Recently, a correspondent wrote: "I've read your article and I'm not
impressed with your charge that evolution theory is a form of
religion." The article in question was "Darwinism's theological
agenda" which draws attention to the consistent use of theological
arguments by Darwin and Darwinists. The claim that science has found
a way to rise above "beliefs" and "dogmas" is very widespread, and so
it is something that deserves to be re-examined frequently.
Perhaps surprisingly, a challenge to the 'belief-free science'
position has come recently from the pen of one of Darwinism's staunch
supporters. Michael Ruse is a well-known philosopher of science and
editor of the journal "Biology and Philosophy". In 1982, he was
prominent as a witness at the Arkansas creationism trial, claiming
that evolutionary biology is clearly science and creationism is
clearly non-science. Ruse's close involvement in the
Creation/Evolution debate has led him to scrutinise more closely the
relative importance of cultural, social and religious factors in the
scientists who have developed evolutionary theory. The book is called
"Mystery of Mysteries, is evolution a social construction?" (Harvard
University Press, 1999).
Inevitably, Ruse has to be selective. He discusses particular
"representative" individuals (and some will certainly regard this as a
weak point in his argument: what may apply to the selected few may not
apply to the community of evolutionary biologists). Erasmus Darwin is
the pre-Darwinian evolutionist; Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley
represent 19th Century Darwinism; early 20th Century figures are
Julian Huxley and Theodosius Dobzhansky; contemporary figures are
Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, E.O. Wilson,
Geoffrey Parker and Jack Sepkowski.
An interesting and informative review of the book appeared in Science
(284, 14 May 1999, 1131-1133) authored by the philosopher David Hull.
After setting the scene and explaining why Ruse is well equipped to
write the book, Hull says: "For each of the evolutionary biologists
that Ruse studies, he asks how do such traditional epistemic values as
predictive ability, consistency, and coherence contribute to the
biologist's work? He also investigates the influence of what he terms
"metavalues," those beliefs that scientists have about science itself.
To take one example: in the early days of science, references to God
in science were perfectly acceptable, but later such references were
excluded. Finally, Ruse examines whether such cultural factors as
beliefs in progress, male dominance, and individualism had significant
effects on the path that evolutionary biology has taken."
Erasmus Darwin is on one extreme of the spectrum: epistemic values are
minimal and metavalues maximal. Charles Darwin shifted the balance
dramatically, but he was only partially successful. According to
Ruse, evolutionary thought in the late 19th Century was "more
epistemically rigorous than it ever was; yet at all levels it is
thoroughly impregnated with culture" (p.80). Moving into the 20th
Century, the trend towards epistemic purity continued, especially with
the emphasis on mathematics by the Neo-darwinians. Nevertheless, the
leaders of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution all had strong
cultural/religious convictions. Hall says: "Although Ruse has no
trouble in setting out the extra-scientific views that these
evolutionary biologists held, showing causal connections of any kind
is much more difficult, particularly for religion and the substantive
content of science. Ruse makes as strong a case as he can in the few
pages available to him."
The heated exchanges that have taken place between Richard Dawkins and
Stephen Jay Gould, and between Richard Lewontin and E.O. Wilson
provide Ruse with much fruitful material to analyse. What emerges is
that there is a growing divide between the professional and the
popular publications of scientists. "Looking back on the history of
evolutionary biology as exemplified by this dozen or so biologists,
Ruse sees a steady increase in the influence of epistemic factors from
Erasmus Darwin to Jack Sepkowski and a corresponding diminution of
cultural factors. Yet, to make these extrapolations from his data,
Ruse has to introduce another consideration - professional versus
popular science. Present-day scientists exclude reference to the
cultural from their professional publication, reserving it, if used at
all, for their more popular writings".
That there are two complementary faces of science is an important
conclusion, especially when it is made by a professional philosopher.
