Chapter Two

 

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle

I’m not a biologist, or indeed a genealogist, but I think it would be more technically accurate to say that I’m a monkey’s cousin, cousins being people who share a common ancestor. But far be it from me to change a traditional saying. Originally, ‘well, I'll be a monkey's uncle’ was an expression of disbelief in the theory of the evolution of life on earth. But then it changed into a saying which simply means: that’s very surprising. It evolved. Ironic.

 

What is evolution …

The consensus of scientific opinion is that life of earth has evolved over a very long period of time, changing gradually from (relatively) simple forms to more complex ones to produce the rich variety of life we see on earth today. Many new life forms have emerged over time and many old ones have become extinct. Central to this is the idea of common descent; for example, the idea that humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor; or if you go far enough back, the idea that humans and plants evolved from a common ancestor. For the purposes of this book, I shall take evolution in this broad sense to be a fact, as do the vast majority of scientists.

Evidence supporting evolution includes the fact that the fossil record reveals a progression of forms over time, leading to the species we recognize today; also, the fact that similarities in body structures and embryonic development among different living organisms suggest a shared ancestry. There is also evidence from molecular biology, in particular from the study of genes and proteins (Britannica, ‘Evolution summary’; Ayala, ‘Evolution’).

According to the idea of evolution, all life on earth was created by a single process, namely evolution. In contrast, special creation is the idea that God designed and created each species individually. According to special creation, once again in contrast to evolution, humans and apes do not have a common ancestor, just a common creator. Accepting evolution as a fact will be controversial for some, since it contradicts this idea of special creation. I will argue in this book that there are not multiple individual designs in nature, as is claimed by special creation, but one universal design.

 

… and what is natural selection?

What interests us here, for the moment, is not so much the evolution of life itself, or common descent, which we have accepted as a fact, but rather the mechanism by which life can evolve: natural selection. After all, evolution is a description of the history of life on earth, not an explanation of it. Evolution does not in itself explain anything. But perhaps natural selection can explain evolution.

The idea of evolution by natural selection is, of course, most famously set out in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin published on 24 November 1859; the Origin of Species for short.

The reason that natural selection interests us, from a theological point of view, is that it does not in itself involve design; it’s just a process which happens. It does not require any input from a designer. ‘So what?’ you might ask; ‘why would it?’ I would ask the same questions; but our nonchalance is a product of hindsight. Perhaps we should try to imagine ourselves back in 1859 when asking ‘so what?’ would have been an unusual reaction.

Many previously thought (before 1859) that life on earth with all its complexities and wonders could not possibly have come into being without a creator. An object such as human eye is clearly designed for purpose, or at least so it seemed to them; so there must be something that designed it, and that something must be God.  It is traditional to take the human eye as an example of apparent design in nature, and I like tradition so I will stick with it. For Isaac Newton it was the apparent design of the human thumb that did the trick. It wasn’t the only reason he believed in God, of course, but he considered that it was enough on its own, even if there was nothing else. With all due respect to Sir Isaac, let’s stick with the eye. For many, the apparent design in the natural world was compelling, perhaps even irrefutable proof of the existence of God.

The theory of evolution by natural selection, however, shows that some things previously thought to be impossible without a designer, eye, thumb and all the rest, could, plausibly, have been created by a process which does not involve design at all, namely natural selection. For those whose belief in God was based on the apparent design in living things, the theory well and truly pulled the rug from under their feet.

This sets a precedent of monumental importance. The idea of natural selection showed that, plausibly, in some cases at least, the apparent design in nature is just that: apparent. Perhaps then, all cases of apparent design in nature are misleading. Perhaps they are all merely apparent, not real. It raises the possibility that there is no real design at all in the universe.

It presents a very serious challenge to Christianity. And not just to Christianity. It is a serious challenge the idea that human life has any meaning or purpose at all. The publication of the Origin of Species was a watershed moment if ever there was one. It is no wonder it arouses such strong reactions.

A significant feature of the theory of evolution by natural selection is that its basic principle is relatively easy to grasp. The theory has a much greater influence on the theological views of the general public that other scientific theories partly for this reason. Theories in physics such as general relativity and quantum mechanics require a very high level of ability in mathematics and years of study to understand them. The proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus has no chance. Yet the same man or woman can at least get the general idea of how natural selection works.

