Darwin matters

Townhall, a conservative webzine, recently published an article by one Marvin Olasky in which he lambasts the theory of evolution, while revealing his utter ignorance of what evolution states, what it does not state, and what a scientific "theory" is and is not. Click here.

His first paragraph defines the issue as political, and important in view of the coming campaign season. His second paragraph raises theological objections that are "literally crucial because they tell us whether the Cross was necessary." The article was lifted from the Christian magazine that Mr. Olasky edits; he apparently did not bother to re-edit it for a secular audience. The crosses (there were many of them) were necessary for the Romans to get rid of people they considered troublemakers, but that's not the real point. The point, which Olasky completely misses, is that the cross (only one is important to him) is irrelevant to American politics and to science. He asserts that "if the Darwin was right the Bible was wrong," but our Constitution could not care less if the Bible was right or wrong. Nor is the word "God" mentioned in the entire document.

The rest of the article raises a grab-bag of social issues that evolution supposedly influenced in a negative way. There is nothing new here; it is difficult to find anything new in the arguments of Christian (or Jewish) fundamentalists. The obvious answer to all these issues is that they are irrelevant. Any scientific theory can be misused or abused; that does not affect the validity of the theory. Arsonists use matches to start fires, but we do not ban matches. Instead we make positive use of matches while we try to catch and punish arsonists. That Olasky and his Christian audience do not understand the function of a scientific theory points to the inadequacy of science education in this country, which those of Olasky's ilk would perpetuate and which bodes ill for our ability to compete in the global economy. China, India and Japan are not Judeo-Christian societies and their science is not stymied by religious nonsense. Their scientists come here to train in America's best graduate schools and then fill positions in our finest research universities while this country does not turn out enough people who are up to the task.

In brief, the function of a theory is to explain data. Data are the "facts" of science, the results of experiment and observation. The more data a theory explains, the wider the range of fields that produced the theory, the more successful the theory is. It follows that scientists do not use the word "theory" the way the general public does. A scientific theory is not somebody's guess, supported by tenuous evidence or no evidence. When scientists dignify a statement by calling it a theory, it is robust, supported by a large body of evidence from many different avenues of research. Accordingly, there are few theories in science. We have the atomic theory, the theory of universal gravitation, electromagnetic theory, quantum theory - and evolutionary theory. All but evolution do not generate political firestorms stoked by religious know-nothings. And evolution is supported by as vast a body of evidence as any of the other theories. As with all scientific theories, evolution has unanswered questions. That's what this business we call science is all about - investigating the unanswered, constantly broadening our understanding of how the world works.

It is worth noting the hypocrisy of politically conservative thinkers who want the government to have our children taught pseudoscience instead of real science. Conservatives say they believe in limited government, yet they don't hesitate to invoke the power of government to enforce the scientific or political positions which they favor, or to suppress those which they oppose. It all depends on whose ox is gored. And evolution helps us understand many of the social problems that fundamentalists blame it for creating. If we are descended from ape-lile primates (and share about 99% of our genes with modern chimpanzees), it follows that human behavior is related to the behaviour of other primates, chimpanzees in particular. Darwin showed that we are animals, but we always knew that we were much more. We, alone among the animals, are capable of conceiving a right and a wrong, and guiding our actions accordingly. I and other religious students of evolution - and there are many more of us than Olasky and his crew care to consider - don't read evolution as a license do do anything our animal nature dreams up. We read it as a signpost and a warning. It shows us how strong our animal nature (what Jews call the yetzer hara) is and how intense our efforts to overcome it with our higher mental faculties must be.

So yes, Darwin is important, but not the way Marvin Olasky thinks.