Eden and Evolution

"There really is not a lot of evidence for evolution," says biology professor Caroline Crocker, who supports the theory of intelligent design. (D.A. Peterson )

While critics of evolution point to gaps in the fossil record -- asking, for instance, why no fossils of intermediary species exist between land mammals and sea mammals -- new discoveries regularly fill those holes. By 1994, observed Brown University biologist Ken Miller, scientists unearthed fossils of animals near the Indian subcontinent that had front and hind limbs capable of walking on land and flippering through water.

Why have such examples failed to convince doubters? Over many months of interviews about intelligent design, I gradually came to realize that evolution's advocates and critics are mostly talking about different things. While the controversy over intelligent design is superficially about scientific facts, the real debate is more emotional. Evolution cuts to the heart of the belief that humans have a special place in creation. If all things in the living world exist solely because of evolutionary competition and natural selection, what room is left for the idea that humans are made in God's image or for any morality beyond the naked requirements of survival? Beneath all the complex arguments of intelligent design advocates, Georgetown theologian John Haught agreed, "there lies a deeply human and passionately religious concern about whether the universe resides in the bosom of a loving, caring God or is instead perched over an abyss of ultimate meaninglessness."

If intelligent design advocates have generally been blind to the overwhelming evidence for evolution, scientists have generally been deaf to concerns about evolution's implications.

At a news conference last year to mark the start of a trial in Dover, Pa., where parents had sued a school board for trying to introduce intelligent design into curricula, Leshner's science association and Gishlick's science education center repeatedly argued that evolution has no moral implications. They insisted that science and religion could coexist easily and pointed out that many scientists who accept evolution are religious.

Many religious conservatives believe the assertion that science and religion occupy separate, non-conflicting spheres is a smokescreen, a convenient way for religious liberals to brush conflict under the carpet. That may be why Leshner's diplomatic views are rarely mentioned by critics of evolution. And it is also why a 64-year-old biologist in England has come to occupy an outsize role in one of America's oldest culture wars. No matter the forum, location or theme, any debate about intelligent design or evolution will sooner or later invoke the name of Richard Dawkins.

"Anyone who chooses not to believe in evolution is ignorant, stupid or insane," said Dawkins, professor of public understanding of science at Oxford University.

Dawkins was sitting in his Victorian Gothic home in North Oxford. The house boasts high ceilings and beautiful views of the garden, and, from this sanctuary, Dawkins has penned some of the world's best-known prose in praise of Darwin's theory of evolution. Among religious people, Dawkins is known primarily not for his science but for his militant views on evolution's implications, especially as they pertain to religion in general and Christianity in particular. What beneficent creator, Darwin himself asked after his voyage of discovery to the Galapagos Islands in South America, would permit the sort of suffering so widespread in nature? "The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical," agreed the American philosopher David Hull, writing in the scientific journal Nature. "He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray."

Dawkins first shot to fame with his bestselling book, The Selfish Gene, published in 1975, which laid out the idea that animals -- humans included -- are essentially survival machines for genes. Individual animals die, and whole species may go extinct, but an unbroken genetic line connects every living thing on Earth. In the three decades since he wrote that book, Dawkins has seen his ideas become textbook orthodoxy, even as the notion of selfish genes has grown controversial among nonscientists. Even his wife, the biologist noted, once said, "Selfish genes are Frankensteins, and all life their monster."

It occurred to me as I listened to Dawkins that there is a parallel between the public's fear of selfish genes and the blockbuster science fiction movie "The Matrix," where highly sophisticated robots take over the world: Humans in the movie do not realize they are circumscribed by unseen rules and artificial parameters; they believe they are free, when in fact they are serving the robots. Genes, Dawkins asserted, behave much like these robots, with some differences. While the robots are malevolent and manipulative, genes lack conscious intention. The "selfishness" of genes is only a metaphor. Nor are genes purely deterministic. Behavior, especially at the level of humans, is complex, and leaves much room for learning and culture. Humans can also outsmart their genetic commanders -- contraceptives, for example, have disentangled the genetic lure of sexual pleasure from the genetic goal of procreation. Still, one implication of neo-Darwinian ideas is that even when people believe they are acting autonomously, they may really only be obeying the distant tugs of genes.

Dawkins's refusal to blunt the sharp implications of evolutionary theory places him at ground zero in debates about evolution. For doubters of Darwin, Dawkins has become the poster boy of how evolutionary ideas lead -- inevitably, many religious people believe -- to atheism. I asked Dawkins about his propensity to rub religious people the wrong way.

"I honestly think it comes from being clear," he said. "Some people can't bear clarity . . . to say someone is ignorant is not insulting. I'm ignorant of baseball, and I wouldn't be insulted if someone said, 'You don't know what you are talking about.' Anyone who thinks the world is 10,000 years old doesn't know anything about the world."

Dawkins told me that the idea that science and religion occupy separate spheres doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Every miracle in the Bible, from the Virgin Birth to the Resurrection, tramples on what Dawkins calls the scientific grass. "Politically, it's expedient to pretend there is no conflict," he told me. "What I care about is what's true, not what's politically expedient."