The Dogma of Evolution: natural selection

‘The doctrine (of evolution) has been presented to us under four different aspects.


The first of these is the general statement of scientific evolution. From the facts which have been accumulated by biologists relative to organic species and heredity, a general law of evolution has been accepted as part of biological science. According to this law, species are mutually related in such a way that those forms now in existence are modified forms of previous species. Since this law is capable of statement as a scientific generalization which can be supported by observation and experimentation it is a thoroughly justifiable assumption and one with which we have no quarrel.


Secondly, the attempt has been made to determine the cause of evolution and the method by which species vary. From this attempt have risen the hypotheses of natural selection, inheritance of acquired traits, mutations, etc. I have contended that these hypotheses are not proved and are really metaphysical and unverifiable in character.


Thirdly, the hypotheses of the cause and method of evolution inevitable lead to a mechanistic philosophy in which the phenomena of live are to be explained by physical and chemical processes. Biology is thus linked with physics. The facts are against this mechanistic view of life and the hypotheses are unjustifiable assumptions.


Fourthly, the hypotheses of biological evolution have been expanded to include psychological realm of consciousness and the social and ethical life of man. This aspect of evolution is based, not on the scientific foundations of biology, but on the metaphysical attempts included in the second and third categories. It is this phase of evolution which has created confusion and disaster.’ (L. More, p. 303f)

An Evolutionary argument against Naturalism: atheist

‘Richard Dawkins once leaned over and remarked ... he couldn’t imagine being an atheist before 1859 (the year Darwin’s Origin of Species was published); ... “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”’(A. Plantinga p. 28)

Origin of Species: Science

 ‘It is almost unaccountable that his contemporaries regarded his Origin of Species as a model of scientific accuracy and thought and passed this estimate on to us, when a careful analysis of his contents shows that his argument for natural selection is based on the vague confirmation from geology that species have in some way changed and on the analogy of changes in domesticated animals and plants by man’s selective breeding. Only a few in England, notably Sedgwick, realized at once and wrote to Darwin, that he had taken the generally known law of change and had narrowed it down to a specific method of variation unsupported by any adequate body of facts, and had written of natural selection as if it were done consciously by a selecting agent; in Germany, Darwinism made progress; only the French were clear-sighted enough to see the insufficient character of the proofs’


‘Darwin was not elected a member of the French Academy until 1878 (remark: 4 years before he died and 16 years after ‘Origin of Species’; was frist published) and then in the Botanical Section. He writes to Dr. Gray that it was something of a joke as his knowledge of botany was rudimentary. It appears that an eminent member of the Academy wrote to Les Mondes to the following effect: ‘What closed the doors of the Academy to Mr. Darwin is that the science of those in his books which have made his chief title to fame - the Origin of species and still more the Descent of man - is not science but a mass of assertions and  absolutely gratuitous hypotheses, often evidently fallacious.’ (L. More, p. 195f)

‘Darwin’s reputation was made into a sort of mythical cult; every weakness of character was transferred to the credit side of the ledger. He was said to be a second Newton, to have done for biology what his predecessor had accomplished for mechanics.’ (L. More, p.189)

Genes and DNA Evolution

‘They seem likely to move further away from regarding this or any other of their models as final and direct description of the world, and towards treating each having only limited and provisional use. It would accordingly be very naive to use quantum mechanics as Monod apparently wants to, to prove a lapse of order as an objective fact.’ (M. Midgley, p. 80)

‘It is now clear that no mechanical explanation is available ... . Of course, molecular biologists generally ignore the implications of physics, except when these implications support their own position.’(David Bohm cited by M.Midgley p. 99)

‘He wants to give a special status to science, to show it as the one thing which does have real, undeniable value. Since he has just stressed that no values are given and that we must be equally free to accept or reject anything, this is hard.’


‘... (Monod) calls for ‘censorship’ to preserve its (science) purity. Accordingly he presents ‘objective knowledge as the only source of real truth.’ So what sort of truth do we deal with in everyday life, in personal relations or in the study of history? And since scientists frequently disagree and change their theories, which scientific truth are we to accept?


‘David Bohm reasonably remarks on the extreme dogmatism, shared by Monod and by the religious authorities, ... One could indeed regard the postulate of objectivity as a paraphrase of former articles of religious faith which people were required to accept. ... To carry the parallel further, it was supposed by the church that, if man is to be good, he must freely assent to God’s will (as interpreted by the religious authorities) ... . Both the religious authorities and Monod agree on the need of a strict ‘censorship’ of views contrary to what is right and good. They both talk in terms of ‘commandments.’ In effect, Monod is proposing that objective scientific knowledge should replace religion, not only as a source of knowledge of the world, but also as a source of authority which determines the whole man’s being, even his innermost feelings and aspirations’ (M. Midgley, p. 85f)

‘Like successful Chicagogangsters, our Genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years,...’ (R. Dawkins, cited by M.Midgley p. 122)


‘The individual organism is only the vehicle (of genes), part of an elaborate device to preserve and spread them with the least possible biochemical perturbation . ... The organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA’ (Edward Osborne Wilson, cited by M. Midgley p. 123)

‘These (the genes) are treated as real calculating agents, manipulating human beings and other animals, who may suppose that they have purposes of their own, but are deceived in this, being in fact only ineffectual pawns, puppets or vehicles of these ‘hidden masters.’ […] ‘At that point the genetic forces appear as inescapable fates, and the rhetorical tone varies between reverence for their power and contempt for humans who suppose that any other element in life need concern them. It is strongly fatalistic, that is not just resigned to evils which have been proved inevitable, but more generally contemptuous of all human effort, from a sense of perceiving a conscious being which will not let in prevail. This fatalism, too, is linked to egoism, since the being in question is treated as the prime case, the central example and source of selfish motivation prevailing everywhere else. It is, in fact, a simple self-justifying projection of human selfishness’(M. Midgley, p.128f)

‘By what right, and in what sense, can we consider ourselves as the directional pointer and aim-bearer of the whole evolutionary process?’
‘... Certainly Judaeo and Christian thinking made the human race much more central than many other religions do’ (M. Midgley, p. 69)

 

‘The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. (Steven Weinberg cited by M. Midgley, p. 75)
‘it is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe’ ( M. Midgley, p. 93)

 

‘Of course human beings did not earn their niche in the wild sense of entirely inventing it by their own power. No organism needs or expects to do that. The environment came to them from outside ...’ For human beings living their lives, everything in their natural constitution comes from outside anyway as luck, in the sense that they did not make it. (M. Midgley p. 89)

 

Midgley, Mary: Evolution as a Religion: Strange hopes and strange fears: London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1985

More, Louis T.: The Dogma of Evolution, Princeton University Press, 1925

Plantinga, Alvin: An Evolutionary argument against Naturalism: LOGOS, Philosophic Issues in Christian Perspective, Philosophic Studies from Santa Clara University,Volume 12,1991: Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA

Schoffeniels, Ernest: Anti-Chance: A Reply to Monods Chance and Necessitiy: Pergamon Press Ltd., 1976