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On the evident ill-grace of the hosts of Darwin's ideas
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150 years have passed since the first publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species and it's reception, which was marked early by misunderstanding and rejection that later transformed to acceptance in the scientific community, is still a matter of importance.
Why is it that the Darwinian explanation for species diversification on planet earth (a theory that operates by means of natural selection acting on random variety present within hereditary populations) is such an object of opposition and a source of trouble for religious persons? One would think that, like many scientific advancements, although the faithful are upset to learn that there is a materialistic explanation for a phenomena which they previously thought rightly reminded them of their deity they would learn to reconcile their beliefs with this new understanding.
When Benjamin Franklin developed the lightning rod there were religious leaders who said that his device interfered with providence by not allowing god to strike those he wished with lightning. But the materialistic understandings of such phenomena as lightning do not seem to be as large a stumbling block for the religious as is Darwin's theory of natural selection. There may be some increased antipathy to a naturalistic explanation for the origin of species because, like some other scientific advancements (a heliocentric view of the solar system, Newton's proposal that the same laws that operate on earth are the ones that operate in the heavens, etc.) that met with greater religious opposition, Darwin's theories decentralize man, they reveal him to not be the center of a plan that takes into account first and foremost man's existence. There is a natural inclination for men to felt he center of the universe and this inclination is closely tied to the success and tenacity of religious belief.
But, I do not believe that this is a sufficient explanation for the religious opposition to the theory of evolution. Eventually, religious beliefs made peace with most cosmological advances in knowledge. Why is it that Darwin's theories are such a stumbling block to the faithful?
We are all familiar with the attempted reconciliations of materialistic explanations for the species manifest on this planet and religious inclinations. There are certain theologians who attempt to resign themselves to all of the physical explanations for the environmental citations and organic phenomena by revering a deity who established the laws of physics and the original state of the universe at or "before" the big bang and therefore is responsible not only for our existences but for a very "clever" means of producing us. (n.b. a deity whose characteristics can be known through nature and through the natural processes that produce our current manifestations of entities would also have to be convicted of capriciousness and indifference and cruelty by this model of course) Then there are the pathetic attempts of theologians to reverse engineer the bible so that it predicts and describes Darwin's amazing insights. (more on this later).
Thomas Henry Huxley's work On the Reception of the 'Origin of Species' (a work that in this reader's view is too positive about a potential accommodation and reconciliation between Darwin's theories and such religious ideas as 'natural theology' and attempts to underemphasize the natural proclivity that these two positions have for mutual conflict) states that, although the idea of a god that can be known through nature may still have merit, "that with which it does collide, and with which it is absolutely inconsistent, is the conception of creation, which theological speculators have based upon the history narrated in the opening of the book of Genesis."
There are two explanations for why religious persons feel a need to oppose evolutionary theories that are specific to Darwin's theory of natural selection. After I address these I wish to talk about a more fundamental element in this debate that I feel plays an important role in the creation of religious opposition to evolution by natural selection.
As to the first two reasons for this opposition that exist prior to what I will argue is a perhaps more important source for this opposition, these come from the fundamentalist camps in the religious communities. I mentioned before that Huxley did not see Darwin's ideas to be inherently opposed to religiosity as much as this paper attempt to propose, but one observation he did make was that although he believed that a god who is knowable through nature is still a possibility, those who believe that "a repository of venerable traditions of unknown origin" can have scientific authority are very mistaken about both scientific authority and those texts.
Huxley rightly makes fun of the theologians whom, he reports, have largely taken "refuge in one of two courses. Either they deny that Genesis was meant to teach scientific truth, and thus save the veracity of the record at the expense of its authority; or they expend their energies in devising the cruel ingenuities of the reconciler, and torture texts in the vain hope of making them confess the creed of Science."
The source for this torturing (such silly ideas as "god created the earth so that it looked really old with the bones of dinosaurs in it" or "there are 'gaps' in the record so when the Bible says that in seven days god created the heavens and the earth it means that the first day may have happened millions of years before the second" or other acrobatic absurdities that have no evidential support and hence no place in a scientific classroom no matter what stupid name they are put under (intelligent design, creation science, etc.). Those who advocate such nonsense are purposely trying to stultify American children in school and are no advocates of free inquiry.
