Evolution, Monism, Atheism, and the Naturalist World-View

[shleonny]

By Gregory W. Graffin

http://www.cornellevolutionproject.org/

http://www.cornellevolutionproject.org/purpose.html

Evolution, Naturalism, and Religion

Evolution and religion may not be at war, but no agreement seems possible in their most basic tenets. Traditional religions are based on dualism, and evolution is strictly materialist. Dualism is founded on a belief in the supernatural. The materialist position forms the basis for belief in naturalism, which holds that "the empirical procedure of exploration and verification is the only known reliable method of discovering truth" (Smith, 1952). For the materialist, the supernatural has no basis in reality but instead is an unwarranted distraction brought about through mythology.

The idea that naturalism might be a kind of modernist religion has been advanced in recent years (Johnson, 2000). Evolutionary biology enjoys a privileged position at the core of this belief system because it offers explanations about why and how humankind originated. Any teacher of evolution is by default a teacher of a deeply philosophical world-view, one that differs dramatically from that of traditional theistic religion.

The proposition that one must "believe in evolution" as people blindly believe in God is easily discounted. Still, much of modern evolutionary biology today is sprinkled with tinges of dualism. Notions of progress, purpose, emergent properties, optimality, and increasing complexity in evolution all contain vague hints of dualism, and are debated in symposia and published in books and journals by today's most active evolutionists. These architects of modern naturalism have traditionally shunned the ideas of religions, but to what degree they discount the supernatural remains to be seen.

The most important feature of evolutionary biology is its integrated view of humankind's place in nature that easily lends itself to a deeply satisfying metaphysics based entirely on materialist principles. This provision, coupled with the observation that theology has lost so much of its appeal to the average citizen, leads to the controversial conclusion that, in the modern world, Naturalism is a substitute for, and provides all the benefits of, traditional religion. If the naturalists have their day, theism is effectively dead.

We still live in a world, however, that is predominantly theist, particularly in America where 95% of the citizens believe in God (according to the Gallup Poll of 2001). In this environment, many evolutionary biologists are reluctant to carry the implications of Darwinism to their logical extent. Theists vote, pay the taxes, and support the research institutions where most naturalists work. Theists do not appreciate hearing the vulgar truth of evolutionary theory, that mankind is no fallen angel, has no immortal soul, nor free will, and was not specially created. So what is a naturalist evolutionary biologist to do in this climate?

The options are many. Either support the controversial conclusions above (as E.O. Wilson or Richard Dawkins do ), or try to erect a world-view that incorporates elements of theology and evolution (as Ruse, Miller, Ayala, and countless deists of the past have done), or suggest the mutual exclusivity of the two magisteria (as Steven Jay Gould does), or simply lay low and not even enter the arena of discussion, and merely hope for the best when the uneducated voters determine the relevance of evolution.

Questions must be asked to resolve these disparate strategies and conflicting world-views. Evolutionary biology as a unified field is at stake. So is the credibility of Darwinian theory in the public eye. Indeed, naturalism is at stake, and ultimately the truth about human origins is at stake. By the time the current work is finished, we will know where evolutionary biology stands on the matter, and to what degree belief in naturalism is backed by its practitioners at the highest level.

The Project

The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which the world's leading evolutionary biologists believe in traditional religion, naturalism, and the philosophical implications of their science. A further goal will be to understand how they reconcile these disparate and often conflicting beliefs with their teaching and practice of evolutionary biology.

The foundation of the project is a questionnaire that will be sent to the most highly esteemed members of the evolutionary biology community, namely, those who are members of the National Academy of Science in the USA and evolutionist-members of national academies in other countries as well. The questionnaire is composed of three sections: 1) Statement of Belief, 2) What Evolution Teaches/What it Ignores, and 3) Reconciling Belief with Scientific Practice. By polling evolutionary biologists on these issues, the project will yield very satisfying results. It will tell us the degree to which evolutionary biologists believe in naturalism, and whether evolutionary biology can form the basis for an ethical system that is devoid of supernatural reasoning.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Greg Graffin (Zoology) [e-mail]
ADVISOR: William B. Provine (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Zoology) [e-mail]

CornellEvolutionProject.org Questionnaire
The List of Evolutionists

The following evolutionary biologists have been invited to participate in this project. They have been chosen based on their status as 'full members' of National Academies of Science. All of them list one or more of the following as their research interests: Evolution (specifically organismic); Phylogenetics; Population Biology/Population Genetics; Paleontology/Paleoecology/Paleobiology; Systematics; Organismal Adaptation; Fitness.

