The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms

Darwinian Biology’s Grand Narrative of Triumph and the Subversion of Religion

Robert F. Shedinger

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781532658334
  9781532658341
• eBook ISBN:
  9781532658358
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Christianity
• Index: Biological Sciences

Is Darwinian evolution really the most successful scientific theory ever proposed--or even the best idea anyone has ever had, as Daniel Dennett once put it? The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms provides a comprehensive critical reading of the literature of evolutionary biology from Darwin to Dobzhansky to Dawkins, revealing this popular account of evolution to be a grand narrative of Darwinian triumph that greatly overstates the empirical validity of modern evolutionary theory. The mechanisms driving the evolutionary process truly remain a mystery more than one hundred fifty years after Origin of Species, a fact that can free religion scholars to think in more creative ways about the positive contributions religious reflection might make to our understanding of life's origin and diversity. The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms calls for an embrace of mystery, understood not as an abdication of the scientific quest for truth but as a courageous and humble acknowledgment of the limits of human reason and an openness to a fundamentally religious orientation toward life.

1

Darwinian Biology’s Grand Narrative of Triumph and the Subversion of Religion

Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe thrust himself into the center of public controversy in 1996 with the publication of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, a best-selling book that quickly became a foundational text of the widely disparaged intelligent design (ID) movement. In a surprisingly sympathetic review, University of Chicago biologist James Shapiro commented: “Darwin’s Black Box has the merit of showing us that evolution remains a mystery. Its fundamental driving forces have not been resolved either in detail or in principle.”1 That a biologist connected to such a prestigious university would openly sympathize with the views of an ID advocate and seek to undermine certainty in our understanding of the evolutionary process is truly startling; Shapiro’s characterization runs counter to virtually the entirety of the vast corpus of literature produced in the academic field of evolutionary biology.

Rather than viewing evolution as a continuing mystery more than a century and a half after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, we are more likely to hear that Darwin’s theory “may prove to be the greatest revolution in the history of thought”2 and “as close to truth as any science is ever likely to get.”3 According to the great Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, “The theory of evolution is quite rightly called the greatest unifying theory in biology.”4 Darwinian philosopher Daniel Dennett is even more effusive, calling Darwin’s theory “the single best idea anyone has ever had,”5 an idea that promises “to unite and explain just about everything in one magnificent vision.”6 In Dennett’s view, Darwin’s theory is now beyond dispute among scientists. “It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story.”7

In light of these grand claims about the explanatory power of Darwinian evolution, how should we understand Shapiro’s more circumspect characterization of evolution as a continuing mystery? Can we simply dismiss Shapiro as a marginal voice? Contrary to the confident pronouncements about evolutionary theory’s virtual factuality issuing from the likes of Mayr, Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and many others, I will defend the unlikely thesis that Shapiro’s characterization represents a far more accurate picture of the current state of evolutionary theory as it emerges from a critical engagement with the peer-reviewed scientific literature. I know such a statement, made as it is by a religion scholar, will sound hopelessly naïve, and I will be accused of inappropriately stepping far outside my disciplinary boundaries. But the real world does not come to us in the hermetically sealed packages of modern academic disciplines, and there is no reason why reading scientific literature from the perspective of a religion scholar cannot yield valid insights into the question of life’s origin and diversity. Besides, we do not need to venture far into the literature of evolutionary biology to see that grand assertions about evolutionary theory’s explanatory power do in fact begin to crumble under the weight of critical scrutiny.

Consider Ernst Mayr, for example. He accuses dissenters from Darwin’s theory of displaying such a colossal ignorance of the evolutionary biology literature that refuting them would be a waste of time. The essential features of the modern theory of evolution are so “consistent with the facts of genetics, systematics, and paleontology that one can hardly question their correctness.”8 Mayr characterizes the basic theory of evolution as “a two-stage phenomenon: the production of variation and the sorting of the variants by natural selection.”9 But agreement on this basic thesis does not mean that work in evolutionary biology is complete. The basic theory, according to Mayr, is in many cases “hardly more than a postulate and its application raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case.”10 Modern research is directed at evolutionary phenomena that do not yet appear to be explained by the current theory. This leads to points of conflict between biologists over the interpretation of anomalous data. But Mayr stresses that “none of these arguments touches upon the basic principles of the synthetic theory. It is the application of the theory that is involved, not the theory itself. And with respect to application we still have a long way to go.”11

Consider Mayr’s words carefully. In the same place where he confidently asserts the essential factuality of Darwinian evolution, he also characterizes this theory as “hardly more than a postulate,” and admits that the application of this theory to actual biological phenomena “raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case.” Mayr’s confident assertion seems betrayed by his own frank admission that fundamental aspects of the evolutionary process at the time he was writing remained unclear and without empirical verification. No scientific theory that is “hardly more than a postulate” and whose application “raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case” deserves at the same time to be considered “as close to truth as any science is ever likely to get.”

