It seems ridiculous I know but (I believe) thanks to institutional religious objection this vital subject has been omitted from the lives of primary school children in the UK since it was first discovered by Darwin over 150 years ago. Evolution is a central pillar to understanding our place in the universe and why we are here, nothing in Biology makes sense without it and it is utterly corrosive to (most) religious belief systems. Many religious people claim to be comfortable with Evolution, some even embellish it with quaint little superstitious plug-ins, but in my experience this is done because of the incontrovertible evidence and a desire not to look stupid rather than any deep and meaningful theological thinking. Most religious people I know refuse to accept the logical conclusions resulting from a proper investigation of evolution, i.e. that humans are not special, we do not have dominion over nature and that any purpose we have in our lives is put there by our evolved brains and not an omniscient superman in the sky.
17 comments:
Steve
Why can't I just accept evolution on the evidence, like anyone else? Since that's why I do. That's not because I don't want to look stupid, it's because it's obviously right.
"Humans aren't special..." - on this planet we certainly are, because we're the ones with the ability to destroy the joint. That's special, but not a good one. But I'd turn it round and say that actually the whole universe is special. We're special because everything is.
If any purpose is in our minds only because that's how we've evolved, then that purpose is a lie, and clearly to be rejected in the interests of truth. We can give up in the knowledge the whole thing's doomed and meaningless, in the knowledge that we're being honest (meaningless as that would be itself without artificial constructions). And we know where we are - if that's the truth. However if God is the God of the universe, and not of the clockwork wind-up charade that some Christians believe in (I really must try to get out and meet some of them - they don't go to our church) then meaning can be embedded through our naturally-evolved and God-given minds, and there's no contradiction and no opposition.
Sorry, forgot to say... you're bang on about evolution in primary school. That's what I've always explained my kids. That and the importance of burning heretics ;)
G, if everything is special then nothing is special surely? Actually I was thinking more of the belief that God made this universe specifically for us (Humans), I'm pretty sure this is a core Christian belief isn't it?
Evolution proposes that complex things have to come from simple things, if you then propose that a massively complex thing by definition (i.e. God) is required in order to create the simple things in the first place, then you are contradicting the theory in my view. I've heard a lot of believers work around this by suggesting that God is outside our universe, I can't take that too seriously because that's not the God I see described in the prevalent faiths. I didn't study theology formally but I have read fairly extensively on the subject and most seem to me to describe an intervening Deity who answers prayers, performs miracles and affects outcomes etc. therefore by definition must interface with our universe somehow.
Of all scientific theories only Evolution is problematic to such an extent; I question why this is the case if religious people don't have a problem with it; certainly this is not a one size fits all by all means, but when I try to put myself in the shoes of the believer I can see why it might be problematic to accept the deductive thoughts that spring from evolution (I have no doubt the mechanisms are accepted by most educated people)
I'm interested why you think that if there is no higher purpose that we must automatically assume that the whole thing is "doomed and meaningless". I don't believe in God but perversely I feel that this gives me a perspective which permits a greater opportunity for creating my own purposes in life than perhaps any Christian could. Perhaps I am a freak of nature, who knows, but believing that my life is pre-determined, that my every thought was being monitored and that someone was tortured to death so that I can scapegoat the bad things I do is a horrible thought for me, I actually like the idea that it's entirely down to me to make the most of my three score years and ten.
G, I agree, we need to teach Evolution to our kids, it's such a wonderfully beautiful and awesome thing, staggeringly elegant and such a powerful idea; to deny them the chance to learn about it is criminal IMO.
As for burning heretics, I can think of plenty I'd like to burn, well, just their toes at least :)
My purpose is to serve and obey - just like any male of the species.
CB, ah, I see you follow the same school of philosophy as my wife...
Hi Steve
Thanks for some good questions. I've tried some responses ("answers" would be inaccurate).
1. How can something as improbable, huge, beautiful and terrifying as the universe not be special? We're made from dead stars. What's not to be special?
2. "Evolution proposes that simple things come from complex things" - Maybe evolution does. But a lot of that's just a matter of accretion - eg leftover RNA or the appendix. The 2nd law of Thermodynamics trumps evolution. Once that's kicked in, the whole universe will be a homogeneous custard of randomness. Simpler than evolution then, I reckon. Is this simplicity/complexity business a bit of a red herring?
3. Christianity teaching that humanity's the peak - I thought that was old-school Darwinian Victorianism and Marxism? Yes, the Bible says we're made in the image of God. So you don't treat anyone else as dirt. You don't get that from first principles otherwise, only from an artificial set of values. Where did they come from? The hangover of Christianity I suspect. If you started from "here's a load of human beings - what should we do with them", then "treat them all as of equal worth" doesn't fall out logically.