We have an 'official face' of science (that is supposedly value free)
and a 'public face' (which is an undisguised naturalism). Only rarely
do those adhering to the official position get express themselves
'wrongly' - but when they do, the defenders of authentic naturalism
step in to keep everyone toeing the naturalistic line.
Ideologically "correct" science
Daniel Dennett (in his book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea") has taken
numerous Darwinians to task for exhibiting non-Darwinian thinking. In
particular, he has alerted people to the apparently insidious way that
biologists sneak 'purpose' into their scientific thinking.
A recent example of this ideological corrective influence is found in
the 6 May 1999 issue of Nature. Last year, Rutherford and Lindquist
(Nature, 396, 336-342) suggested that the heat-shock protein Hsp90 has
the effect of stabilising developmental pathways. This was thought to
foster the accumulation of hidden variants that can subsequently be
exposed by environmental challenges and may then be fixed by
selection. It was interpreted as "an explicit molecular mechanism
that assists the process of evolutionary change" and by someone who
commented on their work in Science, as "a way of saving up mutations
for a rainy day".
In their letter to Nature (1999, 399, 30), W. Joe Dickinson and Jon
Seger (of the University of Utah) say: "Such interpretations seem to
call for the evolution of properties that anticipate future needs.
But selection lacks foresight and no one has described a plausible way
to provide it."
Their last paragraph is quoted below in full:
"In the natural world, only living things (and their artefacts) have
'purposes', and natural selection is the ultimate source of all such
'purposeful' design [Reference to Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker].
When speaking of the function or purpose of some feature of an
organism, we are therefore referring to the selective advantages that
brought the feature into being and that maintain it in the face of
recurrent damaging mutations. It is especially important, in any
discussion of evolutionary processes, to observe the distinction
between function or purpose on the one hand, and effect or consequence
on the other. This is not a semantic quibble. Cosmic rays affect
evolution by causing mutations, but we would not claim that they exist
for that purpose. Similarly, developmental buffering and variable
mutation rates may influence the course of evolution, but this does
not mean that they evolved to that end."
It is interesting to see evolutionists calling fellow evolutionists to
account for their lapses towards 'direction', 'internal drive', or
'purpose'. Maybe the reason biologists find this concept so hard to
shed is more than cultural baggage - maybe they find the indications
of design compelling!
It is also interesting to see Dawkins' book "The Blind Watchmaker"
being used as the only referenced 'authority' for the position taken
by these correspondents. But more importantly, here is naturalism in
action! Lewontin's oft-cited remark applies: "We cannot allow a
divine foot in the door".
Summary
The conclusion, then, is that the academic literature related to
evolutionary explanations of origins conveys the illusion of
"value-free" science. Nevertheless, establishment science does have a
commitment to naturalism, and there are feedback mechanisms that
either prevent alternative ideologies seeing the light of day, or that
take to task those who unwittingly lapse into ways of thinking that
are even remotely associated with design or purpose in nature. To
find out more about the "belief-system" of evolutionary scientists,
one has to turn to their popular literature. This material is
generally overtly naturalistic and the vision of unguided,
unsupervised, purposeless, meaningless processes is not difficult to
find. Arguably, this is the message that is effectively communicated
and, in the public mind, these are the conclusions of "science".
How should Christians respond? We can learn from what Ruse and many
other contemporary philosophers are telling us: that scientists cannot
escape from the social and cultural contexts they find themselves in.
This is not denigrating the work of the scientific community, but it
is seeing it as the product of a socially and culturally-influenced
community. Science is a human activity, not one that can be
abstracted from the scientists doing the research. The Christian
contribution is to point out that man's fallen state has affected his
thinking. The philosophy of naturalism is the choice of people who
are in a state of alienation from God. These philosophical roots then
permeate the intellectual trees that grow up from them. The Christian
has a different foundation: our thinking is to be rooted in Theism and
the cosmos we study as scientists is to be understood as the creation
of God. The challenge for us is to develop scientific ideas worthy of
these roots.
David J. Tyler