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This page was updated 03/07/2007
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"Evolution: The Engine of Creativity"
The Rev’d Dr. Jay
E. Abernathy, Jr.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Fort Wayne, IN
February 18, 2007
Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, pp. 18-19.
Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no one should be. The Darwinian theory is a scientific theory, and a great one, but that is not all it is. The creationists who oppose it so bitterly are right about one thing: Darwin’s dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many if its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves. [18]
Perhaps, you may think, we could make a useful division: there are the parts of Darwin’s idea that really are established beyond any reasonable doubt, then there are the speculative extensions of the scientifically | irresistible parts. Then – if we are lucky – perhaps the rock-solid scientific facts would have no stunning implications about religion, or human nature, or the meaning of life, while the parts of Darwin’s idea that get people all upset could get put into quarantine as highly controversial extensions of, or, mere interpretations of, the scientifically irresistible parts. That would be reassuring.
But, alas, that is just about backwards. There are vigorous controversies swirling around in evolutionary theory, but those who feel threatened by Darwinism should not take heart from that fact. Most – if not quite all – of the controversies concern issues that are "just science"; no matter which side wins, the outcome will not undo the basic Darwinian idea. That idea, which is about as secure as any in science, really does have far-reaching implications for our vision of what the meaning of life is or could be. [18-9]
In 1543, Copernicus proposed that the Earth was not the center of the universe but in fact revolved around the Sun. It took over a century for the idea to sink in, a gradual and actually rather painless transformation…. The Copernican Revolution did eventually have its own :shot heard around the world": Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, but it was not published until 1632 [89 years later], when the issue was no longer controversial among scientists. Galileo’s projectile provoked an infamous response by the Catholic Church, setting up a shock wave whose reverberations are only now dying out. But in spite of the drama of that epic confrontation, the idea that our planet is not the center of creation has sat rather lightly in people’s minds. Every schoolchild today accepts this as the matter of fact it is, without tears or terror.
In due course, the Darwinian Revolution will come to occupy a similarly secure and untroubled place in the minds – and hearts – of every educated person on the globe, but today more than a century after Darwin’s death, we still have not come to terms with its mind-boggling implications. [19]
PRAYER & MEDITATION: JEA
Hope is the trust that there is something better ahead, a more positive life.
This possibility took wing with Darwin’s monumental intellectual honesty:
He grasped a new way of imagining our world and convinced us it was true.
Courage and creativity, intellect and imagination, all are Darwin’s gift to us.
We pray for such creativity and courage in our lives;
May we too see beyond narrow self-interests and grasp a larger vision.
May we never leave our intellect wanting in order to please the crowd;
May we associate with those who encourage our honesty and creativity.
Give us strength to hope and courage to realize a better world. AMEN.
"Evolution: The Engine of Creativity"
Religion is about understanding and relationships, but it is also about continuity – a trust, a faith, that the world about us will continue in its ways. Without this it is difficult to imagine a purpose for life, a reason to go on living beyond the simplest will to live in the tiniest of micro-creatures. We cannot make sense of chaos, and we cannot live in anarchy, despite our frequent disgust with bureaucracy, mass media, and all the rules of society.
Two models of how we might make sense of our world occurred to our ancestors: the model of nature itself and the model of strong human societies with clear and dominating leadership. The history of our species, as we best understand it, suggests that nature’s model gave way to the social model -- nature gave way to kings and warrior-princes – fairly early in our civilization. As soon as we began to settle in communities, strong leaders arose, and these men (for almost all were men) protected the clan or tribe in its dealings with other clans and tribes, wandering outlaws and other strangers, and in its dealings with Nature – farming and hunting for food and shelter.
Always, along with the warrior-prince, came the shaman or other elder (and these were both women and men). For leadership had to be balanced with understanding and identity, that strange human quest to stand out and be recognized for our uniqueness – as individuals and as a species. We are different! Yet, we are not so different that we have no place. We fit in with some larger system that includes the world about us. Religion always has been about this balance, this harmony, between humans and their world (and also among humans, of course). The older the religion, the more obvious this emphasis on balance and harmony, as we see in Hinduism.