Small random changes, mutations, occur in individual offspring when one generation of a species reproduces itself. In some individuals these random changes are advantageous and make that individual better adapted to its environment. This individual is more likely to survive and reproduce, and thus more likely to pass on its characteristics, including the advantageous change, to its offspring than others. Their offspring are likewise more likely to survive and reproduce than others, and so over many generations the offspring of the original beneficiary of the advantageous change dominate the species. Thus, the advantageous change is passed on to the species as a whole. As this process is repeated, small advantageous changes accumulate and groups of life forms, not necessarily of the same species emerge, all descended from the original ancestor but much better adapted to their environment. Then someone moves the goalposts; that is the environment changes, and the whole process goes down a new path. And so, it continues …

Beware the following circular reasoning though:

Question: Why did a plant or animal survive?

Answer: Because it was better adapted to its environment.

Question: How do you know it was better adapted to its environment?

Answer: Because it survived.

If you can avoid slipping up on that particular banana skin, you’re in business!

It’s been a while since I’ve been on the Clapham Omnibus, but I wouldn’t blame you if you preferred Darwin’s own summary in the Origin to mine. Darwin makes the point that evolution is observed to happen in selective breeding. For example, most of the food we eat, animal and vegetable, and the different varieties of cats and dogs people have as pets are the product of selective breeding. But in this case the selection of which animals or plants will breed is made by humans. Does nature do its own selective breeding?

Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man [in selective breeding] have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of many successive generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.

Origin of Species Chapter 4 (Darwin, 77).

 

Why should we believe in natural selection?

A reason for the appeal of the theory of evolution is that it is a single, ‘simple’ idea which, at least potentially, provides an explanatory framework for the whole of life on earth. By explanatory framework I mean a unified way of making sense of the whole panorama of what we see, in this case life today in all its variety and the vestiges that have been left behind by life in the past. ‘Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution’ is a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. The title sums up the idea. A similar role is played in chemistry by the periodic table, and in cosmology by the Big Bang theory. Natural selection could be the mechanism that explains how evolution happened.

We can compare the interpretative framework provided by evolution with the case of Copernicus, Galileo and the sun centred model for the solar system. That was a more appealing explanation than the traditional earth centred model, since it was simpler and less contrived (eventually). It too had a mechanism: the law of gravity. In that case it was rational to believe the more appealing idea even when there were major gaps in the evidence. The evidence turned up later and faith in the idea was vindicated.

Something similar happened with evolution by natural selection. For the first few decades after the publication of the Origin of Species, in spite of the very substantial body of evidence collected together by Darwin in the book, there were legitimate scientific doubts.

One problem was caused by the estimates of the age of the earth available at the time. According to these, the earth had not existed for long enough for life to evolve. This had nothing to do with the belief that the Bible gives the date of the creation of the earth as October 22, 4004 BC. This date was calculated by 17^th century Archbishop of Armagh and scholar James Ussher. Ussher was a serious and respected scholar, and the details of the calculation are fascinating, but it is based on flawed assumptions, and this dating is best regarded as a historical curiosity (Poole, 95).

This estimate of the age of the earth was a scientific one, and was based on a calculation of the time it would take for the earth to cool from its supposed original temperature to its temperature today, and calculations estimating how long the sun could continue to shine and warm the earth. The most significant calculations were made by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin. However, it was eventually realised that the earth is heated by the decay of radioactive elements such as uranium. When this heating effect was taken into account, the age of the earth was calculated to be much greater and the theory of evolution by natural selection became more plausible. It was also realised that the sun is powered by nuclear reactions in its core and so can shine for much longer than Lord Kelvin supposed. Measurements of radioactive atoms now reliably give the age of the earth as 4.55 billion years (Rees, 45).

Another more serious problem, was the lack of a mechanism for individual life forms to pass on their characteristics to their offspring, and to create the random mutations required to make natural selection happen i.e. to give natural selection something to select. The theory simply cannot work without such a mechanism. However, in the mid-20^th century this difficulty was resolved with the discovery that DNA could provide just such a mechanism (McGrath, 174-175).

Evolution by natural selection was a simple idea which, potentially, provided a coherent explanation of a wide variety of phenomena in an elegant way, elegant here meaning without contrivance. That is what made it and makes it such an appealing idea. The faith that many had in the theory led them to believe that the early difficulties would be resolved. This faith was eventually vindicated at least in these important issues.

 

Microevolution and Macroevolution

Evolution by natural selection does not explain where life on earth came from. It can only happen after life has already come into existence.

