A Very Quick Tour of Evolutionary History

This is the 3^rd blog in this series which is reflecting on E.O. Wilson’s book The Social Conquest of Earth.  The first blog in the series is  “What Does It Mean to be Human?” and the previous blog is A Few Unique Traits of Humans.

Wilson is an effective story teller and he does offer a potential history of how evolutionary history unfolded leading to the appearance of modern humans.  That is the heart of his book, and I recommend you read his book because the history is fascinating.  Even if you have doubts about evolution, you can still see how evolutionary theorist piece together and interpret the evidence they have before them.  Certainly as Wilson describes the evidence and the history there are lots of uncertainties, possibilities and probabilities that make up the story, and while it may be the best construct of the existing evidence, one realizes some of this history is guesswork and some parts of the history no doubt are going  to be overturned as new evidence is discovered.  That certainly is the nature of science and the meaning of “truth” in the evolutionary context.   While Wilson is committed to evolutionary theory, it does seem to me in the book he expresses in various ways that the story he is telling is possibly the story based on current evidence but some of the story is interpretation and educated guesses to fill in gaps in knowledge.

That evolutionary theory is constantly undergoing change based on new discoveries and evidence is made obvious in such news reports as as found in England’s  THE INDEPENDENT, Fossil Discovery Rewrites the Story of Human Evolution.   Some will argue the sensational headline’s claim that the discovery “rewrites” the story of human evolution is an exaggeration, nevertheless my read of Wilson is that he would be totally comfortable with rewriting chapters in his book if new evidence led to new theories or a new storyline.  We will get back to debates between science and religion in this series in the near future.

Wilson offers an overview of what his book is about:

“LIKE ALL GREAT PROBLEMS in science, the evolutionary origin of humanity first presented itself as a tangle of partly seen and partly imagined entities and processes. Some of these elements occurred well back in geological time, and may never be understood with certainty. I have nevertheless pieced together those parts of the epic on which I believe researchers agree, and filled in the remainder with informed opinion. The sequence, given in broad strokes, is the consensus I believe to be correct, or at least most consistent with existing evidence.”  (Kindle Loc. 762-67)

Before getting to the controversies between science and religion, below are a few facts from Wilson’s evolutionary timeline which I found interesting.  Keep in mind Wilson’s term “eusociality” which means multiple generations of a species living together with “an altruistic division of labor.”  Humans have eusociality as do some bees and ants.  Very few species have actually developed this trait despite its apparent evolutionary advantage.

“The eusocial insects are almost unimaginably older than human beings. Ants, along with their wood-eating equivalents the termites, originated near the middle of the Age of Reptiles, more than 120 million years ago.”  (Kindle Loc 725-26)

“The oldest known stone tools, knapped crudely to serve some function or other, date to 6–2 million years before the present.”  (Kindle Loc. 677-78)

“The first hominins, with organized societies and altruistic division of labor among collateral relatives and allies, appeared at best 3 million years ago.”  (Kindle Loc 7207-28)

“By two million years before the present, the favored australopithecine line had begun the transition to the still-larger-brained Homo erectus. This species had a brain smaller than that of present-day Homo sapiens, but it was able to shape crude stone tools and use controlled fire at campsites. Its populations spread out of Africa, blanketing the land up into northeastern Asia and pushing south all the way to Indonesia.”   (Kindle Loc. 1378-82)

“By 200,000 years before the present, the African ancestors had come anatomically closer to contemporary humans. The populations also used more advanced stone tools and may have engaged in some form of burial practice. But their skulls were still relatively heavy in construction.”  (Kindle Loc. 1426-27)

“Burials began at least 95,000 years ago, as evidenced by thirty individuals excavated at Qafzeh Cave in Israel. One of the dead, a nine-year-old child, was positioned with its legs bent and a deer antler in its arms. That arrangement alone suggests not just an abstract awareness of death but also some form of existential anxiety.”  (Kindle Loc. 4502-4)

