Can an Evolutionary Scientist Be Religious?

Yes. As philosopher Michael Ruse points out, one might conclude

that it is impossible for an evolutionary scientist to be religious,

but one should not begin with this as an assumption. The compat-

ibility of belief in God and acceptance of evolutionary science in

human origins appears to be, according to a 2004 Gallup poll, the

view of 38 percent of the American population. About 13 percent

of Americans accept only evolution, while 45 percent accept only

creationism.

Almost all scientists answer the question posed in the title

in the affirmative, for both personal and scientific reasons. The

personal reason is that many scientists are religious individuals,

although fewer scientists are religious (about 40 percent believe

in a personal God) compared to the general American population

(over 90 percent). For example, some of the most famous evolution-

ary scientists have been openly religious (see FISHER, R. A.; DOB-

ZHANSKY, THEODOSIUS). The scientific reason is that the SCIENTIFIC

METHOD does not require an assumption that a supreme being (God)

does not exist. What science does require is that, for the phenom-

ena being investigated, this supreme being, or other supernatural

beings, have not caused the results that are observed. Geneticist

Richard Lewontin (see LEWONTIN, RICHARD) points out that science

cannot coexist with belief in a deity that might intervene at any

moment. A biologist must assume that no angel, demon, or God

makes biological phenomena occur as they do today; and an evo-

lutionist must assume that no supernatural being brought biologi-

cal phenomena into existence in the first place. If it should happen

that supernatural processes or beings did or do influence the

operation of natural phenomena, then the scientific explanation

will fail. It is not necessary to assume that supernaturally caused

events never occur. A scientist need not deny miracles, but just

not try to study them, or to use scientific credentials to try to get

other people to believe them. Scientific investigation excludes a

consideration of miracles, whether or not they occur. Therefore,

science in general, and evolution in particular, do not prohibit reli-

gious belief.

Just because religious belief is permissible does not mean

that it is a good idea. While evolutionary science and religious

belief can mix, there may be so many points of contradiction in the

minds of individuals that this mixture is unreasonable. This criticism

comes from two directions. Adherents of CREATIONISM insist that

evolutionary science contradicts what they consider to be true and

correct religion; the kind of religion that is compatible with evolu-

tionary science is, to them, a waste of time or worse. Many atheists

insist that any scientist who maintains religious beliefs is not really

thinking rigorously through the issues. Some (see DAWKINS, RICH-

ARD) believe that scientists who have religious beliefs are retaining

mutually contradictory thoughts for reasons of personal satisfac-

tion. For instance, many scientists who are Christians believe that

“God is love” but that God has used natural selection, which is a

painfully unfair process (see below), as God’s method of creation.

Dawkins considers this a “delicious irony.” From this viewpoint, the

capacity for religion may be a product of evolution and may have

played an important role during human prehistory (see RELIGION,

EVOLUTION OF), but religion is something that humans should now get

rid of. Especially in the post–September 11 world, Dawkins says,

one should see that religion (such as fundamentalist terrorism, of

which all major religions have provided examples) does more harm

than good. Flexible human minds should learn how to get along

without it as much as possible, according to this viewpoint.

In particular, one problem that creates difficulty for the peace-

ful coexistence of science and religion (in particular, evolutionary

science and monotheistic religion) is the problem of evil. This is not

a problem that was noticed just since the beginning of evolution-

ary science. A whole field of theological inquiry, called theodicy,

addresses how a good God can allow evil to occur. Some of the

earliest Christian theologians, such as Augustine, wrote extensively

about theodicy, as did non-Christian philosophers such as Plotinus.

Jewish and Christian theologians have found elements of this issue

as far back as the story of Abraham, who is said to have confronted

God himself and questioned God about God’s plans to destroy

Sodom and Gomorrah. The Old Testament prophets, New Testament

apostles, and theologians of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have

given many different answers to why an all-powerful God permits

evil events to occur, but none has gained widespread acceptance.

Among the speculations of theodicy are:

• Suffering is punishment for sin. The fact that suffering afflicts so

many innocent people (especially infants and children) discredits

this explanation.

• Suffering strengthens the righteousness of character. The fact

that suffering vastly exceeds what is necessary for promoting the

growth of character discredits this explanation. A victim of geno-

cide, along with his or her millions of fellow victims, is dead, with-

out opportunity for subsequent growth of character.

• Everything that happens is part of the ultimate good. This was the

viewpoint of Dr. Pangloss that the writer Voltaire lampooned in

Candide.

• God permits random suffering but shares it vicariously, through

God’s spiritual presence in each human. This is an unprovable

statement of faith even if it is true.

• God cannot create a world in which there is no possibility of suf-

fering. To prevent pain, God would have to make fire no longer

burn; but then it would not be fire. Although this sounds like a

denial that God is all-powerful, it actually is an admission of ines-

capable logic. One of the most famous Christian writers, Clive

Staples Lewis, noted that one cannot make nonsense into sense

by sticking the words “God can” in front of it.

• Suffering is caused by demons, but as God permits these demons

to run about, the problem of theodicy remains.

Deists, who believe in a God who is disconnected from the

world (and perhaps not even a person), have little problem with the

abundance of suffering; but how could the God of Love, to whom

Jesus and Christian writers so abundantly testified, permit it? How

can a supreme being who has all power permit such incredible

sufferings as have bloodied the pages of history, and which seem

totally unconnected to whether the victims were good or evil?

Among those who despaired of finding an answer to theodicy was

the writer of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

Evolutionary science has only sharpened the problem of evil.

The process of NATURAL SELECTION practically ensures the suffering

of great masses of organisms. Malthus (see MALTHUS, THOMAS) first

noted a principle that Darwin (see DARWIN, CHARLES) applied to evo-

154 evolutionary ethics

lution: Populations always surpass their resources, with the inevita-

ble result of violent competition and starvation. Intelligence should

allow humans to foresee this result and prevent it by restraining

reproduction, but as Malthus noted when he surveyed the condi-

tion of Europe, humans seldom do so.

Darwin’s friend, the botanist, evolutionist, and Christian Asa

Gray (see GRAY, ASA) maintained a belief in the ultimate purposes of

a good God. In a letter of May 22, 1860, Darwin wrote to Gray:

With respect to the theological view of the ques-

tion. This is always painful to me. I am bewil-

dered. I had no intention to write atheistically.

But I own that I cannot see as plainly as oth-

ers do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of

design and beneficence on all sides of us. There

seems to me to be too much misery in the world.

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and

omnipotent God would have designedly created

the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of

their feeding within the living bodies of caterpil-

lars, or that a cat should play with mice.

Darwin noted a couple of silver linings in this cloud. First, his

principal contribution was to point out that the victims of natural

selection were primarily those that had inferior adaptations, with

the result that the destructive process of death produced improve-

ments in ADAPTATION. At least something good—in fact, a whole

world of BIODIVERSITY—comes from it. The author of this ency-

clopedia, in younger and more naïve days, published this view in

an unsuccessful attempt at Christian theodicy. Second, Darwin

assured his readers that most animals were incapable of feeling

pain, and even for those that could, “… we may console ourselves

with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no

fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the

healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.”

One reason that many in the general population, and even

many scientists, had a hard time accepting natural selection was

that it seemed so unfair. Neither the individuals with superior nor

those with inferior characteristics deserved them; they were born

with them, and most have paid the price for it. Genetic variation

comes from MUTATIONS (see POPULATION GENETICS). For every good

mutation that benefits its possessor there are numerous deleterious

ones that cause their bearers to suffer. LAMARCKISM, the inheritance

of acquired characteristics, seemed much more fair: An individual

that worked hard could pass on to its descendants the progress

that it had made. While perhaps all evolutionary scientists wish that

Lamarckism were true, it simply is not. Furthermore, the fossil record

is littered with millions of extinct species. The unfair and painful pro-

cess of natural selection has therefore occurred everywhere for bil-

lions of years. If there is a supreme God, then this unfair and painful

process was the method God used to create the living world. With-

out mutation, there is no variation, and EXTINCTION almost inevitably

results; yet these mutations cause much suffering.

Darwin’s contemporaries struggled with these issues. Theo-

logian Henry L. Mansell published a Christian theodicy the same

year and through the same publisher as Darwin’s Origin of Species

(see ORIGIN OF SPECIES [book]). Alfred Lord Tennyson was a literary

friend of Darwin and Huxley, and one of his most famous poems (In

Memoriam) captured the essence of this problem. The poem was

published before the Origin of Species but reflected much of the

thinking prevalent among his scientific acquaintances:

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation’s final law—

Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw …

And while there may be cruelty at present, at least, Tennyson

wondered, would not a benevolent God at least preserve species

from extinction? But no:

“So careful of the type?” but no.

From scarped cliff and quarried stone

She cries, “A thousand types are gone:

I care for nothing, all shall go.”

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (see GOULD, STEPHEN

JAY) claimed that religion and science were compatible because

they had non-overlapping realms of competence (which he called

non-overlapping magisteria). Science explained how the world

works, and its physical history; religion focuses on what is morally

right and wrong. The distinction is between what happens or has

happened, and what should happen. He considered both science

and religion to be components of our “coat of many colors called

wisdom.”

Earlier scientists held beliefs that appear to match this

approach. Galileo, who was punished for an astronomical theory

that contradicted what Church authorities claimed was biblical

teaching, said the Bible was about “how to go to Heaven, not how

the heavens go.” And Huxley (see HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY), Darwin’s

contemporary and defender, said that even though natural selec-

tion is a violent and unfair process, human responsibility was to

resist acting in a violent and unfair manner (see EVOLUTIONARY ETH-

ICS). Natural selection produced humans, but humans should not

practice “survival of the fittest” in society or between nations. In

this, Huxley directly opposed the social Darwinism of people like

Spencer (see SPENCER, HERBERT).

Therefore, Christianity and evolutionary science are, or can at

least be forced to be, compatible. But many thinkers have wanted

to go beyond mere compatibility. They have aspired to bring reli-

gion and science together. One of the most famous attempts to do

so was William Paley’s NATURAL THEOLOGY. Natural theology claimed

that the existence and attributes of God could be discerned by a

study of God’s creation. As Richard Dawkins has written, “Paley’s

argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the

best biological scholarship of his day, but it was wrong, gloriously

and utterly wrong.” Natural theology, which today exists in the form

of INTELLIGENT DESIGN theory, never seems to go away.

Still other scientists attempt a union of science and religion

without embracing natural theology. Some of them detect evidence

that supports their faith within the ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE. Others claim

that natural law itself, uniform throughout the universe, shows that

there is a universal and constant God. Perhaps the minimalist ver-

sion of the union of science and religion is the statement, of uncer-

tain origin, that God is the answer to the question of why anything

exists rather than nothing. Because the presence of God may be

(continues)

evolutionary ethics 155

Further Reading

Hauser, Marc D. Born to Be Good: How Nature Designed Our Uni-

versal Sense of Right and Wrong. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

Shermer, Michael. The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat,

Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule. New York:

Henry Holt, 2004.

Zimmer, Carl. “Whose life would you save?” Discover, April 2004,

60–65.

evolutionary medicine Evolution is a subject seldom stud-ied in detail by premedical undergraduates or by students in medical school. All of modern medicine would benefit from

easier to detect, or imagine, in broad universal terms rather than in

biological particulars, most of the scholars who attempt this union

have been physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger and John Polking-

horne. The Templeton Foundation, started by a rich philanthropist,

gives awards for investigations that bring science and Christianity

together. These awards have a greater cash value than a Nobel

Prize.

Of course, it also works the other way. Richard Dawkins has

pointed out that, while atheism has always been possible, it was

the Darwinian revolution that allowed people like him to be honest

and intellectually fulfilled atheists.