Akam, Michael Edwin, University of Cambridge
Alexander, Professor R. McNeill, University of Leeds
Alexander, Richard D., University of Michigan
Alvarez, Walter, University of California, Berkeley
Andersen, Nils Moeller, University of Copenhagen
Anderson, Wyatt W., University of Georgia
Antonovics, Janis, University of Virginia
Arctander, Peter, University of Copenhagen
Arratia, Gloria, Academia Chilena de Ciencias
Arsuaga, Juan Luis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Ashburner, Michael, University of Cambridge
Avise, John C., University of Georgia
Ax, Peter, University of Gottingen
Ayala, Francisco J., University of California, Irvine
Babu, Cherukuri Raghavendra, University of Delhi
Baechli, Gerhard, Zoological Museum
Baillie, Michael George Lockhart, Queens University
Baker, Paul T., Pennsylvania State University
Bar-Yosef, Ofer, Harvard University
Barberena, Mario Costa,
Barrett, Spencer C. H., University of Toronto
Barth, Friedrich G., Universitaat Wien
Barthlott, Wilhelm, Universitat Bonn
Bartholomew, George A., University of California, Los Angeles
Barton, Nicholas Hamilton, University of Edinburgh
Baur, Bruno, Universitaat Basel
Beall, Cynthia M., Case Western Reserve University
Beaty, Barry J., Colorado State University
Beiguelman, Bernardo, University of Sao Paulo
Berberovic, Ljubomir, Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Berenbaum, May R., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Bergstrom, Jan, Museum of Natural History
Bertrand, Jean, Universitee de Geneve
Bielicki, Tadeusz, Polish Academy of Sciences
Boag, Peter T., Queens University
Bonner, John T., Princeton University
Boomsma, Jacobus, University of Copenhagen
Bormann, Frederick H., Yale University
Bose, Mahandra, Indian Academy of Science
Boxshall, Geoffrey Allan, The Natural History Museum
Breitinger, Emil, Universitaat Wien
Bremer, Kaare, Uppsala University
Brenner, Sydney, C/O Sarah Bancroft
Briggs, Professor Derek, University of Bristol
Brito da Cunha, Antonio, University of Sao Paulo
Britten, Roy J., California Institute of Technology
Buikstra, Jane E., University of New Mexico
Bullock, Theodore H., University of California, San Diego
Bulmer, Michael George, Rutgers University
Burdon, Jeremy J., CSIRO Plant Industry
Burrows, Professor Malcolm, University of Cambridge
Campbell, Kenton S. W., Australian National University
Campos, Diogenes de Almeida, Depto. Nacional de Produccao Mineral
Carneiro, Robert L., American Museum of Natural History
Carroll, Robert L., Redpath Museum, McGill University
Carson, Hampton L., University of Hawaii at Manoa
Cavalier-Smith, Professor Thomas, University of Oxford
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Stanford University
Cech, Thomas R., Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Chaloner, William Gilbert, Royal Holloway University of London
Chandrashekaran, Maroli Krishanya, Madurai Kamaraj University
Changeux, Jean-Peirre, Institut Pasteur
Chant, D. A., University of Toronto
Chauhan, Birendra Singh, Indian Academy of Science
Chitty, Dennis H., University of British Columbia
Christensen, Bent, University of Copenhagen
Christiansen, Freddy Bugge, University of Aarhus
Claes, Ramel, Stockholm University
Clegg, M. T., University of California, Riverside
Clutton-Brock, Timothy, University of Cambridge
Cockburn, Andrew, Australian National University
Colwell, Rita, National Science Foundation
Conway Morris, Simon, University of Cambridge
Coppens, Yves J. E., College de France
Cordeiro, Antonio Rodrigues, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Crane, Peter R., Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Crawley, Michael John, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
Crick, Francis, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Crow, James F., University of Wisconsin
Csanyi, Vilmos, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Currie, Philip J., Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
Davies, Professor Nicholas Barry, University of Cambridge
Dawkins, Richard Clinton, University of Oxford
Denton, Derek A., University of Melbourne
Diamond, Jared M., University of California, Los Angeles
Dill, Lawrence M., Simon Fraser University
Doebley, John F., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Doolittle, Russell F., University of California, San Diego
Doolittle, W. Ford, Dalhousie University
Duve, Christian de, Universite de Louvian
Edelman, Gerald M., Scripps Research Institute
Edwards, Dianne, Cardiff University
Edwards, Peter J., Geobotanisches Institut ETH Zuerich
Ehrendorfer, Friedrich, Universitaat Wien
Eisner, Thomas, Cornell University
Ericson, Lars, Umea University
Erlich, Paul R., Stanford University
Evans, Howard E., Cornell University
