Bouncing off Jerry Coyne’s essay on the (in)compatibility between science and religion (which occasioned a rant from me), Edge asked a long list of big names – including the authors of the two books to which Coyne was responding – to comment on the question. It spans the full range from conciliatory to cutting, and all of it is well worth reading.
Via Open Culture
Via Open Culture: iTunes U, the collection of free university lectures in podcast format, has Thomas Sheehan’s Stanford Continuing Studies course on the historical Jesus. I’m a couple lectures deep and loving it.
Slate’s survey of its readers determines that spread of the Facebook meme followed a pattern analogous to emergent disease evolution – a long period of low density, during which various mutants (“16 things,” “17 things,” &c) competed; then a rapid spread when one variant hit the big time.
I shall update this post as the day goes on.
Olivia Judson writes that Darwin “makes an easy hero”:
His achievements were prodigious; his science, meticulous. His work transformed our understanding of the planet and of ourselves.
At the same time, he was a humane, gentle, decent man, a loving husband and father, and a loyal friend. Judging by his letters, he was also sometimes quite funny. He was, in other words, one of those rare beings, as likeable as he was impressive.
Boingboing harshes everyone’s buzz with depressing poll numbers.
It’s Alive makes snarky hay of Darwin’s Victorian approach to conservation.
On Deep Thoughts and Silliness, Bob O’Hara uses Darwin’s ignorance of the mechanism of inheritance as a jumping-off point for a nice thought about the collaborative nature of science.
Propterdoc worries about whether over-promotion of Darwin’s 200th is bad for biology’s image.
The Daily Mammal discusses Darwin’s speculations about land-to-aquatic transitions in mammals.
ScienceBlogs, as usual, has more going on than I can follow and still do my work. But it looks great.
On Morning Edition, the inimitable Robert Krulwich considers how Darwin’s work was shaped by his wife’s faith and the death of their eldest daughter.
Susan Brooks connects progressive theology and politics to acceptance of evolution
… progressive Christian theology … has long emphasized the continuity of the human with the rest of creation. Progressive Christians by and large oppose regarding human nature as fixed and static and a unique “lord of creation.” The inescapable learning from evolutionary biology is that human beings are deeply creatures. We share 90% of our genes with mice. If that doesn’t take the “lords of creation” down a peg, I fail to see what will!
Sally Steenland suggests that the big day should prompt religion and science to kiss.
I’d be deeply remiss if I neglected to mention that today is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
Sarah Vowell, Lincoln’s leading hipster advocate, says it best in The Partly Cloudy Patriot:
How many of us drew his beard in crayon? We built models of his boyhood cabin with Elmer’s glue and toothpicks. We memorized the Gettysburg Address, reciting its ten sentences in stovepipe hats stapled out of black construction paper. The teachers taught us to like Washington and to respect Jefferson. But Lincoln – him they taught us to love.
I suggest, as a sample of his speeches, the second inaugural, which concludes appropriately for our turbulent present:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Happy Darwin Day! Check out Blog for Darwin for remarks on the great occasion across the science blogosphere.
Today is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and 150 years since he published his groundbreaking book, The Origin of Species. The Origin provided the first widely-accepted explanation for the evolution of life on Earth, and, although Darwin was wrong on some points (if only he had known about genes!), a century and a half of scientific work has shown that he was right about more.
That century and a half has not diffused the perception, especially in the United States and other highly religious countries, that acceptance of a scientific account for the history of life is antithetical to religion. As a Darwinian and a Christian, this is a topic with which I struggle, and about which I’ve written a great deal here. Although I’m not sure that science can coexist with a real belief in the supernatural, I do hold that science is both compatible with the moral questions at the heart of religion and essential to answering them.
For Darwin’s 200th, then, I’d like to briefly present three examples of evolutionary insights that complement the Christian moral perspective. I focus on Christianity here (and elsewhere in this blog) not because I think it has an exclusive hold on the truth, but because it is the tradition in which I was raised, and the one that shapes my own moral perspective. I think the following points are easily applicable to just about any other moral system, religious or non.
Our evolutionary past shapes us today.
Christianity (and, indeed, most other religions) starts from the fundamental problem of human behavior: We do things that we know are hurtful to those around us, often because we enjoy doing them. As the apostle wrote, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19)
The Christian tradition calls this original sin; the evolutionary perspective points to its origin in the remnants of past adaptations. We have two bones in each forearm because we evolved from ancestors with those two bones in their pectoral fins [$-a]; we may be hostile to outsiders because that parochialism helped early humans to form closer-knit societies [$-a]. Far from giving us an excuse to do whatever we feel like, these results can help us figure out how to overcome evolved behaviors that hurt others.
