Darwin's Dangerous Idea (3 page)

lack of scientific evidence, that prevented them from seeing how the theory The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-could actually work, but those philosophical prejudices that had to be based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It overthrown were too deeply entrenched to be dislodged by mere philo-demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of sophical brilliance. It took an irresistible parade of hard-won scientific facts planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of to force thinkers to take seriously the weird new outlook that Darwin ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic proposed. Those who are still ill-acquainted with that beautiful procession engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a can be forgiven their continued allegiance to the pre-Darwinian ideas. And single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudge-able, not the battle is not yet over; even among the scientists, there are pockets of because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might— hope resistance.

against hope—have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single hundreds of thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every best idea anyone has ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and other area of human knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by dramatic, even "revolutionary"
shifts
in the Darwinian theory, but the hope natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the that it will be "refuted" by some shattering breakthrough is about as realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. But reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard it is not just a wonderful scientific idea. It is a dangerous idea. My admiration Copernicus.

for Darwin's magnificent idea is unbounded, but I, too, cherish many of the Still, the theory is embroiled in remarkably hot-tempered controversy, and ideas and ideals that it
seems
to challenge, and want to protect them. For one of the reasons for this incandescence is that these debates about scientific instance, I want to protect the campfire song, and what is beautiful and true matters are usually distorted by fears that the "wrong" answer would have in it, for my little grandson and his friends, and for their children when they intolerable moral implications. So great are these fears that they grow up. There are many more magnificent ideas that are also jeopardized, 22 TELL ME WHY

What, Where, When, Why—and How?
23

it seems, by Darwin's idea, and they, too, may need protection. The only was going to be the sticking point for many people, and he did what he could good way to do this—the only way that has a chance in the long run—is to to break the news gently. More than a century later, there are still those who cut through the smokescreens and look at the idea as unflinchingly, as want to dig a moat separating us from most if not all of the dreadful dispassionately, as possible.

implications they think they see in Darwinism. Part III shows that this is an On this occasion, we are not going to settle for "There, there, it will all error of both fact and strategy; not only does Darwin's dangerous idea apply come out all right." Our examination will take a certain amount of nerve.

to us directly and at many levels, but the proper application of Darwinian Feelings may get hurt. Writers on evolution usually steer clear of this ap-thinking to human issues—of mind, language, knowledge, and ethics, for parent clash between science and religion. Fools rush in, Alexander Pope instance—illuminates them in ways that have always eluded the traditional said, where angels fear to tread. Do you want to follow me? Don't you really approaches, recasting ancient problems and pointing to dieir solution.

want to know what survives this confrontation? What if it turns out that the Finally, we can assess the bargain we get when we trade in pre-Darwinian for sweet vision—or a better one—survives intact, strengthened and deepened Darwinian thinking, identifying both its uses and abuses, and showing how by the encounter? Wouldn't it be a shame to forgo the opportunity for a what really matters to us—and ought to matter to us—shines through, strengthened, renewed creed, settling instead for a fragile, sickbed faith that transformed but enhanced by its passage through the Darwinian Revolution.

you mistakenly supposed must not be disturbed?

There is no future in a sacred myth. Why not? Because of our curiosity.

Because, as the song reminds us,
we want to know why.
We may have 2. WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY—AND HOW?

outgrown the song's answer, but we will never outgrow the question. Whatever we hold precious, we cannot protect it from our curiosity, because being Our curiosity about things takes different forms, as Aristotle noted at the who we are, one of the things we deem precious is the truth. Our love of truth dawn of human science. His pioneering effort to classify them still makes a is surely a central element in the meaning we find in our lives. In any case, the lot of sense. He identified four basic questions we might want answered idea that we might preserve meaning by kidding ourselves is a more about anything, and called their answers the four
aitia,
a truly untranslatable pessimistic, more nihilistic idea than I for one can stomach. If that were the Greek term traditionally but awkwardly translated the four "causes."

best that could be done, I would conclude that nothing mattered after all.

This book, then, is for those who agree that the only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it. Others (1) We may be curious about what something is made of, its matter or are advised to close the book now and tiptoe away.

material cause.

For those who stay, here is die plan. Part I of the book locates the (2) We may be curious about the form (or structure or shape) that that Darwinian Revolution in the larger scheme of things, showing how it can matter takes, its
formal cause.

transform the world-view of those who know its details. This first chapter (3) We may be curious about its beginning, how it got started, or its sets out die background of philosophical ideas that dominated our thought
efficient cause.

before Darwin. Chapter 2 introduces Darwin's central idea in a somewhat (4) We may be curious about its
purpose or goal
or
end
(as in "Do the new guise, as the idea of evolution as an
algorithmic process,
and clears up ends justify the means?" ), which Aristotle called its
telos,
sometimes some common misunderstandings of it. Chapter 3 shows how this idea translated in English, awkwardly, as "final cause."

overturns the tradition encountered in chapter 1. Chapters 4 and 5 explore some of the striking—and unsettling—perspectives that the Darwinian way It takes some pinching and shoving to make these four Aristotelian
aitia
of thinking opens up.

line up as the answers to the standard English questions "what, where, when, Part II examines the challenges to Darwin's idea—to neo-Darwinism or and why." The fit is only fitfully good. Questions beginning with "why,"

the Modern Synthesis—that have arisen within biology itself, showing that however, do standardly ask for Aristotle's fourth "cause," the
telos
of a thing.

contrary to what some of its opponents have declared, Darwin's idea survives Why this? we ask. What is it/or? As the French say, what is its
raison d'etre,
these controversies not just intact but strengthened. Part HI then shows what or reason for being? For hundreds of years, these "why" questions have been happens when the same thinking is extended to the species we care about recognized as problematic by philosophers and scientists, so distinct that the most:
Homo sapiens.
Darwin himself fully recognized that this topic they raise deserves a name: teleology.