Ewens, Warren John, University of Pennsylvania
Felsenstein, Joseph, University of Washington
Fenchel, Tom, University of Copenhagen
Ferreira, Candido Simoes, Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Fitch, Walter M., University of California, Irvine
Fitzgerald, P.H., Royal Society of New Zealand
Flannery, Kent V., University of Michigan
Fluegel, Helmut, Austrian Academy of Science
Follett, Sir Brian (Keith), Arts and Humanities Research Board
Fontaine, Maurice Alfred, Museum National d' Histoire Naturelle
Fortey, Dr. Richard Alan, The Natural History Museum
Gadagkar, Raghavendra, Indian Institute of Science
Gadgil, Madhav, Indian Institute of Science
Gadgil, Sulochana, Indian Institute of Science
Ganeshaiah, Kotiganahalli Narayanagowda, University of Agricultural Sciences
Garruto, Ralph M., SUNY Binghamton
Gehring, Walter, University de Bale
Gibbs, Adrian J., Australian National University
Gierer, Dr. Alfred, Max Planck Institut
Gilbert, Walter, Harvard University
Godfray, Professor Hugh Charles Jonathan, Imperial College of Science and Technology
Goodman, Morris, Wayne State University
Grant, Professor Peter, Princeton University
Greene, R.C., Royal Society of New Zealand
Griffin, Donald R., Rockefeller University
Grotzinger, John P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hall, Brian K., Dalhousie University
Harpending, Henry C., University of Utah
Harper, Professor John Lander, University of Exeter
Hawkes, Kristen, University of Utah
Hebert, Paul D. N., University of Guelph
Herak, Milan, University of Zagreb
Hill, D.F., Royal Society of New Zealand
Hill, William George, University of Edinburgh
Hochachka, Peter W., University of British Columbia
Hoelldobler, Berthold, Universitat Wurzburg
Howell, F. Clark, University of California, Berkeley
Hrdy, Sarah, University of California, Davis
Jackson, R. R., University of Canterbury
Joyce, Gerald F., The Scripps Research Institute
Kerr, Warwick E., National Research Institute for the Amazon Forest
Keverne, Eric Barrington, University of Cambridge
Kidwell, Margaret G., University of Arizona
Kilpady, Sripadrao, Indian Academy of Sciences
Kirch, Professor Patrick V., University of California, Berkeley
Knoll, Andrew H., Harvard University
Koehl, Mimi A. R., University of California, Berkeley
Krebs, Charles J., University of British Columbia
Krebs, Sir John, University of Oxford
Kristensen, Niels Peder, University of Copenhagen
Kuznicki, Leszek, Polish Academy of Sciences
Lakhanapal, Rajendra Nath, Indian Academy of Sciences
Lambert, D. M., Massey University
Larcher, Walter, University of Innsbruck
Lardelli, Roberto, Schweizerische Akademie der Naturwissenschaften
Lawton, John Hartley, Natural Environment Research Council
Levi, Claude, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Levin, Simon A., Princeton University
Lewis, Edward B., California Institute of Technology
Lewontin, Richard, Harvard University
Linares, Olga F., Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Loeffler, Heinz, Universitaat Wien
Loeschke, Volker, Aarhus University
Lewontin, Richard, Harvard University
Lomnicki, Adam, Polish Academy of Sciences
Lucas, William John, University of California, Davis
Lumley-Woodyear, Henry de, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Mace, Dr. Georgina Mary, Zoological Society of London
Mahendra, Beni Charan, Indian Academy of Sciences
Malhotra, Kailash Chandra, Indian Statistical Institute
Margalef, Ramon, University of Barcelona
Margulis, Lynn, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Markham, K.R., Royal Society of New Zealand
Markl, Dr. Hubert, Universitat Konstanz
Marler, Peter, University of California, Davis
May, Baron Robert McCredie, University of Oxford
May, Robert, University of Oxford
Mayr, Ernst, Harvard University
McLaren, Digby, Royal Society of Canada
Meselson, M. S., Harvard University
Mezzalira, Sergio,
Michener, Charles D., University of Kansas
Morat, Phillippe, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Moseley, Michael E., University of Florida
Moure, Jesus Santiago, Fderal University of Parana
Murthy, Mathur Ramabhadrashastry Narasimha, Indian Institute of Science
Nei, Masatoshi, Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus
Nevo, Eviatar, University of Haifa
Newton, Professor Ian, University of Oxford
Nilsson, Dan-E, Lund University
Nusslein-Volhard, Dr. Christiane, Max Planck Institut
Ohta, Tomoko, National Institute of Genetics
Orgel, Leslie, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Orians, Gordon H., University of Washington
Paabo, Svante, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Palmer, Jeffrey D., Indiana University
Pant, Divya Darshan, University of Allahabad