As we noted, DNA provided a mechanism for individual life forms to pass on their characteristics to their offspring, and to create the random mutations required to make natural selection possible. Nevertheless, quite how life based on DNA came into being in the first place from simple organic chemistry is unknown, and quite possibly unknowable. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project says:

But how did self-replicating organisms arise in the first place? It is fair to say that at the present time we simply do not know. No current hypothesis comes close to explaining how in the space of a mere 150 million years, the prebiotic environment that existed on planet earth gave rise to life. That is not to say that reasonable hypotheses have not been put forward, but their statistical probability of accounting for the development of life still seems remote (Collins, 90).

However, once life as we know it has got going, life that is based on DNA, natural selection not only happens, it must happen – it is a logical necessity. The fact that the evidence shows that it does indeed occur is therefore not surprising – it is the opposite of surprising. As Darwin puts it in the quote above from Chapter 3:

If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind?

A rather alarming example of this is that fact that harmful bacteria have begun to develop resistance to antibiotics. This happens through natural selection. There are plenty of examples of this sort of short-term, small-scale natural selection. This sort of selection can be investigated by experiment and has been, most famously using the fruit fly, Drosophila. Thomas Hunt Morgan used them extensively in his research in the early 20^th century and they have been used in experiments studying genetics and evolution ever since (McGrath 173). As far as I know, no one thinks that this kind of natural selection doesn’t happen, not even the kind of Biblical literalist who thinks that the earth was created on October 22, 4004 BC! This is often called microevolution. However, there is a huge gulf between noting that this natural selection occurs, and the idea that natural selection is the mechanism which explains how the evolution of life on earth from (relatively) simple early life forms to the variety of complex life that we see today occurred. This is called macroevolution.

Microevolution happens and it is explained (mostly) by natural selection. Macroevolution also happened but does natural selection explain that too? Or is supposing this like observing an athlete jumping over a hurdle in a race and then supposing that he can therefore leap over a mountain. Natural selection can jump the hurdle, but can it clear the mountain?

John Lennox explains in detail why he is sceptical (Lennox, 108-117). For example, he says, quoting Pierre Grasse, a distinguished French biologist who was president of the Academie Francaise:

… there was a limit to what mutation and natural selection could do … fruit flies remain fruit flies, in spite of the thousands of generations that have been bred and all the mutations induced in them … It is not surprising that he argued that microevolution could not bear the weight that is often put on it (Lennox, 109-110).

The issue is vividly, and typically bluntly, summed up by cosmologist Fred Hoyle, who studied the mathematical aspects of the problem. You should imagine this being spoken in a Yorkshire accent.

Well, as common sense would suggest, the Darwinian Theory is correct in the small, but not in the large. Rabbits come from other slightly different rabbits, not from either [primaeval] soup or potatoes. Where they come from the first place is a problem yet to be solved (Lennox, 113).

We will meet Fred Hoyle again. Of course, what Hoyle says can be disputed, but what he says does illustrate that just because micro evolution occurs, it does not automatically follow that natural selection is the mechanism that explains macro evolution.

So, there are no doubts about micro evolution, but are there difficulties with the idea that natural selection is the mechanism which explains evolution in general? If you want, you can go up into space and take of photo of the earth showing that it is a sphere, and proving that fact beyond reasonable doubt, and indeed unreasonable doubt. The situation with natural selection is not so simple.

 

What should we believe about natural selection?

Before I go any further, can I emphasise as strongly as I can, I am not trying to attack evolution. For a start, that would be well beyond my pay grade, but it would be a fool’s errand even for someone much better qualified that I am. The difficulties with theory, in as far as they exist, are irrelevant to the argument of this book. The idea we are considering here, the idea that natural selection is the mechanism that explains the evolution of life on earth, does not need to be proven beyond all question in order to raise crucial questions about Christianity; it only needs to be plausible, which it undoubtedly is.

There are three things I would like to establish though:

• It is reasonable, whilst accepting evolution and common descent as facts, to remain agnostic about the exact role which natural selection plays in evolution.
• It is extremely difficult to prove, or disprove, anything which happened in the distant past using the artifacts which just happened, by chance, to survive from that time.
• Evolutionary theory is a work in progress, like all other scientific theories. We shouldn’t tie our theological beliefs, or lack of them, too much to the science we currently possess. Science should certainly inform theology, but at the same time we need to remember that all scientific truths are provisional. There is a balance to be struck.