24 TELL ME WHY

What, Where, When, Why—and How?
25

A
teleological
explanation is one that explains the existence or occurrence a cosmogony, but there are many others. Cosmologists exploring the of something by citing a goal or purpose that is served by the thing. Artifacts hypothesis of the Big Bang, and speculating about black holes and super-are the most obvious cases; the goal or purpose of an artifact is the function it strings, are present-day creators of cosmogonies. Not all ancient cosmog-was designed to serve by its creator. There is no controversy about the
telos
onies follow the pattern of an artifact-maker. Some involve a "world egg"

of a hammer: it is for hammering in and pulling out nails. The
telos
of more laid in "the Deep" by one mythic bird or another, and some involve seeds'

complicated artifacts, such as camcorders or tow trucks or CT scanners, is if being sown and tended. Human imagination has only a few resources to draw anything more obvious. But even in simple cases, a problem can be seen to upon when faced with such a mind-boggling question. One early creation loom in the background:

myth speaks of a "self-existent Lord" who, "with a thought, created the waters, and deposited in them a seed which became a golden egg, in which egg he himself is born as Brahma, the progenitor of the worlds" (Muir 1972,

"Why are you sawing that board?"

vol. IV, p. 26).

"To make a door."

And what's the point of all this egg-laying or seed-sowing or world-

"And what is the door for?"

"To secure my house."

building? Or, for that matter, what's the point of the Big Bang? Today's

"And why do you want a secure house?"

cosmologists, like many of their predecessors throughout history, tell a

"So I can sleep nights."

diverting story, but prefer to sidestep the "why" question of teleology. Does

"And why do you want to sleep nights?" "Go run the universe exist for any reason? Do reasons play any intelligible role in along and stop asking such silly questions."

explanations of the cosmos? Could something exist for a reason without its being
somebody's
reason? Or are reasons—Aristotle's type (4) causes— only This exchange reveals one of the troubles with teleology: where does it all appropriate in explanations of the works and deeds of people or other rational stop? What
final
final cause can be cited to bring this hierarchy of reasons to a agents? If God is not a person, a rational agent, an Intelligent Artificer, what close? Aristotle had an answer: God, the Prime Mover, the
for-which
to end possible sense could the biggest "why" question make? And if the biggest all
for-whiches.
The idea, which is taken up by the Christian, Jewish, and

"why" question doesn't make any sense, how could any smaller, more Islamic traditions, is that all
our
purposes are ultimately God's purposes. The parochial, "why" questions make sense?

idea is certainly natural and attractive. If we look at a pocket watch and One of Darwin's most fundamental contributions is showing us a new way wonder
why
it has a clear glass crystal on its face, the answer obviously harks to make sense of "why" questions. Like it or not, Darwin's idea offers one back to the needs and desires of the users of watches, who want to tell time, way—a clear, cogent, astonishingly versatile way—of dissolving these old by looking at the hands through the transparent, protective glass, and so conundrums. It takes some getting used to, and is often misapplied, even by forth. If it weren't for these facts about
us,
for whom the watch was created, its staunchest friends. Gradually exposing and clarifying this way of thinking there would be no explanation of the "why" of its crystal. If the universe was is a central project of the present book. Darwinian thinking must be carefully created by God, for God's purposes, then all the purposes we can find in it distinguished from some oversimplified and all-too-popular impostors, and must ultimately be due to God's purposes. But what are God's purposes? That this will take us into some technicalities, but it is worth it. The prize is, for is something of a mystery.

the first time, a stable system of explanation that does not go round and round One way of deflecting discomfort about that mystery is to switch the topic in circles or spiral off in an infinite regress of mysteries. Some people would slightly. Instead of responding to the "why" question with a "because"-type much prefer the infinite regress of mysteries, apparently, but in this day and answer (the sort of answer it seems to demand), people often substitute a age the cost is prohibitive: you have to get yourself deceived. You can either

"how" question for the "why" question, and attempt to answer it by telling a deceive yourself or let others do the dirty work, but there is no intellectually story about
how it came to be
that God created us and the rest of the universe, defensible way of rebuilding the mighty barriers to comprehension that without dwelling overmuch on just why God might want to have done that.

Darwin smashed.

The "how" question does not get separate billing on Aristotle's list, but it was The first step to appreciating this aspect of Darwin's contribution is to see a popular question and answer long before Aristotle undertook his analysis.

how the world looked before he inverted it. By looking through the eyes of The answers to the biggest "how" questions are
cosmogonies,
stories about two of his countrymen, John Locke and David Hume, we can get a clear how the
cosmos,
the whole universe and all its denizens, came into existence.

vision of an alternative world-view—still very much with us in many quar-The book of Genesis is

ters—that Darwin rendered obsolete.

26 TELL ME WHY

Locke's "Proof of the Primacy of Mind
27