“Only around 60,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens broke out of Africa and began to spread around the world, did people acquire the complete skeletal dimensions of contemporary humanity.”  (Kindle Loc. 1428-29)

The “’creative explosion’ that began approximately 35,000 years ago in Europe. From this time on until the Late Paleolithic period over 20,000 years later, cave art flourished. Thousands of figures, mostly of large game animals, have been found in more than two hundred caves distributed through southwestern France and northeastern Spain…”  (Kindle Loc. 4507-9)

“’Flutes,’ technically better classified as pipes, fashioned from bird bones, have been found that date to 30,000 years or more before the present.”  (Kindle 4551-2)

“In a very early time, from the Late Paleolithic period through the Mesolithic period, the cultural evolution of humanity ground forward slowly. At the beginning of the Neolithic period, 10,000 years before the present, with the invention of agriculture and villages and food surpluses, cultural evolution accelerated steeply. Then, thanks to the expansion of trade and by force of arms, cultural innovations not only increased faster but also spread much farther.”  (Kindle 1619-23)

There were so many other aspects of the story that I found fascinating, but the above are a few “highlights” of the human evolutionary story according to Wilson.  I value the comments for what they contribute to an understanding of what it means to be human.  To be human is not simply to be the passive victim of biological determinism.  To be human is to create, is to feel, is to worship and is to believe in something greater than one’s self.   We’ll turn now to a more controversial aspect of Wilson’s writings:  his criticism of religion.

Next: Wilson’s Critique of Religion

DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE (B)

This is the conclusion to my blog in which I am reviewing DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE By James Watson (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2003).  I wrote the review in 2005 after reading the book, but never published the review.  The first blog is entitled, DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE (A).

3) In this book one also encounters a scientific challenge to pro-life thinking. Secular humanistic compassion and love is embraced by the author. Though Watson is comfortable with allowing anyone to make reproductive decisions based upon their religious beliefs, he does feel that religious constraint is imposed on the free choice of secularists. For Watson, science holds a key to relieve the untold suffering in this world. Genetically modified crops can greatly increase the yield on farms and feed the world’s masses. Genetically modified crops do and will reduce dependency on insecticides and herbicides, thus reducing pollution of land and water, again benefitting everyone on earth. Such modifications by reducing our use of chemicals will improve our health, so he argues. He believes this is being pro-life. For him, suffering is the great evil which love must overcome. Suffering, so he believes, can be relieved by human ingenuity including the genetic modification of food and the through genetic therapies for humans. He points out several terribly painful and wasting diseases which we now know are genetically determined and can be avoided by the genetic screening of women. Why he asks, wouldn’t we want to spare fellow humans from short lives which are full of pain? He is OK with using abortion to attain these ends, but he also believes genetic testing of couples can help them decide whether or not to conceive children in the first place based upon using medical determinations of whether they are genetic carriers of wasting diseases. Through genetic testing of couples, they can decide not to pass along their genetic defects to their offspring. Watson appears to take a very utilitarian view of human life. The death of infants and children from wasting genetic diseases is not acceptable to him morally when we have the knowledge to prevent their conception or coming to term. His argument is that we take utmost care to help the sick and dying be comfortable and painless and we put our effort and energy into conquering diseases, so why not use the obvious science of genetics to accomplish these same goals? The book offers insight into the mind of a man who doesn’t think religious arguments ought to be forced on the rest of humanity.

Whereas Christians would argue that human life, even if shortened and diseased, is still valuable and sacred, Watson sees life as being meaningful when it is productive. An infant or child’s brief life in constant pain is of questionable value to him. Why would we wish such an existence on anyone if we have the technology to stop it? Would it not , he asks, be more humane and comforting to avoid bringing such life into existence in the first place? If we as religious people in love and compassion see our duty to help prevent others from suffering or understand our role to relieve the suffering of others (even by anaesthetizing them through their entire existence), why do we argue for bringing into existence lives which we know absolutely will be nothing but sorrow and pain for their shortened existence? How, he asks, is that more moral or compassionate or loving than using our genetic knowledge to avoid bringing them into being? These I think are the arguments that pro-lifers will face during the next decade.  For him pain and suffering are the greatest evils, and a short life of suffering is of no value whatsoever.