But Mayr was writing in 1965. Perhaps the situation has improved with the great advances made in biology over the last fifty years. Evolutionary theory surely now stands on firmer ground. Perhaps, but consider the website sponsored by the biology department at the University of California, Berkeley titled Understanding Evolution. This website provides the general public with an up-to-date summary of the current state of evolutionary theory. On it we read, “All available evidence supports the central conclusions of evolutionary theory, that life on Earth has evolved and that species share common ancestors. Biologists are not arguing about these conclusions. But they are trying to figure out how evolution happens, and that’s not an easy job.”12 Among the questions that evolutionary biologists are trying to answer, according to the Berkeley website, is, “How does evolution produce new and complex features?” This would seem to be the central question of evolution. We cannot confidently declare the essential factuality of evolutionary theory if we do not know how to account for the development of the new and complex features that lead to the evolution of whole new kinds of organisms. If biologists are still trying to answer this question, the state of evolutionary theory seems not to have advanced significantly since 1965 when Mayr was writing, and assertions of evolutionary theory’s virtual factuality appear to be overstatements. Shapiro’s more circumspect evaluation of the state of our knowledge may be closer to the truth. But then what accounts for the triumphant assertions of evolutionary theory’s explanatory power so often encountered in literature designed for the wider public?

Since the early twentieth century Darwinian evolution has been perpetuated in the form of a grand narrative of triumph that consistently overstates the empirical validity of its Darwinian framework: that evolution primarily occurs as a result of natural selection acting on the inherent variability of organisms. I will read the literature of evolutionary biology from the perspective of a religion scholar trained in the hermeneutics of suspicion in order to demonstrate that the history of evolutionary theory’s development is better read as a continuing saga of contestation over fundamental, still unresolved, questions, not as a history of how one theory came to triumph over all others. The grand narrative of Darwinian triumph, like all grand narratives, turns out to be an ideologically motivated story that, ironically, is consistently undermined by the very scientific work designed to promote it.

But why is it important for scholars of religion, and particularly those interested in the intersection between science and religion, to recognize the ideological nature of evolutionary biology’s grand narrative of Darwinian triumph? Because the biological establishment has been so effective at marketing this narrative that almost everyone from outside the world of the biological sciences has come to uncritically accept it, and this includes scholars of religion. In fact, intellectual adherence to Darwinian evolution has itself become something of a litmus test for intelligence. Anyone who dares question it is considered to be either woefully ignorant or a religious fanatic—or both. Or as Daniel Dennett put it, “those whose visions dictate that they cannot peacefully coexist with the rest of us we will have to quarantine as best we can.”13

Not wishing to be quarantined, religion scholars and theologians who wade into the troubled waters of the religion–science debate have clearly felt compelled to uncritically accept Darwinian evolution and base their reflections about the relationship between religion and science on this Darwinian foundation. In exercising this deference to science, I will argue that such scholars have unwittingly been “deceived by Darwin.” If the strength of Darwinian evolution turns out to be more tenuous then the grand narrative portrays, it may not be necessary for religion scholars and theologians to be the ones always capitulating to the scientists. Religion scholars may have something more constructive to contribute to this debate.

In the balance of this chapter, I will provide examples demonstrating how religion scholars, theologians, and in some cases even scientists themselves have been deceived by Darwin by uncritically accepting the grand narrative of Darwinian triumph. Then I will provide a summary of this grand narrative, followed by a consideration of its ideological purpose, and finally I’ll conclude with a summary of a more complex and nuanced counternarrative to be developed in more detail in the balance of this book. It may not be necessary for religion scholars, theologians, or anyone else, for that matter, to continue to be deceived by Darwin.

Deceived by Darwin

The general acceptance of Darwinian evolution has been standard practice for scholars of religion for a long time. Even critic Taner Edis can write, “Many theologians have become too deferential to modern science.”14 This is not surprising given that most religion scholars understandably possess neither the time nor the inclination to read deeply into the peer-reviewed scientific literature. I will consider a few examples here to demonstrate how such acceptance may be leading these scholars astray.

I begin with Ian Barbour, one of the most influential scholars of the religion–science dialectic in the latter part of the twentieth century. In his 1997 book Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues, Barbour begins a chapter on evolution noting that scientists have accumulated immense quantities of evidence to support, both that evolution has occurred, and that the Darwinia...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Darwinian Biology’s Grand Narrative of Triumph and the Subversion of Religion
• Chapter 2: Reframing Darwin and Darwinism
• Chapter 3: The Eclipse and Recovery of Darwinism
• Chapter 4: Reframing the Modern Synthesis: The Reality of Natural Selection
• Chapter 5: Reframing the Modern Synthesis: Macroevolution
• Chapter 6: Reframing the DNA Revolution
• Chapter 7: Challenging the Modern Synthesis
• Chapter 8: Rethinking the Religion–Science Relationship
• Bibliography