BUT:
BUT 1 - Here, today, we are in many ways pretty special. We're the only species we currently *know* to be self-aware (and not many others may be). We're definitely the only ones currently able to totally wreck the joint. That gives us god-like powers over this world. But it's a specialness of responsibility. Since we're the ones that can trash the place, we're the ones that should be working out how not to.
BUT 2 - I believe on historical grounds that Jesus Christ was the Son of God - God, in human form, on this planet. That means that this specific interaction is of relevance to me, as a human being. What it means to the rest of creation I can only guess at. Romans says that the whole creation is waiting for renewal. Sounds very grand, very universal. The hope for human beings is part of a hope for the whole of creation. But was that because Jesus came as a human being? Don't know. Don't care actually - any answer is unachievable, untestable and ultimately meaningless to me as a human being.
BUT 3 - the Bible doesn't take much interest in extra-terrestrials. I've no idea what's out there - the mediocrity principle says trillions of planets with intelligent life; the anthropomorphic principle, rather less. Either way - I can't presume to know how God relates to them, whether the aliens are as capable of terrible behaviour as we are, whether they're all Oods who just want to hold hands. If we ever meet them (unlikely as it is) maybe we'll get some clues. If God was incarnate among them - it would be interesting to find out.
It's a beautiful world, as Gussy Fink-Nottle once remarked. Full of mystery and truth to be discovered. And meaning.
btw, the RCC is hosting a fascinating symposium on extra-terrestrial life. Presumably alien priests will be OK, but only if they're male aliens... http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2009/11/et-calls-the-pope.html
And as for meaning - In a world that ends with death, all meaning is temporary and conditional; all morality utterly conditioned by evolution and culture or invented. No doctor in the world can do anything other than postpone death, no political party can do anything other than try to keep us happy (or scared) to stay in power; philosophy gives up on meaning and just plays with the meaning of language.
If the world really is like that we should face it - you can't believe in something just because you don't like the alternative. If atheism is true, we're just a bunch of monkeys clinging to a dying rock, (ht Frankie Boyle).
But the meaninglessness of a godless world is no reason to take up religious belief. Maybe I'm just genetically set up to believe? In which case, at least the evidence is I'll be an evolutionary success...
cheers
Gary
G, many thanks for taking the time to contribute, it's a cool topic.
I wish I was smart enough to do theoretical physics in this day and age LHC et al; so many pivotal discoveries seem just around the corner, anyway here's what I think about what you have said,
1. Well of course it’s special if you only look at it from our (Homo sapiens) perspective, but seen from the perspective of the universe our little lot is pretty insignificant.
2. The 2nd law of TD doesn't "trump" evolution at all, you are ignoring the "energy" side of the equation? The "evolution" of the universe or at least our current understanding of it is entirely consistent with it. I don't think the simplicity/complexity thing is a red herring; it's actually the key to understanding IMO. The inversion of logic that Darwin achieved is the thing that people find most difficult to understand, (Alan Turing came up with a similar inversion), the inversion is that competence can build consciousness; if you think about it humans are automatically drawn to concluding things the other way around because we start with consciousness, we can’t help it. In other words lots of very simple things acting together can lead to complex entities which look like they have been must have been "designed", protons, atoms, molecules, cells, termites, men, planets, stars and universes and so on. The vital ingredient is time and lots of it.
3. Maybe this (Human) supremacist view is an old fashioned notion here in the 1st world among educated Christians and Atheists but I’m not sure that is true elsewhere, in majority of Islam’s followers for example. The golden rule as used by Jesus in his sermon on the mount is profound and useful, no question about that, however it wasn’t Christ that noticed this first, I think you have to look to more ancient societies like the Chinese to see it originally codified. This makes me suspect an evolved (Human) morality, not a divine one.
I agree that we are “special” in our own trousers (so to speak) but to me that just means we need to be responsible for ourselves, our lives, our behavior, our planet etc. I suppose you could say that this view reinforces my own conviction that it’s all about us, here, now. We are not the only self aware species however, chimps and orangutans are also. If evolution is right then chances are it’s only a matter of time before more become so, you and I probably won’t be here to see it though!
ET is an interesting question, I love the work being done now to find exo-planets, I’m convinced we’ll find life elsewhere the statistics would suggest it’s highly probable, but again, perhaps not in our lifetime. Those boys at NASA need to get cracking with WARP drive!
I find it interesting that religious people are so obsessed with “meaning”, maybe there is a genetic element to it? I couldn’t care less about meaning, what does Ayres rock “mean”.. who cares, some questions are just stupid questions, what matters to me is human solidarity and ensuring that we treat each other decently so that we thrive and ensure the success of the next generation, I’d be content with that.
Love Frankie Boyle, some of his stuff is quite toe-curling though; Tim Minchin came up with a similar line in his live show which I saw recently, it made me chuckle.. I use it a lot in the office now when talking about troublesome customers
“We’re just monkeys in shoes”
Hi Steve
2nd law trumps everything, including the energy side of the equation. Entropy in a closed system always increases with any change.