4) Watson stays true to his description of being a secularist and a scientist even as he considers the dark side of humanity. He describes this negative side of humans as being “selfish” which he defines as “that aspect of our nature that evolution has hardwired to promote our own survival.” An interesting definition of what we would call sin. In evolutionary terms, selfishness and sinfulness are for the survival of the species! But Watson is not convinced that humanity’s hubris really is the most powerful force in our lives. He does state that he sees humans as being first social beings with compassion for others as a natural choice and force in our lives. He believes it is this compassion which makes us uniquely human. It is our ability to love and our need for love which will save us from our darker side of evolved selfishness. And he sees this compassion as manifesting itself best when humans decide to prevent the suffering of others through knowledge such as DNA has revealed to us.

5) Watson does not believe that secularists are immoral. Rather he feels they simply “feel no need for a moral code written down in an ancient tome.” He believes in the goodness and compassion of humanity because we are social beings. Apparently for him goodness emerges naturally from humans because of our social nature. He openly says love is what is responsible for human survival on this planet (but one has to wonder how he reconciles that with the claim in the same chapter that selfishness is a human adaptation for species survival). He looks to DNA as being a new form of scripture: “Our DNA, the instruction book of human creation, may well come to rival religious scripture as the keeper of the truth.”

He sounds a challenge to believers which is why I think we need to read his text and understand the world to which we are to witness the truth of the Gospel.   If this empirical world is all there is, then for folks like Watson terminating “unsuccessful” or “unproductive” lives makes sense.  If however, as Christian Orthodoxy believes, each conceived human bears the divine likeness and experiences the divine life despite or even in suffering, then each life is meaningful and valuable, not only here but in the eternity of God.  Pro-life means that each human existence is valuable no matter how short or painful because being human is not measured purely by productivity or by freedom from pain.   Each human life reveals something about the goodness of God.  Thus we strive to defend life especially for the defenseless.

Review: DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE (A)

[Note:  I originally wrote this review in 2005, long before I started blogging, and never had a venue to publish it.  It sat stored in the deep recesses of my computer’s memory until I came across it again while searching for something else.  I decided to publish it in this two part blog.]

DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE By James Watson (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2003)

James Watson along with Francis Crick are credited with revealing the very nature of DNA – the double helix which is for science as the title suggests the secret of life. Crick and Watson received the Nobel Prize for their work to crack the code of proteins which constitutes how life is passed from one cell to the next, and life from one generation to the next. Watson’s book offers insight into how the various discoveries of an array of scientists brought the pieces of the puzzle together to open to our eyes how life works on the level of molecular biology. The book is a fascinating history of modern science in the field of genetics. It also brings a great deal of science to the level of knowledgeable readers. One can gain great insight into the possibilities which the science of genetics is opening to our world. One also realizes clearly that for some what has been opened by molecular biologists and geneticists is a potential economic bonanza, the likes of which the world has not previously known. For others, the unveiling of DNA will bring into reality the worst fears of science fiction. Watson does not avoid the controversies which this science has caused nor the alarms which have been set off among some people about the dangers which it represents. He is in the end confident that this new science will prove its worth and will silence its critics.

But not being a scientist nor an entrepreneur nor a venture capitalist, I can’t really comment on the these aspects of the book DNA. I was however intrigued by some of the theological implications of the book, though Watson would never claim it to be a theological book at all. Watson admits he is purely a secularist and a scientist. But that makes the book interesting for believers. It is a readable book even when the scientific details are beyond my understanding and even when the story complete with names of all those involved is beyond my interest. It is a book which really does assume and advocate a purely secular scientific understanding of life. Watson is quite confident that the potential of this science, though fraught with some risk, ultimately is for the greater good. He dismisses the concerns of religious folk, ethicists, politicians, environmentalists, organic farmers and American lovers of racial and gender equality with equal aplomb. Whatever questions or fears have been raised about genetically altering plants, foods, animals or humans, he dismisses as not founded on good science. He wholly trusts in the goodness of science and scientists because he does believe in the end humans are basically benign if not outright benevolent.  (“Mostly harmless” according to THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.)

