The real challenge of Darwin

By Jason Byassee

“Darwinism is a lie.” Not the sort of comment one would expect in the guestbook of an exhibit on the greatness of Charles Darwin’s life and influence. What did the complainer expect?

Chicago’s Field Museum has presented Darwin in an effort to stem the rising antagonism toward evolution embodied in the Intelligent Design movement and in the high percentage of Americans who report to disbelieve his theory of origins. But why would someone who thinks Darwin is a lie have bothered to attend?

The exhibit, which closed January 1, strolled through Darwin’s life, focusing especially on his five-year voyage on the Beagle, after which he spent the rest of his life as a homebody, studying his finds. The exhibit’s brief attention to Darwin’s faith suggested that his discovery of natural selection was not responsible for his disbelief so much as the premature death of a beloved child—theodicy was a greater existential trial than the challenge to the biblical account of creation. The exhibit spent little time on the issue of social Darwinism—the reason for Marilynne Robinson’s ferocious attack on Darwin in her The Death of Adam—despite comments in Darwin’s late work that point in Herbert Spencer’s direction.

The designers were keen to show the possible synchronicity between faith and evolution. The exhibit included a running video with professing Christians testifying to the way evolution aids their faith, featuring Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, whose book The Language of God (Free Press) details his evangelical conversion by way of C.S. Lewis; and Kenneth Miller of Brown University, a practicing Catholic and prominent witness in the Dover trial against Intelligent Design. A third presenter said the sheer contingency of creaturely existence on this planet furthers his faith by leaving him humbled and awed.

The professing scientists annoyed another guestbook signer who called the video “truly pathetic” and a clear sop to the exhibit’s “donors” (a strange conclusion, as the Field Museum organized the exhibit itself, in collaboration with several other museums). Presumably the signer wanted the exhibit to make plain that Darwin vanquished God, and the museum only lacked the courage to do so for funding reasons. Not to worry, gentle atheist: reading selections from Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett in the exhibit’s bookstand will strike the fatal blow to the deity for you (apparently the bookstore’s manager failed to get the memo about placating the donors).

The glimpse into Darwin’s life was unlikely to convert any Darwin haters who might wander in. The most interesting difficulty Darwinism raises for Christianity is felt not only by fundamentalists or six-day creationists. All Christians are challenged to articulate how the sheer unlikeliness of our existence here—amidst countless species who did not survive natural selection—is a witness to the goodness of a creator God. That’s tough to do. But it’s easier to take on this challenge than to ignore the bones that Darwin dug up.

Comments

[James McGrath]

I hope you'll find the time to participate in (and spread the word about) the blog-a-thon scheduled for Evolution Weekend (February 8-10).

http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2008/01/evolution-weekend-blog-thon-february-8.html

[Roy Howard]

I appreciate your summons for Christians to think carefully about the challenge of Darwin. Certainly Marilynne Robinson's essay is a required reading for such an effort. In fact, if as many folks read carefully Death of Adam as did Gilead, the conversation would be raised to a higher level all around.

[Jason Byassee]

It's a very important book. My friend Michael Hanby has an article in Theology Today equally critical of Darwinism, also because he thinks it can't be separated from social darwnism--Marilynne R's main point. He also claims it doesn't offer a mechanism, it just describes what happens: those with adaptations that make them fitter survive. Well how? Well, they're fitter, so they survive. I think random mutation may be what he's looking for there, and may do more descriptive work than he lets on.
Anyway, both very good arguments against Darwinism itself, but neither Robinson nor Hanby is committed to arguing against adaptation in the fossil record. I do think it's a mistake to lump all opponents of Darwin into one camp and call it "mindless." The creation museum people in Kentucky and Marilynne are quite different.

[Suzy]

It's not particularly accurate to conflate Darwinism and all of genetic theory. We're well past that, just as in every other science we've built on some early theories and discarded others. To say that Darwin's inadequacies disprove "evolution" is illogical. I believe it was Don Marquis who said that an idea is not responsible for those who believe in it. Ridiculing Darwin does not make the science go away.

Social Darwinism is a whole 'nother topic I have neither the time nor the expertise to address, except to say that it's probably instructive in that regard to study how humans, especially in the medical fields, have managed to change some processes by which selection occurs, and to devise others. Do the moral implications so many of us find troublesome indicate that the mechanism itself is inherently immoral, or just that humans will always find ways to serve their own selfish purposes? That's a question we as Christians have confronted in other ways.

As a side note, have any of you been reading Olivia Judson's columns in the NYTimes? They're well worth seeking out.

[Jason Byassee]

I think that's the key question: whether social darwinism can be separated from the empirical science. Robinson and Hanby are arguing it really can't. That creationists would also take up this argument doesn't make it wrong. I trust even if they're right they wouldn't advocate studied ignorance of the fossil record. If we're past dismissing Darwin because of the harm done with his ideas we can also push past not disagreeing with him on some points simply because fundamentalists do. Jerry Coyne at the U of C wrote in the New Republic (I think I have those facts right, not checking) that the difference between him and a creationist is he'd happily toss all of Darwin if someone came up with a better account of the origin of species, whereas creationists can't toss their account of origins on any grounds whatsoever.

