24 November is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s seminal work, On the Origin of Species. But as we draw to the close of 2009, one has to wonder if the extended celebrations of the great naturalist’s birth and work have had much of an impact on public consciousness.
Theos/ComRes polling conducted in October 2008 demonstrated that a significant proportion of the British adults - around 50% - either strongly oppose the theory of evolution or are simply confused about the issue. Around 10% of people consistently choose ‘Young Earth Creationism’ over evolution, and about 12% consistently prefer Intelligent Design. A British Council/Ipsos Mori poll conducted in March found that 54% of adults think that evolution should be taught alongside other theories in schools, a higher proportion than in the
This might leave you with the lingering sense that there are some big battles ahead. The opponents are ‘creationists’, putatively a movement of obscurantist religionists, promoting dark-age beliefs and working to undermine the hard won achievements of science and intellectual progress.
Doubting Darwin, published on Monday by Theos, seeks to get beneath surface of the often intemperate conversation taking place between evolution’s most strident defenders and its harshest critics. The report, an analysis of 50 in-depth interviews with creationists and other evolution sceptics carried out by the independent ethnographic research agency ESRO, finds that things are not quite as people might think. Under the rubric of creationism lie a host of different hostilities, critiques and responses to evolution. The report suggests that there are a few myths which need to be debunked.
The first myth is that there is such a thing as a movement which we can legitimately call ‘creationism’. This implies a unity where there is, in fact, only divergence and disunity. On issues as broad as the interpretation and importance of Scripture, the philosophy of science, the geological age of the earth, the relationship between science and faith, and even the central question of descent with modification, there is considerable disagreement. “Discussions amongst creationists are some of the most aggressive I know”, said one interviewee.
Take, for example, Intelligent Design, which has been said to be a common denominator or strategy behind which most creationists could gather: “It [ID] provides a minimum commitment label for anyone who is sceptical about evolution… The bulk of those in ID are Christian but there are certainly Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, secularists – a good number, a surprising number, who don’t have theistic principles at all”, said one respondent.
But compare this with the views of another interviewee: “I am no supporter of the ID movement. One difference being that they say ‘you can tell there is a designer’ and I say that from the New Testament we can tell what the designer is like, and who he is.” Here, the ideological fault line is between those who believe that evolution scepticism is only a part of the work of an evangelist (in the words of one interviewee, “presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ…I want to present the designer as the Intelligent God of the Bible”) and those who believe that evolution scepticism ought to be “abstracted from religious dogma” in order that it might be addressed in the public square, even though they themselves may come from theistic traditions. Add the growing phenomenon of Islamic creationism into the mix, with which the Christian ‘Young Earthers’ are most unlikely to find common cause, and you begin to get the picture of the countervailing factors at play.
The second myth is that evolution sceptics are, in the words of Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society, “…anti-science… Teaching it [creationism] to children is a form of intellectual child abuse.” The reality is more complicated. As one representative of a ‘creation science’ organisation put it, “People think creationists are about attacking sciences. Actually, I wish more Christian young people would go into sciences and I would like to see the sciences thrive.”
The evolution sceptics split mainly into two groups. There are those who have studied natural sciences – including biology – to an advanced level, and consciously seek to locate their evolution scepticism in scientific arguments by developing ‘creation science’ (scientific or pseudo-scientific discourses supporting evolutionary-sceptical accounts of human origins), although they may be motivated to do so by theological commitments. The other group has no formal training in science, but did not see their lack of knowledge in this regard as a good thing. Rather, they saw it as a disadvantage, as an “area of weakness”, and sought to remedy it with private study and engagement with the public debate.
This is not to say that the science practiced or enjoyed by evolution sceptics is good or coherent but it does suggest, at least, that they acknowledge science has a legitimate role in forming and legitimising our knowledge of the natural world. Many go further, valorising science to a surprising degree. We could speculate that this has led straightway to their insistence on (mis)reading the early chapters of Genesis as scientific accounts. To paraphrase theologian Howard Van Till, are they in fact allowing scientific forms of knowledge to make an illegitimate claim to superiority over other forms of truth?
Of course, from a number of evolution sceptics, we can find a critique and disavowal of scientific materialism. Instead, some respondents asserted, scientific facts could and should be interpreted within a Biblical framework:
Some scientists are approaching the question like the origin of life with their worldview, a materialist one, one in which there is no God. Just as I come to it with my worldview, my paradigm, which is that the Bible is the truth and everything else flows from that… but that does not mean that I am not a scientist of that I do not believe in scientific verification.
Creationist teacher
This is the intellectual superstructure which allows evolution sceptics to even talk about an idea like ‘creation science’. Darwin and his defenders have been operating within a particular framework that precluded particular kinds of answers (i.e., non-material answers), claim the sceptics. “Damn right we are!” cry
The third myth is that the way to take the wind out of creationist sails is fierce rebuttal and public derision in the mode of Richard Dawkins or Harry Kroto. On the contrary, if evolution scepticism could ever be moulded into a movement, it would be due in no small measure to the galvanising effects of Dawkins’ rhetoric:
Dawkins has been a good thing for Christianity. He has caused Christians to address a lot of issues more seriously than they have done in the past. He certainly has raised a lot of interest. One of the most popular things that I can do at a conference is to do a session on Dawkins.
Lecturer, Theological College
Darwin’s most ardent defenders and his harshest critics make the same kind of intellectual manoeuvre, conflating Darwin’s work with an undiluted atheism, highly antagonistic towards religious worldviews of all kinds. When evolution sceptics react against evolution on the basis that it is atheistic, each side has successfully authenticated and legitimised the other’s complaints. Equally, thriving on the other’s puritanical zeal for his or her position, each side reserves harsh attacks for those seeking to understand both religious worldviews and evolutionary theory at their respective best, and in their appropriate modes of discourse:
Richard Dawkins’ position is philosophically consistent. I think there is a philosophical consistency for an evolutionist to be atheist and a creationist to believe in God. But there is an inconsistency for a Christian to believe in evolution.
Representative, Creationist organization
If the public debate on faith and evolution is to move beyond its stale polarities, we could do worse than starting with rigorous analyses of the protagonists’ respective positions. The evolution-sceptical community is not really what reputation would make it. Listening carefully – knowing who ‘creationists’ really are and what they really think – is a first step to understanding the roots of their antagonism. In time, this understanding could undergird strategies which improve public engagement with science.