These fundamentalist groups (ex. the institute for creation research or back to genesis ministries) state directly that they are interested in preserving biblical authority and that this interest motivates their opposition to Darwin's ideas.
So how controversial is the Theory of Evolution?
The author of this text does not claim to be a biologist or an evolutionist here, and has no need for such a claim. There are currently curricullae that are used in American private and home schools that claim a completely fatuous distinction in the scientific community between a scientific theory and a scientific law. Popular texts that are regarded as science instruction books for marketed to home-schoolers make this distinction and then suggest that the scientific community calls evolution only a theory to distinguish it from laws which are more established. This suggests that the theory of evolution is in such doubt that it is only a consideration of scientists who do not feel that it is an established scientific fact that has a consensus in the scientific community. As if "laws" like Newton's which are known to not be accurate are called laws because they are no longer questionable, while theories like Einstein's are in lesser repute.
But not all or even most religious persons are fundamentalists but there is a surprisingly large amount of disbelief over the theory of evolution in religious communities. This opposition is due to the fact that Darwin's theory of natural selection is a kind of a theory that is even more important than its specific details.
Even if Darwin's theories were proven false they would be worth studying and they would be almost as much of a threat to the religious establishments.
What justifies such an extraordinary claim? By providing a naturalistic explanation for difficult to understand phenomena Darwin's theories raise the awareness of students to the possibilities and satisfactions that exist in such explanations. "Religious explanations" (a contradiction in terms) claim to explain things merely by providing a name for their source. This "explanation" describes nothing and really is no explanation at all. This is evident when one watches the creationist videos that are available from a variety of religious sources. No mention of Yahweh or Allah enter these videos for most of their playings, the bodies of these videos are usually taken up with absurd "objections" to the theory of evolution by natural selection that reveal more than anything else that the authors of these videos do not even understand the theories that they are attempting to discredit. Then comes a moment when the obvious solution to all of the important scientific questions, that we have just been told are not adequately treated by Darwin's ideas, is presented--God must have made things in a special way to point to his existence. The thing that ought to be observed is that the Muslim videos of this genre are the same as the Christian ones and neither set shows how any of the natural phenomenon point to their idea of a creator in any way.
Enough of this digression, however; By being a candidate materialistic explanation for biological organisms, Darwin's theories changed not only what we think about this subject but how we think about scientific explanations in general.
The philosopher Danniel Dennett makes a distinction between postulated explanations for mysterious phenomena that are non-explanations that do nothing more than provide a name for the source and calling it magic. He analogizes these non-explanations as "sky-hooks" and opposes them to actual explanations analogized as crains.
When a good explanation is understood by the human mind, it is never satisfied to--it never can--go back to non-explanations. The power of good ideas is just too strong.
A good explanation often has a "duh" effect, when writing about his first real understanding of Darwin's ideas, the aforementioned Huxley said, "My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin,' was, 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!'"
And no amount of meliceous misrepresentation will destroy the power of good ideas in the minds of thinking men. Good ideas are tenacious and must be reconed with. The calumny characteristic of the religious responce to ideas like Darwin's may continue, but I dare say, anybody who wants to be respected for their views or thought of as a community leader (this desire belongs to a great many religiously minded opponents of evolution) will have to deal with the fact that serious thinkers do not dismiss Darwin's ideas off-hand. Every proponent of a supernatural origin of species that attacks Darwinian natural selection evinces a non-understanding of Darwin's ideas. This has been looked into extensively by the author and any counterexample, if it can be found, would be appreciated.
Richard Dawkins; in an interview for T5M, and available on you-tube; talks about the fact that Darwinian natural selection is a real explanation because it describes complex things in terms of less complex things. In this interview, which can be viewed here, Richard Dawkins argues that if it were not for the fact that we have a materialistic explanation for biological phenomenon, we would not be sceptical enough to demand such an explanation from physicists. He says that it is such an important theory because of its power to make people aware of satisfactory explanations. It is because of the powerful ability of Darwin's ideas to educate people and alter the way that they think that religion must be opposed to it.