I would encourage Christians to read this book for several reasons, not the least of which is we gain some understanding into the secular scientific mind.  If we are to fulfill our evangelical mission, we have to have some comprehension of those to whom we will proclaim the good news.   Evangelism is about communication and to communicate with others we have to understand their language and concepts so that we can translate the Gospel into a language that speaks to them as well.

1) For those who are interested in the connection between life and physical creation, this book does offer a scientific criticism of the need for any kind of vitalism – some force divine or natural which gives life to inanimate material. By showing the basis of biological life to be in proteins and protein manufacturing and transfer, Watson aims at demonstrating that even without any sense of divine intervention, biological processes toward the continuation of a species does go on at the molecular level. This is taking the Creationism vs. Evolution to a new level – a microbiological level. DNA – basically chemicals and proteins – works to preserve life from one cell to the next and from one generation to the next. At this level it is possible to believe that inanimate proteins are somehow carrying on the work of life itself. It is not so totally impossible to see a physical universe capable at the level of proteins to begin organizing chains of proteins and than copying those chains and passing them along to ever complex forms until cells emerge. They are doing that right now in our bodies, millions of times every day. At this level we also see the mechanism of evolution at work, and can see why scientists believe this does explain the history of life itself. In some sense genetic material is in fact a historical record of life on earth, recorded, copied and passed down through the millennium complete with scribal errors which brought into being new combinations of DNA resulting over time in new species. As Watson describes it, “Life, we now know, is nothing but a vast array of coordinated chemical reactions.” Of course this is a reductionism and assumes that life can be completely understood on the level of proteins. But we know life exists and functions on other levels besides the molecular level. Nevertheless, as Christians, molecular biology, microbiology and genetics do offer to us a new way of seeing the universe, and the plan of God at work. While humans may disobey the will of God, at the molecular level, creation is working according to the will and plan of God. And because we know this level exists, we can hardly pretend otherwise even if it is a challenge to our belief in creation.

2) In the chapter “Who We Are” Watson also points out that the great scientific opposition to evolution and Mendelian genetics was Comrade Trofim Lysenko who inspired Stalin to follow disastrous agricultural methods which while ideologically acceptable to the atheistic communists, totally ignored the discoveries of genetic science. The results were the massive starvation of millions of Soviet citizens while US agriculture following genetic science became the breadbasket of the world. This is a historical truth which creation scientists might not want to forget. In Watson’s own words: “… ideology– of any kind– and science are at best inappropriate bedfellows. Science may indeed uncover unpleasant truths, but the critical thing is that they are truths. Any effort, whether wicked or well-meaning, to conceal truth or impede its disclosure is destructive.” Here Watson would agree with the search which Orthodox Christianity also would claim for religion: truth. For Watson however, there is no transcendent truth, no truth outside the realm of the physical world, no meaning to be bestowed upon us all at the end of the world. For him, when the universe might end by reaching entropy or in another Big Bang, meaning will cease to exist as well. There is no great struggle for the good against evil for him. There is no sense that something greater than this world (or this DNA!) exists beyond or outside of the chemical universe. Human intelligence, emotions or creativity not withstanding, for Watson the world of DNA is awesome and awe inspiring, but mystery is limited only to that which we have yet to discover or that which is beyond our immediate technology. A true sense of mystery – a logic of other beyond human logic or of some plan unfolding in the universe whose purpose or goal is beyond our understanding – these Watson the secularist is not interested in.

Next:  DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE (B)

Atheism: Luminous or delusion?

1^st in a blog series.

