it is the most powerful hypothesis to explain the patterns we observe in the past history of life, and the processes observed into present biological world. From studying past and present life in the context of natural selection we can develop an idea of why we have come to be here. But unlike our predecessors who then sought to use this insight to justify human interactions and behavior, we must observe the other side of the coin - That just as we have come to be highly specialized organisms, so have others - but specialized differently. It is all well and good to exalt our intellectual and creative abilities, but we need to realize they suit us to our particular solution to life. Consider the lowly clam, buried in a foot of mud and subsisting by filter feeding through an elongate neck. Certainly the clam would be bored to sit through this talk, not to mention highly stressed to be out of water. But by the same token, I suggest that there is not a member of this audience who could successfully change places with the clam and make a career out of filter feeding in 20' of water off Goleta Pier. Because evolution by natural selection involves the interaction of environment and genetics, all organisms become associated with particular environments, and no one organism is really better than another. Just different. Thus, the concept of progress, suggesting there is a goal to evolution (which we would like to think is ourselves) is but a fallacy. Evolution happens. Its outcome at any particular point is but a snapshot of a work in progress. It is possible that in 100 million years, humans and mammals in general will have passed and that the world will become dominated by insects, and in the eyes of the dominant Earthly residents, God shall possess 6 legs and compound eyes. But even that would be a passing stage, as both genetics and environment would continue to change as long as their is energy and life to consume it on this planet. To come full cycle, a historical perspective has brought us repeatedly face to face with the human tendency to use science to justify human preconceptions about our place on the Earth. An acceptance of evolution by natural selection - the product of the history so eloquently and insightfully recounted by Prof. Ruse, must lead us to realize that we are but one, albeit very successful, form of life. In the context of the Templeton Lectures, I would argue that this insight places a very great burden on humans as the first organisms to realize their place in the grander scheme of evolution. From this comes a burden to protect and honor the other organisms who are no less advanced, each in their own way, but who lack our present voice and vision.
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