Skeptic: Extraordinary Claims, Revolutionary Ideas, and the Promotion of Science

an excerpt from
Why Darwin Matters

by Michael Shermer

Charles Darwin is back in the news, with Kansas school board members once again shifting seats Left and Right (with liberals this time winning out), leaving us with a perplexing paradox: in science, evolution is one of the half dozen most well supported theories, right up there with the big bang theory of cosmology and the germ theory of disease; yet, a 2005 Pew Research Center poll found that 42 percent of Americans hold strict creationist views that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” and that 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution in public schools, while 38 percent said they think evolution should be replaced by creationism in biology classrooms.

How can we explain the great divide between what scientists think and what the public accepts? Being that I was once a creationist when I was a born-again Christian student at Pepperdine University, but have since devoted much of my scientific career to defending the teaching of evolution through popular science books and magazines, I think I have an answer in the form of one general and six specific reasons.

The syllogistic reasoning behind the general fear of evolution is as follows: Evolution implies that there is no God, therefore … Belief in the theory of evolution leads to atheism, therefore … Without a belief in God there can be no morality or meaning, therefore … Without morality and meaning there is no basis for a civil society, therefore … Without a civil society we will be reduced to living like brute animals.

This is what bothers people about evolutionary theory, not the technical details of the science. Most people do not know, nor care about, adaptive radiation, allopatric speciation, phenotypic variation, assortative mating, adaptation and exaptation, gradualism and punctuated equilibrium, and the like. What people want to know is this: If my kids learn about evolution in school are they going to become atheists? Will we lose all meaning and morality? Will society go to hell in an immoral handbasket?

This general fear leads to six specific fears about evolution.

1. A general resistance to science. This reaction falls under the rubric of what I call the Conflicting Worlds Model of the relationship of science and religion, where one is forced to choose one over the other. In particular, if scientific discoveries do not appear to support religious tenets, believers tend to opt for religion, nonbelievers for science.
2. Belief that evolution is a threat to specific religious tenets. Many people attempt to use science to prove certain religious tenets, but when they do not appear to fit, the science is rejected. For example, the attempt to prove that the Genesis creation story is accurately reflected in the geological fossil record has led many creationists to conclude that the Earth was created within the past 10,000 years, which is in sharp contrast to the geological evidence for a 4.6 billion-year old Earth. If one insists on the findings of science squaring true with religious doctrines, this can lead to conflict between science and religion.
3. Misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. A significant problem is that most people know so little about the theory. In a 2001 Gallup poll, for example, a quarter of the people surveyed said they didn’t know enough to say whether they accepted evolution or not, and only 34 percent considered themselves to be “very informed” about the theory. Because evolution is so controversial, public school science teachers typically drop the subject entirely rather than face the discomfort aroused among students and parents.
4. The fear that evolution degrades our humanity. After Copernicus toppled the pedestal of our cosmic centrality, Darwin delivered the coup de gr¬ace by revealing us to be “mere” animals, subject to the same natural laws and historical forces as all other animals. Yet, Copernicus no longer generates controversy because his theory of heliocentrism is fully embraced, whereas Darwin’s theory remains controversial because people of faith have been told that it is a threat to their religion.
5. The equation of evolution with ethical nihilism. This sentiment was expressed by the neo-conservative social commentator Irving Kristol in 1991: “If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded—or even if it suspects—that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe.” Similar fears were raised by Nancy Pearcey, a fellow of the Discovery Institute in a briefing on Intelligent Design before a House Judiciary Committee of the United States Congress. She cited a popular song urging “you and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Pearcey went on to claim that since the U.S. legal system is based on moral principles, the only way to generate ultimate moral grounding is for the law to have an “unjudged judge,” an “uncreated creator.”
6. The fear that evolutionary theory implies we have a fixed human nature. The first five reasons for the resistance to evolutionary theory come almost exclusively from political conservatives. This last reason originates from liberals who fear that the application of evolutionary theory to human thought and action implies that political policy and economic doctrines will fail because the constitution of humanity is stronger than the constitutions of states.

All of these fears are baseless. If one is a theist, it should not matter when God made the universe—10,000 years ago or 10,000,000,000 years ago. The difference of six zeros is meaningless to an omniscient and omnipotent being, and the glory of divine creation cries out for praise regardless of when it happened. Likewise, it should not matter how God created life—whether it was through a miraculous spoken word or through the natural forces of the universe that He created. The grandeur of God’s works command awe regardless of what processes He used.

As for meanings and morals, it is here where our humanity arises from our biology. We evolved as a social primate species with the tendency of being cooperative and altruistic within our own groups, but competitive and bellicose between groups. The purpose of civilization is to help us rise above our hearts of darkness and to accentuate the better angels of our nature.

Believers should embrace science, especially evolutionary theory, for what it has done to reveal the magnificence of the divinity in a depth never dreamed by our ancient ancestors. We have learned a lot in 4,000 years, and that knowledge should never be dreaded or denied. Instead, science should be welcomed by all who cherish human understanding and wisdom.

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