The basic tool of all ancient religions – all religions before the millennia-long transition that began with the Greeks and Jewish prophets, the Buddha, Confucius, and Lao-tse – the basic tool of all ancient religions was a static vision of the universe. We could count on the future because chaos was held in check by a powerful force like the warrior-princes who dominated the human sphere. These gods, for they were obviously so much more powerful than we human beings, were charged with keeping balance and harmony.
Only with the rise of the Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers in the West and the great sages of India and China in the East, did we begin to see alternatives. However, the vision of these religious seers was limited by their lack of a framework to accommodate change. In none of these early efforts, East or West, does change, progress, or growth become the central idea. Harmony and balance – all the world static and unchanging -- remain the model of the perfect world. Even the revolutionary Unitarians of early Christianity and their later followers at the dawn of the Western Reformation in religion, society, and technology, have a model or a structure that helped them understand how the world might be more dynamic and progressive.
That is "Darwin’s dangerous idea" (Dennett’s now famous line). Darwin stretches religion past the borders that have historically limited its vision and understanding. He was the first to synthesize the great effect science was to have on our understanding and identity as human beings. No longer were we and our world limited by a Creator standing outside us and beyond us and our world. Oddly, science gave us the best possibility yet (who knows the future) to understand our place in the world with the greatest clarity and integrity. From the Big Bang down to today there is a line connecting us with all reality, from the stars to humans we are connected.
Ancient religions were about balance and harmony and "fitting in" a static system of understanding. Modern religions -- and we are among the few yet working within a truly modern religious understanding – modern religions are about change, growth, progress – real and meaningful change, revolutions, where all the rules are rewritten as conditions change, and we are forced to adapt to new situations, conditions, and responsibilities.
Alfred North Whitehead, British mathematician and philosopher retired from teaching, moved to Boston in the early 1900’s, and crafted "process philosophy" – his answer to the scientific revolution that is modern times. His model is not the Creator in some far off place pointing his finger and speaking the world into being. Beginning with atoms and their constituent parts, rather than a model of human society and its warrior-princes, Whitehead told us how progress and process were God. God changed every moment; God was not a being and not static.
Darwin gave Whitehead intellectual permission to imagine a religion based on natural processes, like natural selection, rather than on static and immutable divinity, that knows everything before it happens. We were given permission to imagine a world of change, of growth, where our actions were important and affected the world about us. Intellectually, our shackles were struck off, and we were free in a way humanity had never been free before. In fact, freedom now had a meaning it lacked before Darwin. Darwin convinces us that science correctly understands the nature of reality: it is evolutionary and progressive, not static, balanced, or harmonious. Shocking!
Charles Darwin’s intellectual and personal history is caught up in Unitarianism. His family were and had been Unitarians for generations, his first female friend was a member of the most famous 19th century Unitarian family, and his wife was the daughter of a famous and influential Unitarian layman, Josiah Wedgwood, he of the famous pottery, an abolitionist, and reformer of working conditions in English factories. He revolted from the stuffier aspects of mid-1800’s Unitarianism, which had been seriously repressed before this period, and when legally recognized, responded by embracing the stolid Victorian and English middle class lifestyle.
He was born February 12, 1809 and first attended Edinburgh University, Britain’s premier scientific university to study medicine (both his father and famous grandfather Erasmus – a freethinker -- were physicians). When the laws were eased, he transferred to Cambridge, where he lived the life of a country gentleman and amateur scientist – a popular pursuit of the wealthy in his day. His break came when, aged 22, he paid to sail (as the Captain’s friend, not a biologist)on the Beagle on a five-year voyage of exploration, first in South America and later around the world.
