Darwin and Gray

[NotReady]

My following thoughts are based on this
article.

It's about the Harvard professor of botany in the 19th century, Asa Gray, sometimes referred to as Darwin's dove, who was one of Darwin's biggest promoters in America.

A couple of quotes:

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As Darwin's strongest and most vocal scientific ally in the United States, Gray recognized the scientific importance of Darwin's efforts for the growing professionalism of biological researchers. But as an orthodox Christian, a Presbyterian firmly devoted to the faith expressed in the Nicene Creed, he saw in Darwin's theory both evidence for his philosophical commitment to natural theology and support for his opposition to the idealism advocated by Louis Agassiz and the nature philosophers in both Europe and America.

...

As all good historians of science and of Christian thought know, evangelical Christians in the nineteenth century were generally not biblical literalists, nor did they believe in a young earth. In other words, the religious opposition to Darwin did not arise from perceived problems between Darwin's theory and a literal reading of Genesis. Rather, following the publication of Origin of Species, it centered on what seemed to be the randomness of natural selection, the appearance of new organisms by chance, and therefore the exclusion of divine purpose or design in Nature.


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I've said many times on this forum that my primary objection to evolution is the concept of chance, or stated differently, that the universe or biological life is undesigned. I've also stated that I believe most of the controversy between science and religion centers around this difficulty. I think this article is some evidence that I was correct. It is almost mind boggling to think that Darwin's biggest fan in this country was an orthodox Chrisitian, a Calvinist no less. Let that sink in in the context of people like Dawkins and co.

I've been doing some other reading in this area (religion and science), especially some initial research into Augustine and Aquinas. I'm not ready (hey look a pun) to discuss it yet but some ideas I've had for a long time in vague form are beginning to take shape. Perhaps another post down the road on that score.

I would recommend this article for another reason. Gray and Darwin corresponded frequently. It's very interesting to see the conflict Darwin was undergoing over the question of God, design, etc. I think a fair reading will show that his growing agnosticism was not the direct product of his theory - his problem was a very common one for atheists - mostly the problem of pain, evil and suffering. In other words, from what I can tell, he didn't view his theory as proof or even evidence that God doesn't exist, but he needed the theory to explain nature if He doesn't.

[vhawk01]

For like the twentieth time, no one considers his theory proof or even evidence that God doesn't exist. I'm not sure if you think simply repeating that over and over again, and ignoring the objections, will make it true or make it believed. Otherwise, good post.

[MidGe]

For the 21st time, evolution theory has nothing to do with god. It totally ignores the god question, it simply shows that a god is not necessary to explain the varieties of life forms that can be observed. The objections to a god are different altogether, imo, they rest on two major qualities usually attributed to god: the imbecility of the design, obviously his lack of intelligence, and the immorality of of his guidelines and unneeded suffering inflicted on conscious beings.

PS if your idea of god doesn't moot his intelligence or benevolence, then I have nothing to argue with you, NotReady, it is a simple semantic matter, you then have chose to call god what you/I don't know, and I'd rather call it simply what I don't know.

[Duke]

As time goes on, you'll certainly agree that fewer and fewer things will need to be explained by gods. This will never mean that there is 100% certainty that some god did or did not exist or have a hand in whatever it is that is up for explanation. It seems that the truly faithful wouldn't need there to be some unanswered question to maintain their belief anyhow.

Some people try to point at, say, evolution, or quantum uncertainty, or whatever they want to use to represent today's "why does that sun always come up?" It's something that we're not sure about, and they'll want to cite it as evidence for god. But it's never been more than evidence of our ignorance.

Another example of ignorance is the idea that introducing a supernatural being is the right answer. In time it'll shake itself out. I can't wait for the day when people stop trying to take shortcuts to understanding. The idea of a god is the greatest shortcut in the history of humanity, ranking ahead of even a wrinkle in time (admittedly a conceptual shortcut, and not a physical one).

[NotReady]

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For like the twentieth time, no one considers his theory proof or even evidence that God doesn't exist. I'm not sure if you think simply repeating that over and over again, and ignoring the objections, will make it true or make it believed. Otherwise, good post.


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This is incredibly wrong. The 19th century Reformed theologian, principal of Princeton Theological, wrote a book called What is Darwinism. He spends a great deal of space documenting how Darwin believed that biological life is completely undesigned, ergo accidental.

