A Debate about Darwinism, Humanism, and a Spiritual Perspective on Evolution
The purpose of this article is to add a further response to a conversation I’ve been having with Tanner the Humanist. (On a similar theme and of interest is a conversation Gerald R. Baron, a Christian, is having with a Humanist friend of his — so far there are two articles, here and here.)
Tanner recently published an article about Richard Dawkins, essentially praising him but with criticisms about his approach. As I’m not a believer in Darwinism, and definitely not a fan of Dawkins, I responded to Tanner: “Dawkins is well known for saying that Darwin enabled him to become an intellectually fulfilled atheist. If that is one’s driving motivation, then one is likely to believe anything that fulfils that objective, even if the theory is flawed. You’re obviously a bigger fan of Darwin’s evolutionary theory than I am. It’s hard in modern times to take it seriously”.
Tanner replied: “Darwin didn’t ‘enable’ atheism any more than Newton enabled deism. What Darwin did was provide a natural explanation for the diversity of life — one that didn’t need divine magic. That’s not belief out of convenience; it’s science backed by genetics, the fossil record, observed speciation, and mountains of peer-reviewed research.
“Yes, evolution gave people room to imagine a world without divine intervention — but that’s a human interpretation, not evidence of a flaw in the theory or some anti-God agenda. If there is a God, everything we’ve seen so far suggests He works through natural processes. Evolution isn’t an accident — it’s brilliant. If anything, it looks like the kind of mechanism a thinking God would use, not some magician tossing animals into existence with a wand”.
I then responded: “Darwin did indeed provide a natural explanation for the diversity of life. That was his intention. The question is therefore how credible it is. You find it credible, perhaps because you are a Humanist. Many others don’t. I don’t know what you have been reading about the fossil record, but what I read suggests the opposite — gaps, sudden spurts etc. The peer-reviewed research you have read may also have been produced by true believers. If (neo-)Darwinism is as true as you claim, why do so many scientists reject it? Check out the website of the Third Way of Evolution. And I don’t think many of them are Christians or similar.
“Darwin himself had doubts about his own theory. That may be why he delayed publishing for 20 years, and only felt pressure when he heard that Wallace was going to publish an identical theory, and wanted to get some credit. It was turned into a dogma by those following him.
“It’s also worth noting that Wallace, at least at the end of his life, was a believer in Intelligent Design, witness his book: The world of life : a manifestation of creative power, directive mind, and ultimate purpose”.
Tanner then replied: “Jesus-denying atheists claim Jesus is a mythical figure, yet historians are pressured to accept him as historical. Do you see the pattern here?
“Something doesn’t need to emotionally impress me to be true. I don’t fully understand relativity or quantum physics — some parts seem completely unintuitive, almost like hocus pocus — but I don’t reject them, because I understand the process by which those theories were developed and tested.
“Now think about what you’re implying: countless students spend four years studying evolutionary biology, then nearly a decade earning a PhD. You’re saying they’re all being tested on false ideas — and none of them realize it? That’s a serious stretch.
“And honestly, why is it so hard to imagine that God could create a universe where matter forms, life emerges, and evolves? Why must it be magic tricks and instant creation to count as divine?”
That’s where we have got to so far. There is so much to say about this last response by Tanner that I thought it would be worthy of an article, so that other Medium writers can join in the debate and add comments if they so choose. So this is my next response, which I’ll address to Tanner directly.
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I’ve never mentioned ‘instant creation’, so don’t know why you’ve introduced that term into the conversation, since it’s not relevant. It sounds as though you are equating anything anti-Darwinian with Creationism, which is certainly not the case. (In any case the Big Bang, which I’m guessing you believe in since many Humanists do, would seem to be an example of instant creation.) As for ‘magic tricks’, nature, even if we concede Darwinism as its explanation, is full of them. Some obvious examples are: the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly — what goes on inside the cocoon is extraordinary; the transformation of the egg that you see in supermarkets and eat for breakfast being transformed into a chicken; a single sperm and egg ultimately creating a human being capable of producing works like Beethoven’s 9th symphony or Michelangelo’s painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I would politely suggest that if you don’t think these are magic tricks or miracles, then you need to seriously reconsider your thinking.
You ask why it is so hard to imagine that God could create a universe where matter forms, life emerges, and evolves. That isn’t hard to imagine at all, rather what we should be believing. Of course it depends to what extent you think ‘God’ remains involved in the process. (I would prefer a term along the lines of spiritual agencies.) I assume you’re adopting a deist position here. This brings us back to where we started, Richard Dawkins, the topic that I thought was the subject of our discussion, rather than evolution itself. Let’s not forget that one of his best known books is The Blind Watchmaker, in which he argued that any impression of design is an illusion, because the truth is that evolution progresses through the blind workings of nature through natural selection. He therefore considers the words teleology and purpose to be akin to abominable swear-words, after which you have to wash your mouth out. I therefore ask again whether anyone can seriously believe that the three ‘magic tricks’ mentioned above could seriously come about through the blind workings of an unintelligent nature. We could therefore agree with you that evolution “looks like the kind of mechanism a thinking God would use”. Indeed it is. It’s only Creationists who think that evolution is like “some magician tossing animals into existence with a wand”.
That therefore leads us to the question of whether evolution is indeed intelligent, creative, even purposeful. You mention quantum physics, some parts of which, as you say, seem completely unintuitive. It’s worth noting therefore that the discoveries of the quantum physics revolution led many physicists to adopt (or confirm) a spiritual world view. Early examples would be Werner Heisenberg, Sir Arthur Eddington, Sir James Jeans, and Max Planck. The latter gave this especially eye-catching quote: “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter” (my italics).
Later examples would be David Bohm, Fred Alan Wolf, Fritjof Capra (author of The Tao of Physics), and Danah Zohar. Also worthy of mention is:
- the physicist Amit Goswami, author of Creative Evolution: a Physicist’s Resolution between Darwinism and Intelligent Design. (He also wrote The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World.)
- the biologist Bruce Lipton, once a convinced Darwinist, who was converted to a spiritual world view, thus rejecting his former beliefs, having discovered and studied quantum physics. He is the author of The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles. In chapter 4 (The New Physics: Planting Both Feet Firmly on Thin Air) he describes this process of conversion.
That leads me to consider your supposedly difficult problem. You say that it is a serious stretch for me to imply that countless students could spend four years studying evolutionary biology, then nearly a decade earning a PhD, that all this is based on false ideas, yet none of them realise it.
For some that will be hard to believe, but may nevertheless be true. Some students will perhaps assume that what they are being taught by authoritative figures must be true. Perhaps they are predisposed, like Richard Dawkins, to atheistic, non-spiritual ideas. More importantly, do they read widely outside their specialist subject? Are they fully aware of the implications of the quantum physics revolution? Should they be forced to do this before coming to any conclusions about biology and evolution? If they were, like Bruce Lipton, they might be converted to a truer picture.
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For my articles on quantum physics and spirituality, see this list, best to start at the bottom.
For the transcript of a talk I gave on the theme of quantum physics and the reunification of science and religion, please see articles 2 and 3 in this list.
For my articles on the theme of the battle against Humanism, see this list.
For a series entitled Reasons to Doubt Darwinism — Creative Evolution, see this list.
For a series entitled The Ongoing Battle Against Darwinism — Towards a New Biology, see this list. See also here.
There are two articles criticising Richard Dawkins here.
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