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DARWIN AND GOD: WHY IS
THERE A DISPUTE?
All Saints Church, Clifton
th
17 October 2009
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INTRODUCTION
We live in troubling times. If we are to accept
the pronouncements of some commentators,
there is an absolute and irreconcilable chasm
between science and religion. For example,
Richard Dawkins has written:
The more you understand the significance
of evolution, the more you are pushed
away from the agnostic position and
towards atheism. Complex, statistically
improbable things are by their nature more
difficult to explain than simple, statistically
probable things.
Dawkins, and others, have driven a large
wedge between religion and rationality, in
attempting to force intelligent, thinking people
to make a sharp choice. After all, the
Universe and life were either created or they
were not. The discoveries of science have
demonstrated that many aspects of the
Biblical account of creation are not literally
true, and some might say it would be
perverse, or sentimental, to try to keep a small
corner in which God might operate.
1. Charles Darwin was not motivated by
religious, or atheistic, ideas in publishing
his books.
2. Evolution is as much a fact as the
observation that the Earth rotates around
the Sun.
3. Richard Dawkins has not disproved the
existence of God.
4. Science is a powerful method that lies at
the root of the modern comfortable,
healthy, and wealthy world, but it cannot
explain religion, art, or emotions.
5. Scientists need not be atheists.
6. American creationists have backed
themselves into a corner of Mediaeval
obscurantism, and they should not be
allowed to impose untruths on education.
But, first, what did Darwin actually say?
DARWIN AND EVOLUTION
‘The Origin of Species’ has been identified as
the greatest book of Victorian times, even as
the most influential book of modern times.
These grand claims are plausible because
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural
This present-day philosophical tension echoes selection lies behind modern biology,
the tension that existed 150 years ago, when agricultural science, medicine, anthropology,
Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ was
even sociology, political theory, psychology,
published, on the 24th November, 1859. It is and many other intellectual fields.
reported that, on being told its contents, the
then Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli,
remarked:
… my dear, let us hope that what Mr.
Darwin says is not true. But, if it is true, let
us hope that it will not become generally
known.
Disraeli doubtless had in mind commentaries
from the time, including the famous cartoon of
the defrauded ape, who says, rubbing his
weeping eyes: "That Man wants to claim my
Pedigree. He says he is one of my
Descendants." Mr. Bergh, founder of the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals replies: "Now, Mr. Darwin, how
could you insult him so?"
In this talk, I would like to suggest a number of
points:
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It should be noted that Darwin did not invent
the idea of evolution – that had been posited
many times for over a hundred years.
Evolution means simply ‘unrolling’ or change
through time, and it is opposed to the
immutability of species, the suggestion that
species do not change and never have
changed.
Darwin made two major contributions to
evolutionary thought in his book: (1) evolution
occurs by natural selection; and (2) on longer
time scales, all organisms are linked by
genetic relationships into a single great
evolutionary tree of life. Famously, his
observations during the voyage of the Beagle
in the 1830s showed him the need for such a
tree-like vision of the large-scale pattern.
would tend to be preserved and
unfavorable ones destroyed.
On that date he drew a simple branching
evolutionary tree in his notebook, based on
his observations in South America and the
Pacific islands. Thomas Malthus argued in his
book Essay on the Principle of Population
(1798) that human populations tend to grow
far faster than their food supply, and Darwin
transferred this concept to the natural world,
seeing that reproductive rates are higher than
they need to be.
He noted, in South America, that the peculiar
modern mammals – sloths, anteaters, and
armadillos – had left extinct relatives in the
rocks, giant fossil armadillos and sloths. Why,
he asked, would these fossils occur uniquely
in South America, where their current relatives
live, unless they were in some way their
ancestors? Further, and more famously, he
noticed that the tortoises, plants, and finches
on each of the islands of the Galápagos
Archipelago showed significant variations.
This geographic variation suggested to him
that the species had diverged relatively
recently as a result of having been isolated on
each of the Galápagos islands for thousands
of years. The vertical (or geological) and
horizontal (or geographic) axes of the
evolutionary tree were there before him.
Darwin returned to England in 1836.
Following detailed studies of all the specimens
he had brought back, he began thinking about
evolution. The night of September 28, 1838
was critical: it was then that he realized the
So, Darwin’s first key insight was that life is
missing piece of the evolutionary puzzle –
more diverse than it ought to be if it had been
natural selection. He wrote in his
created and his second was that all species
autobiography that,
living and extinct can be linked in a single
great evolutionary tree that shows their
I happened to read for amusement Malthus
relationships and that tracks back to a single
on Population, and being well prepared to
ancestor.
appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes from long-continued
But Darwin is remembered most for the
observation of the habits of animals and
principle of natural selection, a process that
plants, it at once struck me that under
explains the diversity of life and its branching
these circumstances favorable variations
history of relationships: only the organisms
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best adapted to their environment tend to
survive and transmit their genetic
characteristics in increasing numbers to
succeeding generations while those less
adapted tend to be eliminated. Darwin made
the case with remorseless logic, and this can
be dissected into a series of clear statements:
1.
2.
3.
4.
insensibly working, whenever and
wherever opportunity offers, at the
improvement of each organic being in
relation to its organic and inorganic
conditions of life.
Since 1859, Darwin’s theory of evolution has
been confirmed in many ways that would have
Nearly all species produce far more
amazed him. Modern genetics, rediscovered
young than can survive to adulthood
and developed through the early twentieth
(Malthus’ principle).
century, provided the model of inheritance that
The young that survive tend to be those
Darwin sought. Further, modern molecular
best adapted to survive (larger at birth,
biology, dating from 1953 when James
faster growing, noisier in the nest, faster
Watson and Francis Crick discovered the
to escape predation, less disease, etc.).
structure and function of DNA, is purely
Characters are inherited from parent to
Darwinian. This insight provided the basis for
offspring, so the characters that ensure
essentially half of modern science, and
survival (size, aggressiveness, speed,
especially for applied areas of biochemistry
freedom from disease, etc.) will tend to be such as pharmacology and agricultural
passed on.
science. If you use antibiotics or eat crops
These survival characteristics will
grown with pesticides or genetically modified,
increase generation by generation. The
then these result from modern evolutionary
changes are not inexorable, so cheetahs biology.
run fast enough to catch their prey, not at
2000 km per hour, because they do not
Most convincing of all is that modern scientific
have to and their bodies would fall to bits discoveries unimagined by Darwin confirm
if they tried.
older assertions. For example, the coding of
complete genomes confirms the patterns of
relationships in the tree of life worked out in
Victorian times by the study of anatomy and
fossils. Disturbing as it may be, we look and
behave like chimpanzees because they are
indeed our close relatives, separated by a
common ancestor that lived 6 million years
ago. That this is confirmed, any way you care
to look at it, by essentially independent
sources of data is as close to proof as one
might hope for.
Darwin was motivated to publish the ‘Origin’
because he was a scientist with a discovery to
report to the world. He did not do it from loss
of faith, loss of a daughter, or any other
emotional reason, despite what has been
Each of these points can be supported by any said, and very clearly in the wonderful film
number of observations from the natural
‘Creation’. The timing of publication was
world. Darwin’s Origin (1859) said it all, and
doubtless affected by the arrival of Alfred
he said it so well. In conclusion of this section, Russel Wallace’s manuscript on natural
Darwin described natural selection in action:
selection. Darwin wrestled with a proper
course of action, and both essays, his and
It may be said that natural selection is daily Wallace’s, were published at the same time.
and hourly scrutinising, throughout the
His book followed and everyone, Wallace
world, every variation, even the slightest;
included, saw this as entirely appropriate.
rejecting that which is bad, preserving and
adding up all that is good; silently and
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Darwin was a conventional Unitarian and then
Anglican, and he certainly lost much of his
faith through his personal troubles and his
scientific work. He was most comfortable to
label himself an agnostic, a term invented by
his younger supporter, Thomas Henry Huxley.
Despite endless discussion, there is no
evidence that Darwin was an atheist, nor that
he converted back to Christianity on his
deathbed, nor indeed that he would have seen
it as proper or polite to discuss such things in
public.
Darwin would have been bemused with the
causes to which his book has been put. In his
lifetime, he refused Karl Marx’s generous offer
to dedicate Das Kapital to him. Darwin was
made the father of eugenics (survival of the
fittest) and so was much admired by Hitler.
Since 1859, Darwin’s name, and evolution in
general, have been associated with scourges
such as communism, fascism, racism,
imperialism… even liberalism, homosexuality,
free love, and drug-taking. I suspect Darwin
would have disapproved of all of these – after
all, he was a scientist seeking to explain the
evolution of life. Doubtless he would have
disapproved of the association of his name
and thought with militant atheism as much as
with modern creationism.
1. Creationists call on God when something
is not yet understood by science – the
‘God of the gaps’ argument; and yet all
arguments presented by creationists/
intelligent design advocates have been
demolished.
2. All attempts to prove God’s existence by
rational arguments have failed.
3. If there is a Creator, who created the
Creator?
4. In the absence of alternative evidence, we
should accept the simplest theory for the
Universe (principle of Occam’s razor), and
a Universe without a God is simpler than
one with.
5. All (or nearly all) intelligent people,
including essentially all Nobel prize
winners, are (or were) atheists.
6. Religion can encourage bigotry, and has
been behind most of the wars of the past.
7. It is perfectly possible for an atheist to be
a good, moral, and fulfilled person.
Let’s consider these in reverse order.
The final point is self-evidently true. Jut as
atheists and agnostics can clearly be moral
and good people, so too can believers be
complete monsters, lacking in morality and
decency.
Point 6 is also partly true: indeed, religions
DAWKINS AND THE EQUATION, RELIGION can lead to bigotry and wars. However,
= IRRATIONALITY
Dawkins fails to clarify that, although, for
example, the Crusades were ostensibly
Richard Dawkins has made a clear case that
religious wars, they were also about territory.
scientists must be atheists. In his best-selling Most holy wars are about expanding the
2006 book The God Delusion, he argues that power of particular states at the expense of
you cannot be an evolutionist and a Christian. others, and they may acquire a religious tenor
to help rally the troops and to argue
Of course, if Dawkins is right, the case is
justification. It would be equally jejune to
rather wider, and somewhat troubling:
explain the evils of Stalin, Mao Tze Tung, and
according to his reasoning, the dissonance
other professed atheists, as simply, or mainly,
between Christianity and evolution broadens
a result of their atheism. Dawkins spends
to a standoff between rational thought and
some time discussing whether Hitler was an
religion. In other words, if you understand the atheist or not: he concludes more or less that
world as a rational place that is structured and he was a Christian, and so his evil fits the
explained by the laws of physics, chemistry,
pattern.
and biology, then there is no place for
Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other
Point 5 could be debated endlessly and, in
religion for that matter.
any case, proves nothing. Nobel prize
winners have generally kept a decent silence
Let’s review Dawkins’ arguments in order, as about their religious beliefs – but even if all of
presented in his book:
them were atheists, this does not prove that
atheism is right.
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Dawkins lays great store by points 2 to 4, that
God does not exist because His existence
cannot be proved, because his existence is
unparsimonious, and because a First Cause
must be preceded by a pre-First Cause. After
trailing the fact, in chapters 1-3, that he will
disprove God in his Chapter 4, these are
essentially the arguments. None is original,
and none can be said to be decisive; nor in
fact can any of these claims be flatly refuted.
Further, of course, few would agree with
Dawkins that the scientific method is the
appropriate approach to proving or disproving
the existence of God. Science deals with the
concrete world around us and seeks to
develop the best explanatory models
(‘theories) in the realms of physics, chemistry,
and biology. The scientific method cannot
address miracles and beliefs, just as it cannot
address superstitions, art, and personal
passions and interests.
The first point, that the creationists have been
found out and refuted time and time again is
broadly correct, and yet this is a sideshow to
the core debate – but a fascinating side show
that I propose to explore in a little detail here.
WHAT IS SCIENCE GOOD AT?
Science seeks to explain how the Universe
works. As a method, it focuses on
reductionism (reducing complex entities to
their component parts, and focusing on those
elements that are key in explaining the
complexity) and rejection of hypotheses. It is
commonly said that proof is only possible in
mathematics; in other areas of science,
evidence is sought that disproves a current
‘theory’. The word ‘theory’ is often
misunderstood – it does not mean ‘chance
conjecture’ or ‘hunch’, as it often does in
common speech, but rather a model that
seeks to explain a series of linked
phenomena.
