Over the 14 years (can it be that long?) that I’ve been writing this website, I’ve put up several lists of misconceptions about or misrepresentations of evolution, but they’ve all been compiled by other people (for example, see here, here, and here). Some of them aren’t really misconceptions, such as the second link, which lists “misrepresentations” that are really pieces of advice about how to teach evolution. Those are generally good, though I can’t say I agree fully with this one: ““Avoid giving the impression that evolution is atheistic, or that evolutionists must be atheists.”
The way I teach evolution, starting with two sessions on why we accept evolution (these lectures were turned into Why Evolution is True), involves a certain amount of creationism-bashing. That’s because I use the rejection of creationism in favor of evolution in the late 18th century as an example of the way science proceeds: theories are discarded when they become increasingly incompatible with the evidence, while the alternative theory (evolution in this case) is able to explain facts that stymie creationism. The fossil record, anomalies of development, vestigial organs, and (my favorite) biogeography are all areas in which evolution explains phenomena that can’t be explained by Biblical creationism.
Now it wasn’t I who made this argument, but Darwin. If you read On the Origin of Species, which Darwin himself characterized as “one long argument,” you’ll see that he’s constantly opposing creationism with evolution without going too hard after Christian creationism (Britain wasn’t full of fundamentalists like America is now). Describing the imbalance of organisms on oceanic islands, for instance, was a very clever way that Darwin showed how evolution could explain phenomena that baffled creationists. In fact, I’ve never seen a good creationist explanation of biogeography, especially of the “unbalanced” nature of life on oceanic islands: the lack of endemic mammals, amphibians, and freshwater fish while there are plenty of endemic insects, plants, and birds.
But teaching this way offended a few of my religious students, who called me out for “creation-bashing” in my evaluations. I reject that criticism, for, after all, creationism was THE going explanation for life and its patterns before Darwin, and within a decade his compelling arguments had vanquished that explanation. Teaching this way, I think, is a good object lesson in how science is done (yes, creationism was a scientific hypothesis before Darwin), as well as educating the students on why nearly all scientists accept the fact of evolution. And I took this approach in Why Evolution is True. The usefulness of opposing two theories and adjudicating them with evidence is supported by the success of that book—far greater than I expected.
I don’t say anything about atheism in my classes, for that’s not part of my job, but most students do get the idea that the Bible should not be taken literally as a theory of biology. And if they ask me my views about gods straight out, I will be honest with them. Further, if they ask me, according to the guidance in bold above, whether religion and evolution (or science in general) are compatible, I will explain to them (privately, because the explanation is long) that while one can be religious and accept evolution, they are incompatible in a fundamental way: one accepts religious “truths” based only on authority, dogma, or scripture, while science accepts empirical truths based on evidence and the consensus of scientists. (Yes, religions do make truth claims.) That is why I wrote Faith Versus Fact. But I’ve never had a student complain that I’ve said that either evolution or science are atheistic, for I have never claimed that in lecture. It is of course true in an important way, for a practicing scientist rejects the idea that what he/she is investigating could have divine explanations. You leave your faith at the door of the lab. (I won’t reiterate my incompatibility claims here; read FvF if you want to see my argument.)
In that sense, then, science is atheistic, for it rejects belief in gods. Let me emphasize that, as I say in FvF, that this rejection is not by a priori agreement: scientists didn’t get together in some smoke-filled room and agree to reject gods, despite some creationists who claim that. Indeed, there were times in science, like early astronomy or when Biblical creationism reigned, that divine explanations were part of science. But since they haven’t proven useful in explaining anything, we now reject them as being useless. The best expression of this idea is the conversation that supposedly took place between the Emperor Napoleon and the French polymath Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1802, after Napoleon had been given Laplace’s five-volume work on celestial mechanics. There are many versions of this conversation, which may never have taken place, but here’s one from British mathematicial Walter Ball, published in 1888:
“Laplace went in state to Napoleon to accept a copy of his work, and the following account of the interview is well authenticated, and so characteristic of all the parties concerned that I quote it in full. Someone had told Napoleon that the book contained no mention of the name of God; Napoleon, who was fond of putting embarrassing questions, received it with the remark, ‘M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.’ Laplace, who, though the most supple of politicians, was as stiff as a martyr on every point of his philosophy, drew himself up and answered bluntly, ‘Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.’ [‘I had no need of that hypothesis.’]
Even if the conversation never happened, the anecdote explains why science is atheistic in practice: we have no need of that hypothesis.
But I digress. In August I’m lecturing to people on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands, which of course were visited by Darwin on the Beagle. I’m giving two lectures on that trip, “Darwin on the Galápagos” and “Why evolution is true”, as well as a Q&A session with two five-minute mini-lectures. But first let me point out two widespread misconceptions about Darwin and the Galápagos islands, which I won’t go into here but will do on the voyage:
- Darwin did not have an “aha moment” in the Galápagos islands when suddenly evolution and natural selection became clear to him.
- The famous “Darwin’s finches”, while they did play some role in Darwin’s thinking that led to The Origin, did not play a major role. He doesn’t even mention the finches in that book, and barely mentions the Galápagos (only 16 times). Other data and ideas were more important to the revolution in thought wrought by Darwin. If you want to read about his adventures on the islands, read Chapter XVII of the earlier The Voyage of the Beagle, “Galapagos Archipelago.” It’s free online at the link.
But I digress again. I have 5-10 minutes to explain to the guests what the biggest misconceptions about evolution are, so of course I have to leave some out. But the list is designed to inspire discussion, so here it is:
- Evolution is “only a theory”
- In evolution, everything happens by accident
- Natural selection transforms individuals over time (in reality, individuals don’t change, but populations and species)
- Evolution operates “for the good of the species”
- Evolution is inherently progressive
- Evolution equips organisms to face challenges that arise in the future
- Humans are no longer evolving
I could of course give more, but these are the seven I’ve chosen to explain, and I hope I can do it in no more than ten minutes. (I’m leaving out details and hope that they’ll come out in audience discussion.)
I may give summaries of my other minitalks here later (on the ship I’ll ask people which one(s) they want to hear), which include “What evidence would disprove evolution?”, “What IS the theory of evolution?”, and “Why do so many Americans reject evolution?”.
**********
Here’s a first-edition of On the Origin of Species in a presentation copy. (I’m not sure what that is for the handwriting is surely not Darwin’s.) Only 1250 copies were printed, and this one goes for $950,000: