Stirring the pot

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

By Brooke Williams

Recently I heard a talk during which the speaker suggested that key current environmental crises (global warming, habitat destruction, biodiversity, etc.) have at their core the simple statistics regarding the numbers of Americans who believe in evolution. My own reaction stunned me for two reasons: first, the obvious, the speaker suggested that depending on the poll or the questions asked, as few as 27 percent of Americans believe in evolution. Second, I had been thinking earlier about the idea of ‘belief’ in general and how our ‘believing’ something doesn’t make it true, and isn’t it wonderful that ‘believing’ in something really doesn’t matter? In the case of evolution it really doesn’t matter whether or not we believe God created us in our present form. It either happened or it didn’t.

The possibility that the numbers of people not believing in evolution is directly related to our existing environmental problems suggests that how we believe does matter.
For example, a 2005 study showed that while 78 percent of adults believed plants and animals have evolved, 62 percent also believed that God created humans without any evolutionary development. In another, 51 out of a 100 say God created humans in their present form, in 10,000 years, and 30 percent say that humans evolved, but God guided the process. In the studies I looked at, those who say God was not involved amount to less than 20 percent.

So, what are the implications? The problem is this: if we see all our crises as part of a big plan outlined literally in the Bible, we are not going to feel the slightest personal responsibility in terms of the role we play contributing to a particular crisis, or spend any time at all thinking of how we might contribute to a possible solution. The big problem now, is that our government is in this camp. As the most powerful country in the world, we’re doing the least in dealing with global environmental issues.

I consulted Charles Darwin on the subjects of evolution and belief because he, more than anyone else, stirred this pot with his writing and thinking. When he left on his five-year voyage of discovery, Darwin believed in a literal interpretation of the bible. When he came back, he’d changed. Rather than a disbeliever, he’d become a doubter and remained so the rest of his life. When describing him, his true friend, Thomas Huxley, commented on Darwin’s doubt, which was the type of doubt “which so loves the truth that it neither dares rest in doubting, not extinguish itself of unjustified belief.”

Today, arguments against Darwin and evolution suggest that he had some political agenda as he wrote “Origin of Species” and “Descent of Man.” We need to remember that everything he wrote about was based on one true thing: his own personal experience – how he tried to explain in the best way that he could, what he saw with his own eyes.

I love what Darwin said late in his life, about God: “I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope & believe what he can.”
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