In a little over three weeks, on July 10, it will be exactly 80
years since John Scopes went on trial, charged with teaching evolution
as briefly set forth in "A Civic Biology Presented in Problems" by
George W. Hunter.
Echoes of this notorious "monkey trial" continue to resound: A
school board in Georgia tries to put stickers on biology textbooks
advising that evolution is "a theory, not a fact." A Pennsylvania
school district wants science teachers to inform students that
"intelligent design" is an alternative to Darwinian theory, a notion
gaining support in at least 20 states, with Kansas in the lead. These
publicized disputes, furthermore, are only the tip of an iceberg of
passive resistance, by many school boards and teachers who want to
avoid controversy, to teaching evolution at all.
Opponents of such resistance can scarcely contain their
exasperation. Why won't this conflict just go away? Why must the
American Civil Liberties Union, which recruited Scopes so long ago to
challenge Tennessee's anti-evolution statute, still be at it? How can
it be that almost half the population rejects the idea that humans have
evolved, and almost two-thirds want some form of creationism taught in
public school science classes?
Michael Ruse has an answer. A professor of philosophy at Florida
State University, he is, by his own account, "an ardent Darwinian," who
testified for the A.C.L.U. in its successful challenge to a creationist
law in Arkansas.
In "The Evolution-Creation Struggle" (Harvard, 2005), Professor Ruse
takes a long look at why opponents of evolution feel so threatened and
why evolutionists are so surprised and perplexed at the opposition.
"The full story," he writes, "is far more complex than any of us,
including (especially) us evolutionists, have realized." In his view,
evolutionary thought and the strand of Christianity that rallied to
oppose it were two "rival religious responses" to an existing crisis of
faith stemming from the rationalism of the Enlightenment and its
19th-century sequel.
Although Darwin's own work was a model of professional science, a
great deal of evolutionary thought before and after him, in Professor
Ruse's judgment, deserves to be termed evolutionism, a kind of secular
religion built around an ideology of progress.
That ideology was not necessarily wrong, but it threw evolutionary
theory into one of the two camps increasingly dividing Christians: the
liberal postmillennialists, who believed that the building of Christ's
rule on earth was already under way, and the conservative
premillennialists, eagerly anticipating Christ's Second Coming.
Casting the evolution-creation struggle into the framework of the
postmillennial-premillennial struggle does not always make for a tidy
fit. But one point becomes indisputable. From the beginning,
evolutionary theory has been drenched in religion. The aggressors in
the warfare between theology and science were not just religious
believers insisting that their ancient Scriptures were the basis of
scientific truths but scientific enthusiasts insisting that
evolutionary theory was the basis for conclusions about religion.
Many of the latter were of course what Professor Ruse calls
proponents of evolutionism and pseudoscience. (The biology text at the
center of the Scopes trial, along with useful advice about diet and
regular bowel movements, reflected eugenics, then fashionable, in
warning that allowing the birth of "parasites" like the mentally and
physically handicapped would be "criminal.") But as Professor Ruse
notes, as genuine science no less than as pseudoscience, "Darwinian
evolutionary theory does impinge on religious thinking."
The challenge to literal readings of the creation stories in Genesis
is the least of it. Other elements of Darwinism go right to the heart
of any belief in a caring, almighty God.
The power of strictly natural interactions of random events and
reproductive advantage over huge spans of time to explain the emergence
of diverse and complex life forms appears to render the guiding role of
such a God superfluous. The grim picture of those life forms, including
humanity, emerging through a ruthlessly cruel process of natural
competition appears to render such a God implausible.
The vigorous arguments made by Darwinians like Richard Dawkins and
Daniel C. Dennett to the effect that contemporary evolutionary theory
has buried all traditional religious beliefs may not be conclusive, but
they cannot be dismissed, nor rebutted simply by the fact that some
evolutionists continue to be believers.
Then there is the debate about the "methodological naturalism" that
for purposes of scientific investigation restricts explanations to
findings about material nature. Does "methodological naturalism" lead
inexorably to a "metaphysical naturalism" holding that material nature
is in fact the whole of reality?
Professor Ruse says no. But he acknowledges that the slippery slope
is there. And "though many evolutionists may themselves be willing to
make the slide," he writes, "they should not be surprised when others,
seeing a slippery slope from methodological naturalism to metaphysical
naturalism, stop themselves at the top of the hill."
In the end, Professor Ruse's new book suggests that the religious
resistance to evolutionary theory is a lot more understandable and a
lot less unreasonable than its opponents recognize. The neat formula
"evolutionary biology is evolutionary biology, religion is religion,
and the former belongs in public schools but the latter does not"
cannot do justice to the fuzzy reality of the evolution-religion
hybrid.
Professor Ruse does not offer an alternative formula or delve into
the church-state questions raised by proposals to include creationist
or intelligent-design ideas in school curriculums. He entertains hope
that Christian and atheistic evolutionists can unite in defense of the
"huge overlap" in their scientific positions and in their commitment to
a "postmillennial philosophy" of human progress.
But his ultimate appeal is for greater modesty and self-awareness.
"Those of us who love science," he writes, "must do more than simply
restate our positions or criticize the opposition. We must understand
our own assumptions and, equally, find out why others have (often)
legitimate concerns. This is not a plea for weak-kneed compromise but a
more informed and self-aware approach to the issue."
_______________
Michael P.