Blogging has caused me on occasion to cross paths with some atheist – both on my blog and on theirs.  This has produced a few exchanges of ideas as well as exchanging barbs at times.  Often these communications are related to evolution which is one point at which the interest of atheists and believers do intersect.   This meeting point is actually a crowded city intersection because the spectrum of beliefs held by “faithists” (as some atheists like to label believers) and scientists is diverse.  There are of course atheist and biblical literalist/creationist ideologues who are the ones who draw the most media attention because their extreme views make for easier and more entertaining contrasts.  But there also are a wide variety of those who are agnostic, theistic scientists, deists, intelligent design adherents, and the indifferent.  The ideological atheists have no sympathy for the theistic scientists as they feel they just muddy the waters, but their real enemies are the biblical literalists/creationists.  Often when the ideological atheists attack religion they are referring only to biblical literalists and creationists, though admittedly they don’t distinguish between believers (see for example Jerry Coyne’s webpage Why Evolution is True which to some extent is devoted to refuting creationist claims that evolution is unproven).   Their attacks however often do not take into account the wide spectrum of beliefs held by “faithists” or that people believe for many different reasons, some much more logical and even factually determined than others.   While all creationists and biblical literalists are believers, not all believers are biblically literalistic creationists.

David Bentley Hart in his book ATHEIST DELUSIONS: THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS FASHIONABLE ENEMIES offers a rebuttal to some of the common attacks on religion offered by “the new Atheists.”  (You can see a short video interview of Hart on the same topic: The New Atheists and the Ugly God).   Part of the basis of his polemics is that the new atheists’ attacks on religion are so broad in their claims as to be easily refuted by simply studying history (something many biblical literalists and “bible alone” believers are unwilling to do) and offering historical examples which refute the atheists’ claims.    For example in dealing with a favorite historical event for atheists – the Galileo affair in which the scientist having truth on his side is oppressed by the superstitious religionists, Hart points out:

“And the irony is, strange to say, that it was the church that was demanding proof, and Galileo who was demanding blind assent—to a model that was wrong.” (p 66)

Galileo couldn’t prove his theory as he still lacked the means to prove it, but he was asking the church to accept his theory as he felt certain it would be proven eventually.  The Church refused to accept his ideas without proof.  As Hart notes, ironically, the very model Galileo was proffering at that moment later proved to be inaccurate.   Thus to say the church always opposed scientific truth is simply not supported by historical example.  Hart offers several instances which refute the popular claims of “the new atheists.”

“This would, at any rate, be in keeping with one of the rhetorical strategies especially favored in New Atheist circles: one labels anything one dislikes – even if it is found in a purely secular setting—‘religion’ (thus, for example, all the twentieth-century totalitarianisms are ‘political religions’ for which secularists need take no responsibility), while simultaneously claiming that everything good,  in the arts, morality, or any other sphere—even if it emerges with an entirely religious setting—has only an accidental association with religious belief and is really, in fact, common human property; (so, for example, the impulse toward charity will doubtless spring up wherever an ‘enlightened’ society takes root).  By the same token, every injustice that seems to follow from a secularist principle is obviously an abuse of that principle, while any evil that comes wrapped in a cassock is unquestionably an undiluted expression of religion’s every essence.” (p 220)

Hart’s point is one that I have noted myself in conversations with atheists – if one points out that 20^th Century Fascism and Communism were ideas both born of the scientific skepticism of the Enlightenment and both were profoundly anti-religious and based in absolute adherence to human reason and secular rationalism, the atheists immediately say that is because those anti-religionists followed religiously based thinking for how to solve problems.  Thus they claim 20^th Century militant atheism is just another form of religion and not at all what real atheism is about.  However, if a believer points out that much evil that has happened in the name of religion was in fact a denial of that religion’s core values, the atheists simply scoff and say the two cannot be separated.  Hart’s contention is that much that happened in terms of religious warfare in Europe leading up to the Enlightenment’s separation of church and state was every bit if not more so guided  by political realities than by religious claims.  As states asserted themselves as independent of church control, their tendency toward relying on violence, abuse and warfare grew because they were freed from Christian moral constraints to do what was politically expedient – for which they always could find some religious support.  Certainly this is part of philosophical support that was given to Fascism in Germany – it was Christianity which was crippling Germany from being the dominating world power and which had to be overthrown.   Communistic Bolshevism made the same claim about Christianity in Russia.