Patthy, Laszlo, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Perrins, Professor Christopher Miles, University of Oxford
Pettigrew, John D., University of Queensland
Pilbeam, David, Harvard University
Pinto, Iraja Damiani, University Federal de Rio Grande do Sol
Rakotosamimanana, Berthe, Malagasy Academy
Ramanankasina, Estelle, Malagasy Academy
Ranganath, Hassa Annegowda, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri
Raup, David M., University of Chicago
Raven, Peter, Missouri Botanical Garden
Reeves, Peter R., University of Sydney
Rogers, Lesley J., University of New England
Roots, Betty I., University of Toronto
Ruddle, Francis H., Yale University
Runnegar, Bruce N., University of California at Los Angeles
Sahlins, Marshall D., University of Chicago
Salt, Dr. George, University of Cambridge
Salzano, Francisco, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Schaal, Barbara A., Washington University
Schaefer, Matthias, University of Gottingen
Schluter, Dolph, University of British Columbia
Schmidt-Nielsen, Knut, Duke University
Schneider, Horacio, Federal University of Para, Campus of Bragansa
Schopf, J. William, University of California, Los Angeles
Schwarzacher, Hans Georg, Universitaat Wien
Schweizer, Dieter, Universitaat Wien
Scudder, Geoffrey G. E., University of British Columbia
Selander, Robert K., Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus
Shagdarsuren, Prof. O., National University of Mongolia (NUM)
Sharman, Geoffrey B., Macquarie University
Sharp, Paul M., University of Nottingham
Sherwood, Nancy M., University of Victoria
Shoenlaub, Hans Peter, Universitaat Salzburg
Simons, Elwyn L., Duke University
Sket, Boris, University of Ljubljana
Smith, Andrew Benjamin, The Natural History Museum
Smith, Professor John Maynard, University of Sussex
Sokal, Robert R., State University of New York at Stony Brook
Somero, George N., Stanford University
Southwood, Sir (Thomas) Richard (Edmund), University of Oxford
Srinivasan, Ramaswamiah, National Geophysical Research Institute
Stanley, Stephen M., Johns Hopkins University
Stearn, Colin W., McGill University
Stetter, Karl O., University of Regensburg
Strausfeld, Professor Nicholas James, University of Arizona
Szostak, Jack W., Harvard University
Taquet, Phillippe, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Tartari, Teki, Albanian Academy of Sciences
Taylor, Thomas N., University of Kansas
Thoday, Professor John Marion, University of Cambridge
Tobias, Phillip, University of Witwatersrand
Tolun, Aslyhan, Boazici University
Torbjorn, Fagerstrom, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala
Trinkhaus, Erik, Washington University
Ulfstrand, Staffan, Uppsala University
Uma Shaanker, Ramanan, University of AgriculturalSciences
Urbanek, Adam, Polish Academy of Sciences
Valentine, James W., University of California, Berkeley
Vanzolini, Paulo Emilio, University of Sao Paulo
Villems, Richard, University of Tartu
Wake, David B., University of California, Berkeley
Walker, Alan, Penn State University
Wallace, Bruce, Virginia Polytechnic University
Wallace, Douglas C., University of California, Irvine
Watson, James Dewey, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories
Webb, C. J., Royal Society of New Zealand
Webster, Robert G., St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Wehner, Dr. Rudiger, Universitat Zurich
Wendorf, Fred, Southern Methodist University
West, Richard Gilbert, University of Cambridge
West-Eberhard, Mary Jane, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
White, Tim D., University of California, Berkeley
Wieser, Wolfgang, University of Innsbruck
Wiklund, Christer, Stockholm University
Williams, George C., State University of New York at Stony Brook
Williams, Sir Alwyn, University of Glasgow
Wilson, Edward O., Harvard University
Winge, Helga, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Wolfe, Kenneth H., Trinity College

[shleonny]

1. sorry it's so long, but its a college so I don't think copyright should be

an issue. I'm reading the book right now, and its great because he interviews many famous scientists on their views on religion, evolution, and philosophy.

[McKenzie]

2. ask Richard Dawkins...one of my heroes

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Articles/1999-10-04snakeoil.shtml

[shleonny]

3. Dawkins is the first interview

pretty interesting

[Fleurs du Mal]

4. And mine. He gives no quarter.

"Agnostic conciliation, which is the decent liberal bending over backward to concede as much as possible to anybody who shouts loud enough" - A tidy summary of the current fundie attempt to subvert knowledge.

His final paragraph pretty much says it all.

[McFlyGuy]

5. Yep

Ought to be compulsory reading for red-staters. Maybe they'd come to realise that the Rethuglikkkans are bad for them?