Some quotes:

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The whole drift of his books is to prove that all the organs of plants and animals, all their instincts and mental endowments, may be accounted for by the blind operation of natural causes, without any intention, purpose, or cooperation of God.
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So there are Christian men who believe in the evolution of one kind of plants and animals out of earlier and simpler forms; but they believe that everything was designed by God, and that it is due to his purpose and power that all the forms of vegetable and animal life are what they are. But this is not the question. What Darwin and the advocates of his theory deny, is all design. The organs, even the most complicated and wonderful, were not intended. They are said to be due to the undirected and unintended operation of physical laws. This is Mr. Wallace's argument. He endeavors to show that it is unworthy of God that He should be supposed to have contrived the mechanism of the orchids, as a mechanist contrives a curious puzzle.


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He then goes on to establish the thesis that Darwinism, not evolution per se, is atheistic.

Quoting Huxley:
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" If we apprehend," Huxley further says, " the spirit of the' Origin of Species' rightly, then, nothing can be more entirely and absolutely opposed to teleology, as it is commonly understood, than the Darwinian theory."

If he can, let him, if he be so inclined, amuse himself with such scientific implements as authority tells him are safe and will not cut his fingers; but let him not imagine that he X, or can be, both a true son of the Church and a loyal soldier of science."


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Quoting Biichner:

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Dr. Biichner has published a work on Darwinism in two volumes. Darwin's theory, he says, " is the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than that of his decried predecessor Lamarck, who admitted at least a general law of progress and development; whereas, according to Darwin, the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and accidental operations."


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Quoting Vogt:

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In his preface to his work on the "' Descent of SMan," Mr. Darwin quotes this author as a high authority. We see him elsewhere referred to as one of the first physiologists of Germany. Vogt devotes the concluding lecture of the second volume of his work on Man, to the consideration of Darwinism. He expresses his opinion of it, after high commendation, in the following terms. He says that it cannot be doubted that Darwin's "1 theory turns the Creator - and his occasional intervention in the revolutions of the earth and in the production of species - without any hesitation out of doors, inasmuch as it does not leave the smallest room for the agency of such a Being


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And Haeckel:

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The precise difficulty which Mr. Darwin s doctrine has, according to Haeckel, enabled men of science to surmount, is thus clearly stated on p. 633. It is, "that organs for a definite end should be produced by undesigning or mechanical causes." This difficulty is overcome by the doctrine of evolution. "

Haeckel says that Darwin's theory of evolution leads inevitably to Atheism and Materialism


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He then contrasts those views with Gray:

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America's great botanist, Dr. Asa Gray, avows himself an evolutionist; but he is not a Darwinian. Of that point we have the clearest possible proof. Mr. Darwin, after explicitly denying that the variations which have resulted in cc the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included were intentionally and specially guided," adds: ' IHowever much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief ' that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines' like a stream Ialong definite and useful lines of irrigation.' " If Mr. Darwin does not agree with Dr. Gray, Dr. Gray does not agree with Mr. Darwin. It is as to the exclusion of design from the operations of nature that our American, differs from the English, naturalist. This is the vital point. The denial of final causes is the formative idea of Darwin's theory, and therefore no teleologist can be a Darwinian. Dr. Gray quotes from another writer the sentence, "It is a singular fact, that when we can find how anything is done, our first conclusion seems to be that God did not do it;" and then adds, "I agree with the writer that this first conclusion is premature and unworthy; I will add, deplorable. Through what faults of dogmatism on the one hand, and skepticism on the other, it came to be so thought, we need not here consider. Let us hope, and I confidently expect, that it is not to last; that the religious faith which survived without a shock the notion of the fixedness of the earth itself, may equally outlast the notion of the absolute fixedness of the species which inhabit it; that in the future, even more than in the past, faith in an order, which is the basis of science, will not- as it cannot reasonably - be dissevered from faith in an Ordainer, which is the basis of religion." I We thank God for that sentence. It is the concluding sentence of Dr. Gray's address as ex-President of " The American Association for the Advancement of Sciences" delivered August, 1872. Dr. Gray goes further. He says, "The proposition that the things and events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism." Again, " To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos..... If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and the results we behold around us were undirected and undesigned; or if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show that such belief is atheistic.