Next:  Atheism: Ideal, Idyllic or Ideology?

DNA: A Scripture and Keeper of the Truth?

In 2004 I read DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE  by  James Watson, and wrote comments on the book which I never published for lack of a venue.  In this series of three blogs, I am finally publishing my comments on the book.

James Watson along with Francis Crick are credited with revealing the very nature of  DNA – the double helix which is for science as the title suggests the secret of life.   Crick and Watson received the Nobel Prize for their work to crack the code of proteins which constitutes how life is passed from one cell to the next, and life from one generation to the next.    Watson’s book offers insight into how the various discoveries of an array of scientists brought the pieces of the puzzle together to open to our eyes to how life works on the level of molecular biology.   The book is a fascinating history of modern science in the field of genetics.  It also brings a great deal of science to the level of knowledgeable readers.  One can gain great insight into the possibilities which the science of genetics is opening to our world.   One also realizes clearly that for some what has been opened by molecular biologists and geneticists is a potential economic bonanza, the likes of which the world has not previously known.  For others, the unveiling of DNA will bring into reality the worst fears of science fiction.    Watson does not avoid the controversies which this science has caused or the alarms which have been set off among some people about the dangers which it represents.  He is in the end confident that this new science will prove its worth and will silence its critics. 

Not being a scientist nor an entrepreneur nor a venture capitalist, I can’t really comment on these aspects of the book.   I was however intrigued by some of the theological implications of the book, though Watson would never claim it to be a theological book at all.  Watson admits he is purely a secularist and a scientist.   But that makes the book interesting for believers.  I found it to be a readable book even when the scientific details were beyond my understanding and even when the history complete with names of all those involved is beyond my interest.   It is a book which really does assume and advocate a purely secular scientific understanding of life.   Watson is quite confident that the potential of this science, though fraught with some risk, ultimately is for the greater good.   He dismisses the concerns of religious folk, ethicists, politicians, environmentalists, organic farmers and American lovers of racial and gender equality with equal aplomb.   Whatever questions or fears have been raised about genetically altering plants, foods, animals or humans, he dismisses as not founded on good science.   He wholly trusts in the goodness of science and scientists because he does believe in the end humans are basically benign if not outright benevolent.  But his belief that scientists will always be moved by humanitarian ideals is certainly one of blind faith, for scientists have proven themselves willing to do things for economic, nationalistic, egoistic, and ideological reasons just like every other human.

I would encourage Christian intellectuals to read this book for several reasons, not the least of which is we gain some understanding into the secular scientific mind.   Through this book we can gain insight into the mind of the secular world.   If we are to fulfill our evangelical mission, we have to have some comprehension of those to whom we will proclaim the good news.

Watson does not believe that secularists are immoral.  Rather he feels they simply “feel no need for a moral code written down in an ancient tome.”   He believes in the goodness and compassion of humanity because we are social beings.   Apparently for him goodness emerges naturally from humans because of our social nature.    He openly says love is what is responsible for human survival on this planet (but one has to wonder how he reconciles that with the claim in the same chapter that selfishness is a human adaptation for species survival).  He looks to DNA as being a new form of scripture: “Our DNA, the instruction book of human creation, may well come to rival religious scripture as the keeper of the truth.”  

 He sounds a challenge to believers which is why I think we need to read his text and understand the world to which we are to witness the truth of the Gospel.   DNA apparently does record human history, and thus is another kind of record of what God has been doing in and through humanity from the beginning of creation.

Next:  DNA:  Science and Ideology

See also:  DNA: Another Scripture