Christ calls us to transcend our past.
Just as it shapes our hurtful impulses, our evolutionary past has a hand in the better angels of our nature. We may care for our children and close relatives, for instance, in part because they carry many of our genes – so helping them helps our own evolutionary fitness [$-a]. Similarly, the need to live peacefully with our immediate neighbors may have shaped deep emotional aversions to murder [PDF].
In the Sermon on the Mount, though, Jesus lays out a moral model that calls us beyond what comes naturally:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder,’ … But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” (Matt. 5:21-2)
And:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you … If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? (Matt. 5:43-6)
Evolutionary thinking can help us realize Christ’s call.
When we understand the deep causes of hurtful behavior, we can figure out better how to overcome them. To pick just one example: Jesus proposes a moral solution to the problem of hostility to strangers mentioned above in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) when he redefines the concept of “neighbor” to mean something bigger than “people of the same race/religion.” But how do we overcome deep-seated biases against people who don’t look like us? One new study suggests hacking the mental habits that create those biases in the first place, by making the effort to become familiar with people of other races – Caucasian volunteers trained to better differentiate between African American faces showed reduced evidence of bias against African Americans.
Like the Christian moral model, the evolutionary perspective understands that humans are imperfect – but suggests ways we can do better. This is why it pains me to hear other Christians dismiss evolutionary science out of hand (apart from my nerdy compulsions to correct factual error): Understanding evolution can help us in our ongoing struggle to live together, if only we’re open to the data science provides. The current advances in our understanding of human behavior are only possible because today’s researchers stand on the shoulders of a giant: Charles Darwin.
References
J.-K. Choi, S. Bowles (2007). The coevolution of parochial altruism and war Science, 318 (5850), 636-40 DOI: 10.1126/science.1144237
K. Foster, T. Wenseleers, F. Ratnieks (2006). Kin selection is the key to altruism Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 21 (2), 57-60 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2005.11.020
J.D. Greene (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment Science, 293 (5537), 2105-8 DOI: 10.1126/science.1062872
S. Lebrecht, L.J. Pierce, M.J. Tarr, J.W. Tanaka (2009). Perceptual other-race training reduces implicit racial bias PLoS ONE, 4 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004215
T. Lewens. (2007). Darwin. New York: Routledge. Amazon.com.
M. Ruse. (2000). Can a Darwinian be a Christian? Cambridge University Press. Amazon.com.
N.H. Shubin, E.B. Daeschler, F.A. Jenkins (2006). The pectoral fin of Tiktaalik roseae and the origin of the tetrapod limb Nature, 440 (7085), 764-71 DOI: 10.1038/nature04637
Stephen Quake laments the grant-approval process of most U.S. federal funding agencies, and suggests making room for risky proposals:
I wonder if this should also be the time to rethink the basic foundations of how science is funded. Could we stimulate more discovery and creativity if more scientists had the security of their own salary and a long-term commitment to a minimal level of research support? Would this encourage risk-taking and lead to an overall improvement in the quality of science?
The NIH model Quake describes – which sets aside specific funding sources for out-of-the-box proposals – seems sensible, given additional funds for such use.
As part of its special coverage of Darwin’s 200th, the New York Times has a very well put-together presentation of The Origin of Species, with annotation of key passages by working scientists. The complete text of the first edition is also offered for download [PDF], if you haven’t got it already.
Slacktivist Fred Clark(!), “a Baptist in the evangelical tradition” reacts to his inclusion on a list of the top Atheist/Agnostic/Skeptic blogs with a meditation on faith, certainty, and the value of listening to – and interacting with – opposing viewpoints:
Like most humans, I’m bound to be wrong about many things, and the things I’m likeliest to be wrong about are those things I’m least aware I might be wrong about. So it seems not just prudent, but necessary, to engage as many disparate views as possible.
——
(!) In the original version of this post, I inexplicably confused Fred Clark, a thoughtful, humane, and progressive Christian – whose blog I follow regularly – with Fred Phelps, a fundamentalist troglodyte. This mistake would, no doubt, have massively offended both of them, should either have seen it. My deepest, sincerest apologies to Clark.