Evolutionary science has eroded the credibility of many

specific religious beliefs that have prevailed for centuries. This

includes not only the claims of the creationists about the age

of the Earth, the origin of humans, and the biblical flood, but also

some more general tenets of Christian theology. Most people who

identify themselves today as Christians would not insist on a literal

interpretation of the biblical account of Adam and Eve as the first

humans. They identify Adam and Eve as symbols of prehistoric

humans. But Christian theology has long maintained that the sin-

ful nature of humans entered into a previously sinless human race

through the sin of Adam and Eve. According to this view, dominant

even today, “original sin” entered humans through “the Fall” of

Adam and Eve. Evolutionary science, however, claims that human

nature is the product of evolution (see SOCIOBIOLOGY), as are all

other human mental attributes (see INTELLIGENCE, EVOLUTION OF). As

more and more human mental processes are explained by brain

structures and functions (for example, stimulation of the right tem-

poral lobe produces experiences that appear identical to religious

visions), the role of a separate spirit becomes more and more dif-

ficult to believe, unless the human spirit is an exact replica of the

human brain. While some religious people claim to have had rev-

elations that could not have been generated by their brains, other

people are understandably skeptical of these claims, especially

when prominent religious leaders claim that “God told them” which

American political party God preferred.

Most religious scientists are quite silent about their beliefs.

One prominent evolutionary scientist who has taken a stand, but

done so very cautiously, is paleontologist Simon Conway Morris.

He wrote, “We do indeed have a choice, and we can exercise our

free will. We might be a product of the biosphere, but it is one with

which we are charged to exercise stewardship. We might do better

to accept our intelligence as a gift, and it may be a mistake to imag-

ine that we shall not be called to account.”

If science and religion, especially evolutionary science and

Christian religion, are to be compatible, a rethinking of both sci-

ence and religion must occur. Science already undertakes a con-

stant process of rethinking (see SCIENTIFIC METHOD). It is religion

that must take the unaccustomed step of questioning ancient

assumptions.

Further Reading

Banerjee, Neela, and Anne Berryman. “At churches nationwide,

good words for evolution.” New York Times, February 13, 2006.

Conway Morris, Simon. The Crucible of Creation. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1998.

Darwin, Charles. On The Origin of Species By Means of Natural

Selection, 1st ed. London: John Murray, 1859.

Dawkins, Richard. A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies,

Science and Love. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Dean, Cornelia. “Scientists speak up on mix of God and science.”

New York Times, August 23, 2005. Available online. URL: http://

www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/national/23believers.html.

Easterbrook, Greg. “The new convergence.” Wired, December

2002, 162–185.

Gould, Stephen J. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Full-

ness of Life. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.

———. “The narthex of San Marco and the pangenetic paradigm.”

Chap. 20 in I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural

History. New York: Harmony, 2002.

Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of

Reason. New York: Norton, 2004.

Haught, John F. God after Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. New

York: Westview Press, 2001.

Heilbron, J. L. The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observa-

tories. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Mansell, Henry L. The Limits of Religious Thought, 4th ed. London:

John Murray, 1859.

McGrath, Alister. Dawkins’s God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning

of Life. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publications, 2004.

Pigliucci, Massimo. Tales of the Rational: Skeptical Essays about

Nature and Science. Smyrna, Ga.: Freethought Press, 2000.

Rice, Stanley A. “Bringing blessings out of adversity: God’s activity

in the world of nature.” Perspectives on Science and Christian

Faith 41 (1989): 2–9.

———. “On the problem of apparent evil in the natural world.” Per-

spectives on Science and Christian Faith 39 (1987): 150–157.

Ruse, Michael. Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? The Relationship

between Science and Religion. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2000.

Thomson, Keith. Before Darwin: Reconciling God and Nature. New

Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005.

Can an Evolutionary Scientist Be Religious? (continued)

156 evolutionary medicine