So, the heliocentric theory is that the Sun is
the centre of the solar system and Earth and
other planets rotate around it. The
heliocentric theory, thanks to Copernicus and
Galileo, famously replaced the alternative,
Geocentric, model or theory, that the Earth
was the centre of things. Most scientists
would equate the theory of evolution with the
heliocentric theory in terms of its explanatory
power and its resistance, so far, to disproof.
Theories are open to disproof at any moment,
but the longer they withstand disproof, the
more they are accepted. Further, some
theories, such as the two just mentioned, are
rather broad in their implications, and so
would require a rather astonishing set of
observations to disprove them. Further, the
disprover is expected to offer a more
satisfactory theory that explains everything
explained by the overthrown theory, and
more.
Often of course, theories in science are of
practical import. Scientific theories lie behind
all technological or medical advances: people
fly to the moon using calculations based on
the heliocentric theory, and resistance to
antibiotics and pesticides is a result of natural
selection among bacteria. These practical
consequences tend to further bolster the
acceptability of a theory.
This is why it is so easy to enrage a scientist
by saying, ‘Well, it’s only a theory’. As if the
theory of evolution is equivalent to my theory
that buses always come in threes because the
drivers like to have a natter at the traffic lights.
One is a model of how life works; the other is
a hunch or notion.
Science then works with theories or models,
and these are founded on physical
observations and measurements. Science
therefore is not capable of testing the
existence of God, nor indeed of any god.
Further, science is not capable of explaining
why Michelangelo was a great artist, or Bach
a great musician, or why we don’t like some
foods, or find certain jokes funny.
In a commentary on the Dawkins affair, Alister
McGrath quoted Stephen Jay Gould, who
wrote that “science covers what the universe
is made of and why it works this way”, and
“religion extends over questions of ultimate
meaning and moral value”.
It seems that the Pope would agree. Pope
Benedict commented earlier this year that
‘Darwinian evolution and the account of
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Creation in Genesis are perfectly compatible.’
In an earlier statement, in 2004, he wrote:
collected in Ohio around 1750 truly belonged
to animals that had lived a long time ago, and
that no longer survived in North America, even
…the first organism dwelt on this planet
in unexplored parts of the Rockies or in
about 3.5 - 4 billion years ago. Since it has California. By 1830, most geologists were
been demonstrated that all living organisms ready to accept that the Earth was
on earth are genetically related, it is
unknowably ancient, although nobody could
virtually certain that all living organisms
express that age, whether in hundreds of
have descended from this first organism.
thousands or millions of years.
Converging evidence from many studies in
the physical and biological sciences
furnishes mounting support for some theory
of evolution to account for the development
and diversification of life on earth, while
controversy continues over the pace and
mechanisms of evolution.
CREATIONISM
Having found that Darwin was not an evil
man, nor were his ideas, that Dawkins’
disproof of God’s existence was not
convincing, that science can never fruitfully
take over large areas of human thought, and
especially religious thought, and in fact that
the Pope accepts modern scientific evidence,
where does that leave the creationists?
Creationism is the firm belief that the Earth
and life were created by God. In those terms,
creationism can encompass a wide range of
differing understandings, and yet this is
sometimes forgotten because the noisiest
creationists are sometimes startling illinformed and irrational.
Creationism then was encapsulated in William
Paley’s natural theology, that living things
were astonishingly complex and, like a pocket
watch, this complexity indicated the necessity
of a Creator. Such views could be
accommodated, however, against a long span
of geological time and perhaps without Divine
intervention all the time. This was consonant
with deism, a theological position that arose
during the Enlightenment. Deism holds that
God does not intervene with the functioning of
It is worth noting that modern, American-style,
the natural world in any way, allowing it to run
creationism represents a return to Mediaeval
according to the laws of nature that he
thinking, and that the current version arose
configured when he created all things.
really only in the 1960s.
Theism, on the other hand, holds that God
creates through evolution, and it can suggest
Up to 1850, it is probably rather meaningless
more constant Divine guidance of the laws of
to talk about creationism from a modern
nature, but need not. Theism represents the
standpoint. Indeed before the Enlightenment,
position of the Roman Catholic church, most
there were many views on the age of the
mainline protestant denominations, and some
Earth and the origin of life. Up to 1750, few
Jewish denominations.
naturalists even understood or thought about
the notion of extinct organisms – fossils were
This was the world Darwin grew up in, and
‘sports of nature’ or simply archaeological
opposition to his book came generally from
remains of fishes and shells discarded by
thoughtful people who held what one might
Roman soldiers on the march.
call a ‘liberal creationist’ position, a position
that allowed an ancient Earth and varying
The idea of extinction was accepted by 1800,
levels of divine intervention. Indeed, at the
when it became clear that the great bones of
time of the Scopes Trial in Tennessee, in
mastodons and mammoths that were
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can hardly be said to be precise, nor even
required by, or part of, the Bible.]
As shown by Ronald Numbers in his study of
modern creationism, the hardening of
American creationism came in 1961, with the
publication of ‘The Genesis Flood’ by Henry
Morris. This was the first seemingly thorough
scientific textbook made available to the
creationist movement in America, and it was
clearly a Godsend for them in their constant
efforts to shoehorn creationism into the
secular public school syllabus. Morris had
become a Seventh-day Adventist, and a tenet
of their belief was the literal truth of the seven
days recounted in Genesis. Seemingly, this
rather arcane viewpoint, peculiar to the
Seventh-day Adventists, then became
mainstream for bible-believing creationists.
Fundamentalism
and creationism go
hand in hand, and
1925, the chief accuser, the famous
they are powerful
evangelist William Jennings Bryan, while
forces in North
denying evolution and especially that man
America. From
was descended from some lower kind of life,
President George
was not a biblical literalist, despite his claims. W. Bush
He was an ‘old earth creationist’. So long as
downwards - or
creationists allowed a great age for the Earth, upwards - the
then they could accept most of the findings of majority of
science.
Americans express
some, or
So why did creationists adopt the young-earth substantial, doubt
position, that the Earth is 7000 years old? In
about evolution.
doing so, they are obliged to tussle constantly This is often
with science: to deny radiometric dating, to
expressed in terms
deny prehistoric archaeology, to deny
of ‘long-standing
palaeontology, to deny geology, and many
debates among
others. This extraordinary hardening of
evolutionists’ or a
creationism has done religion no favours, and call for equal time.
obvious criticisms of their Mediaeval world
The first concern stems from the level of
view can extend to criticism of all religion.
creationist critique: there are as many debates
among astronomers, physicists, and chemists.
[Parenthetically, it worth recalling that the
7000-year-old Earth is nowhere quoted in the Debate about details is a constant in science,
Bible, except in footnotes added to some
and evolutionists must debate every issue in
editions. James Ussher, Archbishop of
biology and geology. No one however has
Armagh, famously calculated in 1654 that the mounted a concerted campaign of literature
Earth was created in 4004 B.C., later refined
and web sites aimed at destabilizing the
to 9 a.m. on October 26th, according to further principles of physics, astronomy, or chemistry.
calculations by James Lightfoot – more or less The call for equal time seems reasonable,
the beginning of teaching term at Cambridge
more or less appealing to the principle of fair
at that time. The calculations were based on play. There is a clear response: equal time for
summing the ages of the patriarchs, and so
what? What exactly is the body of knowledge
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that will be placed in contrast with the
literature of evolution? On the one hand are
ten thousand books written since 1859 by
professors around the world, and ten million
articles from the refereed international
scientific literature. On the other hand is…
nothing; a small number of books and no
refereed scientific literature - no experiments,
no observations, no tests. All that exists on
the creationist side are dog-eared copies of
books by Steven Gould highlighted with yellow
highlighting. The creationists love to pick
holes and criticize, to seek expressions of
uncertainty. “How old is the Earth?” “Oh,
perhaps 4600 million years plus or minus 100
million years – we can’t say for sure because
all the rocks were molten then and nothing
has survived that we can date. The oldest
datable rocks are 4030 million years old
according to repeated independent
radiometric tests.” “Aha, they don’t know what
they’re talking about… so they’re wrong.” Of
course, honest uncertainty and mistakes are a
part of science. Piltdown man was a fake, but
it was unmasked by scientists using new
fluorine dating techniques, not by creationists.
A theory, or model, in science is open to
criticism, but cannot be rejected as an
explanation of nature until a better theory is
presented.
As Michael Shermer, editor of ‘The Skeptic’
magazine has pointed out, if we offer equal
time for creationism and evolution, what next?
Geography and flat earth theories, chemistry
and alchemy, astronomy and astrology?
Modern creationism contends with two
curiously American phenomena: the school
boards, and secular public schools. The
school boards are local, sometimes covering
only five or ten schools, and they decided
matters of syllabus and textbooks. In all other
countries, such decisions are made at
regional or national level. The local decisionmaking in the United States allows activists to
insert themselves on school boards, and keep
worrying at them, and so rational people must
be ever alert to challenge any nonsense – not
just creationism – that might be proposed in
backwoods Arkansas or Georgia.
An opposing irony is that the American
constitution allows no religious teaching in the
public schools, and so creationists have been
forced to class their views as scientific.
And this is their downfall of course. Whether
called creation science, intelligent design, or
sudden emergence, their views track back to
Henry Morris’s Genesis Flood. They have to
try to prove that the Earth is 7000 years old,
that all the vast diversity of life on Earth – all
10 to 50 million species – somehow fitted on
the Ark, and that fossils were all buried by the
single Flood or that dinosaurs were on the Ark
too. I’ll say a word on each of these notions
before finishing.
1. The young Earth. To suggest the Earth
was created 7000 years ago, at a time
when the Mesopotamians were building
irrigation systems, cattle were being
herded in the Sahara, early Europeans
were smelting bronze to make bowls
and weapons, the peoples of Iran were
making wine and storing it in wine jars,
and the Jomon peoples in Japan were
building longhouses and making
figurines, is preposterous.
2. No room on the Ark. When the Old
Testament was written, people knew
probably only a few hundred species of
plants and animals. Modern taxonomy
has revealed nearly 2 million named
species, and new species are being found
all the time – most notably among insects
– and projections suggest there are at
least 10 million species alive on Earth
today, perhaps as many as 50 million.
Some creationists try to fit them all on the
Ark, but most now posit that only a few
hundred main ‘types’ were on the Ark. All
the diversity we see today arose by rapid
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evolution in the past 7000 years or so.
The ‘types’ might be a core ‘cat’ and ‘dog’
that then evolved rapidly into lions,
lynxes, leopards, and house cats on the
one hand, and wolves, foxes, and
domestic dogs on the other. As for the
estimated million species of beetles, it’s
not clear whether they evolved rapidly
from one beetle type, or whether a few
thousand beetles were fitted in somehow.
As for freshwater fishes, or marine fishes
– did they go on the Ark, or somehow
change their osmotic systems to be able
to survive in the homogenized waters
during the flood? Why the carnivores did
not eat the herbivores on the Ark, and
whether plants were on board or not, is
not clear. And as for parasites and
disease vectors such as the AIDS virus,
it’s a mystery.
3. Fossils. The young earthers have to
suggest that fossils are ‘sports of nature’,
the Mediaeval view, or that somehow all
the fossil creatures, including dinosaurs,
also somehow squeezed into the Ark.
Pre-Darwinians had no problem with an
ancient Earth and endless stages in the
history of life, as organisms came and went.
Modern American creationists have to
squabble over all the modern evidence of
geology and biology to sometimes ludicrous
extents. Most astonishing is their claim of
spectacular, enhanced rates of evolution in
the last 7000 years, after the Noachian
deluge.
CONCLUSION
Modern American Creationists are throwbacks
to a pre-scientific time, and their current views
are as preposterous as those of the flatearthers. It is disappointing that they are
moving rapidly towards irrationality when there
is no apparent need. Disappointing for two
reasons. First, they represent a large
proportion of the American population, and
they could devote their evident energy to more
useful topics, and especially to allowing young
people to be educated appropriately. Second,
they make an easy target for attack by
atheists who can set them up as ‘typical’
Christians and then associate all believers
with their outlandish views. The spread of
fundamentalism in Christianity, and now sadly
in the Moslem world, hardens attitudes and
does not improve dialogue and humanity.
As has been said by many wise
commentators, there is no conflict between
science and religion. For the present, I’d
rather side with the Pope than with Morris or
Dawkins.
Michael J. Benton
October 2009