Darwin and Scientific Humanism

Der Tagesspiegel has a review of the new exhibition on Darwin at the American Museum of Natural history in New York City.  But the reporter – Matthias Krause – is less interested in the exhibit itself than in the political and cultural divide that rages currently in the United States concerning evolution and "intelligent design":

Der Aufruhr, den sein Werk „On the Origin of Species“ auslöste, ist bis heute nicht verhallt. Nirgendwo tönt er derzeit lauter als im fundamental-christlichen Amerika des George W. Bush. Da wirkt die Ausstellung des American Museum of Natural History in New York wie eine Kampfansage. „Manche sagen, die Wissenschaft in unserem Land steht unter Beschuss“, bemerkt Direktorin Ellen V. Futter bei der Vorstellung der neuen Darwin-Schau, „aber es muss nicht die Wissenschaft gegen die Religion ausgespielt werden. Es ist möglich, an beides zu glauben: an Darwin und an Gott.“ Wobei das Wort „glauben“ hier zwei sehr verschiedene Dinge meint: das rationale Überzeugtsein von einer wissenschaftlichen Theorie – und die religiös-spirituelle Verbundenheit mit einer Idee namens Gott.

A better analysis of the controversy appeared earlier in Die Zeit. But the arguments for inteliigent design are demolished in a wonderful article by the Harvard socio-biologist Edword O. Wilson that appeared recently in Harvard Magazine.  Wilson starts out his piece by describing Darwin’s great achievement and how it has progressed in the 130 years after his death:

Joined with molecular and cellular biology, that accumulated knowledge is today a large part of modern biology. Its centrality justifies the famous remark made by the evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1973 that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” In fact, nothing in science as a whole has been more firmly established by interwoven factual documentation, or more illuminating, than the universal occurrence of biological evolution. Further, few natural processes have been more convincingly explained than evolution by the theory of natural selection or, as it is popularly called, Darwinism.

Turning to the Intelligent Designers, Wilson simply points out that there is not a shred of scientific evidence that supports their theory:

Flipping the scientific argument upside down, the intelligent designers join the strict creationists (who insist that no evolution ever occurred in the first place) by arguing that scientists resist the supernatural theory because it is counter to their own personal secular beliefs. This may have a kernel of truth; everybody suffers from some amount of bias. But in this case bias is easily overcome. The critics forget how the reward system in science works. Any researcher who can prove the existence of intelligent design within the accepted framework of science will make history and achieve eternal fame. He will prove at last that science and religious dogma are compatible! Even a combined Nobel Prize and Templeton Prize (the latter designed to encourage search for just such harmony) would fall short as proper recognition. Every scientist would like to accomplish such an epoch-making advance. But no one has even come close, because unfortunately there is no evidence, no theory, and no criteria for proof that even marginally might pass for science. There is only the residue of hoped-for default, which steadily shrinks as the science of biology expands.

Wilson argues that the advances in scientific knowledge refute both montheistic religions and "political behaviorism" (Marxism-Leninism) but point towards a more radical third way: Scientific Humanism:

Still held by only a tiny minority of the world’s population, it considers humanity to be a biological species that evolved over millions of years in a biological world, acquiring unprecedented intelligence yet still guided by complex inherited emotions and biased channels of learning. Human nature exists, and it was self-assembled. It is the commonality of the hereditary responses and propensities that define our species.

Can anyone argue with Wilson that the world’s great religions have been a source of conflict and human misery thoughout history? Maybe as a species we could do worse than to follow Darwin’s theory to its logical conclusion.

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