[Bob Cornwall]

Jason,

Thanks for the report. The challenge of science to faith is signicant, but as you point out it is doable -- as Collins and Miller can attest (along with many others). The social Darwinism issue is, I think, a different situation.

Like James above, I'll be doing the Evolution Weekend thing -- for the 3rd consecutive year. Whatever the challenges, we must live with Darwin and the theory of evolution. Burying our heads in the "biblical" sands won't make it go away.

[Jason Byassee]

I think you and Suzy must be right Bob. I've never known a defender of Darwin on the fossil record who was also a defender of social darwinism (and, in fact, have known some creationists who WERE social darwinists!). I still take Robinson and Hanby's point--that scientific knowledge doesn't always come innocent. Amy Frykholm and I have articles on this in the new Century, for what it's worth.

[John C. Bonser]

During the last dozen years I have been a participant in a small bible study group made up of Christian Reformed Church members, Baptists, and a Lutheran (me). Over all it has been a good experience. There are times when I must remind some that "liberals" did not invent sin. Several years ago when one member was on an anti-evolution ti raid, I commented, "I fail to understand why we are compelled to tell God how he had to have done it." The only sign that I had been heard was the deafening silence that descended upon us. One member who was a real asset never came back after that. I have missed his contributions.

We need to realize that even though theologically we are worlds apart, spiritually we are one!

[Mark]

"I fail to understand why we are compelled to tell God how he had to have done it."

Interesting, since He told US how He did it. Not the other way around. I'm honestly confused as to what kind of "Christian" web site this is. The one article I find to read tears down Biblical authority, mocking salvation by putting "the sinner's prayer" in quotes.

70% of college students walk away from church after moving out of the parent's house precisely because they don't think they can believe the authority of scripture.

Evolutionists are always telling us that humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. If we did assume that humans have been around for 50,000 years and if we were to use the conservative estimate of a doubling in population every 150 years, there would have been 332 doublings, and the world’s population would be a staggering figure—a one followed by 100 zeros; that is

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

This figure is truly unimaginable, for it is billions of times greater than the number of atoms that are in the entire universe! Such a calculation makes nonsense of the claim that humans have been on earth for tens of thousands of years.

Simple, conservative arithmetic reveals clear mathematical logic for a young age of the earth. From two people, created around 6,000 years ago, and then the eight people, preserved on the Ark about 4,500 years ago, the world’s population has easily grown to the extent we now see it—over 6.5 billion.

This is just one small example of how the young age of the earth and Creation, and thus Biblical authority are supported again and again by geology, history, astronomy, oceanography, biology, botany, common sense, and yes, math.

[Bruce]

I agree with your assessment of the population. Gregory Mendel, the famous geneticist would agree with you. The population would be incredibly staggering. What is also staggering is that people have embraced this preposterous myth of the evolution of man.

[Jess]

No, actually; the reason that there are only 6 billion people on the planet currently is actually the VERY SAME reason that natural selection works in the first place!

Remember, the point of natural selection is that the fit survive and the unfit perish. The last two words are important there-- the unfit perish-- natural selection works BECAUSE so many people die. Those who are most genetically fit live to adulthood, reproduce, and raise offspring that can survive; those who do not die off.

Why did the population not double every 150 years? Because only a select group of humans were able to survive.

Why is the population *currently* doubling so quickly? Because of our civilization. Remember, organized civilization has only been around for about 5000 years (a bit longer). Analysis of current hunter-gatherer societies suggests that in order for man to live in tribes by hunting and gathering, as they did for most of the dawn of mankind, they require *one square mile to feed one person*. Think about that! Think about how many square miles were inhabited for most of that period; it was mostly only Africa. The human population was limited by the amount of land available because hunter-gatherers require so very much land to get all the food they need. For tens of thousands of years the human population remained stable, only growing insofar as migrating to new lands allowed more humans to live (and this happened very slowly).

Then, humans start farming, start planting crops, start domesticating animals. Suddenly you can support lots of people from a small amount of land! This barrier out of the way, human beings could reproduce much more quickly, which lead to the current population explosion.

Also, in response to Mark saying: "I'm honestly confused as to what kind of "Christian" web site this is...
70% of college students walk away from church after moving out of the parent's house precisely because they don't think they can believe the authority of scripture."

No. Not at all. They walk away from the church because they don't think they can reconsile the scripture with the facts that they are learning in college-- facts that seem to have a whole lot more evidence backing them up.

I'm a college student who was raised religiously but (actually starting in high school) began having crises of faith because it felt like there were two options, Christianity and intellectualism, and that the two were mutually exclusive. Thanks to The Christian Century, I finally realized that I can be both. I can both hold my faith in God and Jesus very close to my heard, AND be an intellectual who is able to approach the facts unafraid that they will contradict my faith.

Without the Christian Century I may very well have abandoned my faith... this site has been such a help to me.