A review of this trip would be great material for a sermon, but let’s move on. After his return, his Scottish education was heightened and he quickly formed a view of what he called "natural selection". This was the process which best explained two things: the great number and variety of plants and animals on Earth and the disappearance of so many living things recounted in the fossil record. Geologists were first suggesting that the Earth was far older than religion taught, and Darwin was an amateur geologist. Taking this insight and transferring it to biology, Darwin saw a new model of the world.
The Beagle returned in October 1839 (two months shy of five years), and Darwin had accumulated a 770 page diary, 1750 pages of notes, 12 catalogs of 5436 skins, bones, and carcasses! He settled in London, pursuing his studies and responding to the increasing Anglican hegemony in England, Dissenters were being denounced, and "Darwin had Unitarian roots, and his breathless notes show how his radical Dissenting understanding of equality and antislavery framed his image of mankind’s place in nature: ‘Animals—whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals.—Do not slave holders wish to make the black man other kind?’ Some radicals questioned whether each animal was uniquely "designed" by God when all vertebrates shared a similar structural plan." (EB) Darwin kept his opinions, already mostly complete, to himself, while he continued to research and write. He became a member of the Athenaeum Club (1838) and a Fellow of the Royal Society (1839), winning a 1000 pound prize (he was living on 400 pounds a year at the time) and all his books sold well. He became famous. In 1838 he married Emma Wedgwood, a Unitarian of a more traditional bent, who was shocked by his views. By now his views were settled and in 1842 he sketched out a 35 page draft of his views.
In April 1856 he began his three-volume text tentatively title Natural Selection, which had reached a quarter million words by 1858. Fearing loss of priority in publishing his views, and with the support of Hooker and Huxley, he began an abstract of the longer text On the Origin of Species, published November 22, 1859. He always suffered physical ills after his voyage, and retired to a spa in deepest Yorkshire while Huxley defended his thesis in public.
Through his more than 20 remaining years, he researched and wrote on a variety of related topics, including bees, orchids, and his proposal of something like gene theory (which had to wait several decades after his death for the research to complete the theory). He was considered a very gentle person, but was so private, few people knew him personally. He moved to a farm in rural Kent after his marriage, where he lived until his death, surrounded by family and a few friends. He died of a heart attack on April 19, 1882, shortly after his seventy-third birthday. After Huxley’s intervention, he was buried at Westminster Abbey in full ecclesiastical pomp!
Darwin’s great gift was to see the forest, rather than the trees. He grasped the connection between the work of the new geologists and the growing explorations yielding fossil records of amazing but extinct animals. For everyone else, these remained particular examples of individual creative exercises by the divinity, but to Darwin they were part of a larger and more inclusive process, which he called natural selection. All the plants and animals that once existed were related to all those that continued to exist! We were all related to one another over the course of a history so many millions of years old that most people were simply unable to imagine the possibilities.
At first, Darwin did not notice that the various birds he had collected on the Galapagos Islands were all finches. When noted ornithologist Gould explained this to him, he found that each island had a different species. Birds adapted to their environment. It was the overwhelming conclusion of his five years of discovery. Creatures came and went, not by accident but by a clear process. Over time and over space, creatures changed enough that gradually a new species developed clearly distinct from its neighbors.
History was dynamic! The very structure of all life was flexible and in motion. Nothing was static – at least not for very long. The universe was a process, not a fixed idea. There was no Creator God individually placing creatures on Earth, but rather, by a rather simple set of laws and the math of extremely long time periods, new creatures arose and older versions disappeared. In his personal life Darwin recognized this meant the end of the traditional deity. Like all Unitarians, his religious priority was morality, and he quickly became an agnostic of the traditional god. However, he continued to believe that there was a place for morality, but without its former reasons.
Creativity
Darwin saw the forest
Quote 42-3
Vast amount of time and incredibly number of organisms – too big for most people to comprehend, but Darwin realized that design could occur over millions of years that was inconceivable in thousands of years.