William Ralph Inge, professor of divinity at Cambridge, and dean of St Paul's Cathedral wrote: ‘If you marry the spirit of your own age, you will be a widow in the next’. Perhaps the same applies to the science of the age. No doubt he science of the future has much more to tell us about life on earth. That might even be exciting, but we will have to wait and see.

We should add a caveat to this though. We should not tie our theological beliefs, or lack of them, too much to the gaps in the science we currently possess either. The so called ‘God of the Gaps’ is no God at all; and ‘we don’t know how that happened, so God did it’ is not an argument at all. Gaps in our scientific knowledge tend, eventually, to get filled. The phrase ‘God of the Gaps’ was coined by applied mathematician, theoretical chemist, and methodist lay preacher, Professor C.A. Coulson to describe the ‘we don’t know how that happened, so God did it’ non-argument (Poole, 33).

Notwithstanding what we said about Drosophila, the idea that natural selection is the mechanism by which macro evolution happened cannot be tested by repeatable experiments or direct observation in the way that, say, Einstein’s prediction of time dilation can. Experiments can change fruit flies into different fruit flies, but they can’t change a fruit fly into, say, a horse. That would be a lot more impressive. Scientists find themselves in the position of a detective trying to work out who committed a murder from the evidence left behind by the crime; not an impossible task, but convictions would be safer if detectives could go back it time to witness the crime taking place themselves. As we have already noted, in a court of law, even when the available evidence is considered to provide proof ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’, juries can still deliver the wrong verdict. Of more relevance to this book is a comparison with the work of scholars of ancient history. Almost everything from the ancient world is now lost, and historians must work with the evidence which has survived by chance, by robustness, or which has been carefully preserved. Obviously, they would love to be able to travel by Tardis to watch (from safe distance) the battle of Hastings, or be a fly on wall at the court of Alexander the Great, sit in at a tutorial with Socrates, to listen to one of Jesus’s sermons, or take notes at his trial; but sadly not. We must rely on the people who were there at the time, what they decided to tell us, though often more importantly, what they let slip by accident. More on that in later chapters.

As we have noted, there is plenty of evidence available from the study of the anatomy of living species, and from the analysis of their DNA, for evolution and common descent. As Holmes would point out to Watson, it’s all a matter of deduction, keeping the detective analogy going! The evidence left behind by evolution in the past though is, essentially, the fossil record. Not all life forms leave evidence behind. Life forms which do leave evidence behind, usually those with bones or shells, have produced a fossil record which doesn’t necessarily support the idea of the gradual change by small steps required by natural selection, although the fossil record does support the idea of evolution and the idea of common decent.

Evolution by natural selection can only proceed by small steps. If one species evolves into another gradually, should we not see evidence in the fossil record of life forms intermediate between the two species? Darwin recognises the difficulty.

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

Origin of Species Chapter 10 (Darwin, 347).

Sometimes, you have to work with the evidence you have, and not wait for the evidence you would ideally like to have. A judgement needs to be made about how significant the gaps in the evidence are.

This difficulty with the imperfection geological record led to possibly the most notorious fraud in the history of science: Piltdown Man. In 1912, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson, decided that he would fill one of the most important ‘gaps’ in the fossil record: the remains of an animal that was an intermediate form between humans and their ape like ancestors, popularly known as ‘the missing link’. He did this by cheating. He took the jaw and some of the teeth of an orangutan, and the skull of a small modern human, and put them together to fake the required specimen, which he then claimed to have dug up at a site near Piltdown in East Sussex. Although some had doubts from the beginning, it was not exposed as a fraud until 1953.

We should point out that genuine fossils of early humans have been discovered since which can be described as ‘missing links’ which add some plausibility to the idea of gradual change in the evolution of humans. We should also point that although Charles Dawson’s name is similar to that of Charles Darwin, they have no connection whatsoever! Charles Darwin was a man of the highest integrity.

Let continue with our traditional example of evolution the human eye. Darwin writes in the Origin:

It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man?

Origin of Species Chapter 6 (Darwin, 189).

If your reaction to the idea that the human eye could evolve by natural selection alone is, ‘it just doesn’t seem very likely’, then Charles Darwin sympathises with you. He also writes:

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration could have formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree … [but] He who will go thus far, ought not to hesitate to go one step further, if he finds on finishing this volume that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of modification through natural selection; and admit that a structure even as perfect as an eagle’s eye might be formed, although in this case he does not know any of the transitional grades. … but I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extending the principle of natural selection to such startling lengths.

Origin of Species Chapter 6 (Darwin, 185-189).