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A more recent example, and I especially like the idea of accepting the "patent absurdity" of some constructs of science, right after criticizing "irrational" explanations of the world, is:

the following quotation from the Harvard geneticist, Richard Lewontin:
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When science speaks to members of the general public the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth. . . . We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.


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What I'm trying to establish in this thread is that the conflict between religion and science is really a contest between two worldviews, atheism and theism. The mistake atheists make is asserting that science has or can prove that God doesn't exist, that there is no teleology in the universe, and/or that God interacts with His creation. Evolution and even natural selection were not unheard of before Darwin. I believe there is some evidence that even Darwin's grandfather held to an early form of evolution. The problem Darwin and his supporters caused was making evolution an intellectual rationale for atheism.

It's my thesis that though religion at times opposes science, science (or at least scientists) oppose theism. There is no doubt fault on both sides but the science camp is clearly at least as guilty. The blaming of theists for the obscuration of science and its opposition to knowledge and truth is a great lie. What theists oppose isn't science, but atheism.

Edit: Forgot to name the theologian: Charles Hodge.

[vhawk01]

I know you are trying to establish it. The problem is, it cannot be established, because it is incorrect. You providing examples of Darwinists who are also atheists has absolutely no bearing on the question of whether evolution implies atheism. Maybe you have your correlations backwards, and atheism implies Darwinism? Maybe both are attributed to some other cause, X? This is really pretty elementary stuff here, NR.

Scientists may very well oppose theism. But they do it on their free time. The key difference here is that atheism is NOT a worldview, it is not a philosophy, and it does not guide moral action. The phrase you are looking for is SECULAR HUMANISM. If you want to say that secular humanism opposes God, and opposes Christianity, and the whole ball of wax, thats all well and good. And of course secular humanists are going to be almost exclusively Darwinists. But that has NO bearing on whether the theory itself, or the science, are anti-God.

So, the conflict is not between two differing worldviews, atheism and theism. There may very well BE a conflict between differing worldviews, but that conflict is between Christianty/Islam/Judaism/etc. vs. Secular Humanism. We can have many threads filled with much debate about the merits of these two sides, and if you felt like calling THOSE threads religious debates, you may be correct. Secular humanism isn't STRICTLY a religion, but at least it is a moral philosophy and a coherent worldview. Atheism is neither, nor is Darwinism.

[arahant]

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What theists oppose isn't science, but atheism.


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That's true, but then scientists look for non-mystical explanations of phenomena and theists immediately brand that search as being 'atheistic', and hence oppose it. It's a bit silly to say things like "I support science as long it doesn't assume materialism".

[NotReady]

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This is really pretty elementary stuff here, NR.


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It's extrememly elementary that Darwin thought his theory opposed teleology in nature, that evolution was undesigned. As Hodge stated, that this implies atheism is obvious. Darwin's supporter Gray stated this and Darwin disagreed with Gray's position that natural selection was divinely guided. I'm not the one who's being stubborn here. The proposition that Darwinism as Darwin and his supporters understood it, as well as his opponents such as Hodge, implies atheism is obvious and easy to document.

[vhawk01]

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This is really pretty elementary stuff here, NR.


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It's extrememly elementary that Darwin thought his theory opposed teleology in nature, that evolution was undesigned. As Hodge stated, that this implies atheism is obvious. Darwin's supporter Gray stated this and Darwin disagreed with Gray's position that natural selection was divinely guided. I'm not the one who's being stubborn here. The proposition that Darwinism as Darwin and his supporters understood it, as well as his opponents such as Hodge, implies atheism is obvious and easy to document.

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"Disagreed that it was divinely guided" and "The theory of evolution and Darwinism are attempts to prove that life is undesigned" are very different things. Again, one is talking about the personal opinion of one man, the other is talking about the scope and reach of a scientific theory. When the entire point of this is you trying to establish that the theory is overstepping its bounds, you don't get to blur this line.

[NotReady]

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but then scientists look for non-mystical explanations of phenomena and theists immediately brand that search as being 'atheistic', and hence oppose it.


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Some may but it isn't historically or generally true. I haven't posted yet on the broader subject of the relationship between Christianity and science but hope to eventually. I expect today's conception of Christianity always opposing science is a gross lie and most likely the exact opposite of the historical reality. Based on what I've read so far in Aquinas I'm pretty confident of that.