Evolution (and life) gives a false impression of the opposite - but what we're actually doing is spewing chaos all around us into the environment. Which is why tidying a room is the ultimate self-defeating process. Or so I tell myself...
The only way is down. Unless the universe isn't closed of course?
cheers
Gary
I hit the character limit last night and spent ten minutes stripping extraneous words, so might be safer to comment in chunks...!
Self-awareness - only if it conveys a genuine evolutionary advantage. Interesting listening to Marcus de Sautoy saying that chimps are believed to lose their self-awareness in their last ten years or so, because otherwise realising their own mortality would get them down. So it's presumably a deeply two-edged sword. Clearly its effect is to increase what some these days would cause "social cohesion", but at what a price!
And the Golden Rule - you're quite right. CS Lewis quotes variant examples from Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, Jewish, Norse and Christian sources, not to mention Locke, in "The Abolition of Man". Did evolution put it in us? Based on self-awareness, yes probably. You can guess one would flow from the other. I'd love to bright enough to come up with the experiment, though.
Hey G,
Evolution on our planet is not operating in a closed system though is it.. We have a giant ball of gas undergoing thermonuclear reactions nine million miles away that puts energy into "our" system, it's only overall entropy that decreases according to 2LTD, nothing in the law prevents local subsystems gaining entropy whilst others lose it.
(BTW The 2LTD is an old creationist canard!, I know how you love those guys :):)
You are quite correct (scientifically) about tidying things up though, I used the same logic regarding my garden!
As for the universe being closed, who knows!, although I did see a cracking youtube the other day about that by Lawrence Krauss
It's recorded at an Atheist do, so if you can overlook the (sometimes childish) anti-religious jibes the science parts are a reasonable way of spending 10 minutes IMO.
Ooops, sorry, I meant overall increase not decrease!
G, I saw that Marcus de Sautoy program too, fascinating!
You would think that self awareness must be a huge evolutionary advantage? The ability to mentally project ourselves forwards in time in order to plan out how we are going to kill the mammoth or survive the winter (especially as a team) would anecdotally seem useful, if not revolutionary.
I don't think chimps losing there self awareness so late would be material to evolution because presumably they would have reproduced by then, the selection would have already happened? I don't recall that part of the program (maybe it's a series?) if correct it's interesting though, perhaps chimps have a degenerative disorder, much like human spines!
The experiment would be to allow a several populations to develop in isolation and see what emerges against a control, problematic ethically I suspect! The fact that empathy et al is observed in other species is a bit of a give away too though IMO.
Hi Steve
Sorry, I caused a certain amount of trouble elsewhere in the blogosphere and had other things to worry about for a while. Didn't want to let it lie....
The Creationist use of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is, as exposed most spectacularly in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, an utter utter utter lie. Of course it is. As I said, evolution locally looks like decreasing entropy (because organisation and complexity are, on that very local level, increasing. But animals maintain that organisation by spewing entropy everywhere else. So 2nd Law is true in this instance. BUT it doesn't last forever does it? Even if the earth weren't destined to burn to a cinder when the sun explodes, or get dragged out of orbit by some passing supergiant or any of the other things that could happen, or even if the human race can escape from the earth and go and trash some other place, eventually the whole universe winds down in heat death. One day (metaphorical day - all the stars will be dead) S will be totally Delta'ed, and it's all over. Nice and simple then.
Or - conceptually - Time's Arrow switches and we go Gnab Gnib. But presumably that would mean evolution going backwards.
Either way, the idea that Christians need to create a more-complex thing to explain complexity seems like a total irrelevance or possible just standing up an argument to knock it down. If read Prof Dawkins arguing it and still don't see what it's got to do with anything. I can't even disagree with him on this, because it doesn't seem a meaningful thing to argue about,
Hi G,
You, trouble, surely not?
Yep, agree, it will all come crashing down at some point, I think we probably have more pressing problems to deal with first though, like surviving the next 500 years without webbed feet! Not sure I agree about the irrelevance of the complexity argument though, for me it seems like a cop out to defer it all up to something inexplicable.
I think to get "Dawkins" you have to appreciate his motivation (apart from selling books) he does seem (to me at least) to be genuinely interested in what's true (scientifically) at the expense of what is practical to know, a pedantic position I suppose; so from that perspective I think the argument holds water.
I'm seeing him tomorrow night, I'll try and ask him! :)
I'm going to be recommending "The Greatest Show on Earth" in a talk I'm doing this week, as an imaginative, exciting way of showing the truth of evolution. He's a really good communicator of his branch of science. Ironically, but not surprisingly, we hear less of this than we should.
G, I agree he does a good job of explaining Biology and science in general (in his comfort zone), we don't hear enough about that. Come to think of it we don't hear enough about the wonders of reality full stop; once most people get beyond David Attenborough that's it!
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