The eye of an eagle, or a human eye, could not evolve all in one go by natural selection. It can only have evolved from an extremely simple ‘eye’, a light sensitive cell for example, into the eyes which humans have, through many small steps. At each step, a small change must occur which gives an evolutionary advantage. There has to be an evolutionary path from the simple to the complex, that is to say a series of numerous, successive, slight modifications, or transitional grades as Darwin calls them.

In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions on millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man? If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down, But I can find no such case.

Origin of Species Chapter 6 (Darwin, p189-190)

But is it really true that there is no such case? Eyes more primitive than the human eye do exist in nature, and different type of functioning eyes have evolved, such as various kinds of compound eye. It seems that eyes have evolved independently several times over. So, it is plausible that there was a path for the human eye to evolve, even if we cannot say precisely what it was (Darwin, 186-187; McGrath, 193). But is this true for all ‘complex organs’? Some processes and structures, such as those within a living cell, the basic unit from which all more complicated living things are made, are vastly more complex than the human eye.

Lennox writes:

According to geneticist Michael Denton, the break between the non-living and living world ‘represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all discontinuities in nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological systems, such as a crystal or snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive. Even the tiniest of bacterial cells, weighing less than a trillionth of a gram, is a ‘veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of 100 thousand million atoms, far more complicated that any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world’ (Lennox, 122).

Lennox adds that according to Nobel prize winner Jacques Monod: ‘the simplest cells available to us for study have nothing primitive about them … no vestiges of truly primitive structures are discernible.’ So, as far the evolution of the individual living cell is concerned, not only are living cells mind bogglingly complex, but we know nothing about the more primitive objects that hypothetically came before them. So, in the case of the human eye, we can we can make a reasonable guess at the steps that led from a simple ‘eye’ to the eyes that we have; but when it comes to tracing the process which created the first living cells, we have no idea.

We seem to stuck with a circularity not unlike the one mentioned earlier.

Question: How is it possible for complex structures to evolve by natural selection?

Answer: There was an evolutionary path consisting of small changes which started with a simple primitive structure and which gave rise eventually to the complex one. At each stage, each small change gave an evolutionary advantage.

Question: Can you tell me what the path was?

Answer: No

Question: Then how do you know there was an evolutionary path consisting of small changes which started with a simple primitive structure and which gave rise eventually to the complex one?

Answer: Because it is possible for a complex structure to evolve.

Some would argue that it is perfectly reasonable to simply assume that there must have been evolutionary path, and that the burden of proof lies with those who say that there was not. Particularly, in the case of the living cell, I think it would be reasonable to be dissatisfied with that. In fact, it would not be entirely unfair to compare this with the God of the Gaps argument: we don’t know how that happened, so God did it; except it is now, we don’t know how it happened, so natural selection did it; the Natural Selection of the Gaps.

Even if there is an evolutionary path from the simple to the complex, biologists have no idea how a simple primitive structure such as a primitive eye or a rudimentary lens or iris could come into existence to begin with. Natural selection needs a starting point. Darwin mentions this point, albeit rather dismissively, if I may say such a thing about the great man (Darwin, 186). Biologists still have no good answer to this problem (Buranyi). And as we have noted, there are structures far more complex than the eye to explain.

 

Discussion today

Once again, don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to say that these difficulties mean that the theory cannot be correct. As I hope I demonstrated in the prologue, just because there are difficulties, puzzles, paradoxes, limited evidence and so on we do not abandon our faith in science, because it is a justified faith. No doubt many of the difficulties will be resolved in the future. It is also possible that the theory, like Newton’s theory of mechanics, will turn out to be true but incomplete. This is a matter of discussion amongst biologists today.

For example, there was an article published in Nature in 2014 entitled, ‘Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?’ (Laland et al). It notes that researchers are divided over what processes should be considered fundamental.

The first half of the article gives the answer ‘yes, urgently’ to the question in the title. Kevin Laland and colleagues argue that standard evolutionary theory focuses too much on genes and natural selection as the sole cause of adaptation. They say that there needs to be what they call an extended evolutionary synthesis. Important drivers of evolution, ones that cannot be reduced to genes, must be incorporated into evolutionary theory, they say. The second half on the other hand, gives the answer, ‘no, all is well.’ Gregory A. Wray, Hopi E. Hoekstra and colleagues acknowledge the importance of the processes mentioned by Laland, but take the view that an extended evolutionary synthesis is not required. It is interesting to note that amongst evolutionary theorists, the precise role of natural selection in evolution is being debated.

Laland notes that this debate can become heated. Hostility to the proposed extended evolutionary synthesis could be down to what he calls the spectre of intelligent design, he says. I think it will also be down to the fact that scientists don’t give up established theories easily. And quite right too. A certain amount of stubbornness is essential to the scientific process – so long as you also know when you’re beaten.

At the time of writing this book, a 2022 article by Stephen Buranyi, reviewing some of the current issues in evolutionary theory, was available at the Guardian newspaper website (Buranyi).

No one knows what the science of the future will reveal or what surprises it has in store. We can only discuss the implications of the science we have now. We will do that in the next chapter. But first:

 

How did people react to the publications of the Origin of Species?

When the Origin was published, the reactions were many and various. The story is told that on learning about the book’s contents a bishop’s wife said to her husband: ‘My dear, descended from the apes! Let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known’. Sadly, that story is almost certainly apocryphal, but it would be great if it were true. The story of the debate on evolution which took place in 1860 between Thomas Huxley, ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History is not apocryphal, but it may have grown in the telling.

The debate was preceded by a talk given by a certain … er … John Draper! There was a large crowd of seven hundred who, according to Michael Poole, had actually come to hear Wilberforce. Apparently, Draper spoke at length; it was a warm day and the crowd grew restive (Poole, 98). Huxley, writing sometime later, claimed that, during the debate, Wilberforce asked him whether it was on his mother’s side or his father’s side that he claimed to be descended from a monkey. Huxley retorted that he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth. For a long time it was thought, since Huxley himself was the source of this story, and it was not corroborated by any contemporary witness, that this is perhaps what Huxley wished he had said, rather than what he actually said (Brooke, 41). We’ve all had that experience when we think of the perfect reply about two minutes too late. However, very recently, it has emerged that there is a contemporary account, namely from a report in a local newspaper, the Oxford Chronicle, written a week later, which confirms that there was an exchange very much like the one described above (England, ‘Censoring Huxley and Wilberforce’). Perhaps we should have had more faith in Huxley; not that he approved of faith, mind you.

Wilberforce had a first from Oxford in mathematics, and was vice president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which organised the meeting at which the infamous encounter occurred (Poole, 98).  His arguments against evolution were not exclusively religious by any means. A month after the debate he published a review of the Origin of Species. In the review Wilberforce says:

We have objected to the views with which we are dealing, solely on scientific grounds. We have done so from the fixed conviction that it is thus that the truth or falsehood of such arguments should be tried. We have no sympathy for those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or to any inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to contradict what it appears to them is taught by revelation. We think that all such objections savour of a timidity which is really inconsistent with a firm and well-intrusted faith. (Wilberforce, ‘On the Origin of Species’)

Darwin’s comment on Wilberforce’s review of the Origin was, ‘it picks out with skill the most conjectural parts and brings forward very well all the difficulties’ (Brooke, 42).

Samuel Wilberforce was a senior bishop who opposed the new theory. Not all senior clergy were hostile though. In 1860 Frederick Temple was headmaster of Rugby School, but he went on to become Bishop of Exeter, Bishop of London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury. The day after Wilberforce and Huxley had their notorious contretemps, Temple preached a sermon in the University Church (1^st July 1860) in which he welcomed the insights of Darwinism. As Brooke notes, Temple ‘insisted that the finger of God was to be discerned in the laws of nature – not in arbitrary limits places on the scope of the sciences.’ One member of the congregation remarked that Temple ‘espoused Darwin’s ideas fully’. Temple contributed to another religiously controversial book published in 1860: Essays and Reviews. According to Brooke:

[Temple’s] thesis was that, in sensibility as in doctrine there had been a historical development within Christianity, to which the physical sciences had contributed by revealing more things in heaven and earth that were dreamed of in patristic theology. To fear the result of scientific investigation was nothing short of ‘high treason against the faith’. Indeed the scientist’s faith in the universality of physical law gave analogical support for the moralist’s faith in the universality of moral law. (Brooke, 274)

Brooke goes on to discuss in detail the religious response to the origin of species in the years after its publication, both for and against, and at all stops in between. Wherever anyone stood on that particular spectrum, the impact of the Origin was seismic. No one’s view of how to interpret the Bible or Christian teaching or indeed of how to interpret the nature of human existence would be the same again.

Summary

The theory of evolution describes how life developed from the simple and primitive single celled life forms that existed billions of years ago into the tremendous variety of life on earth that we see today. However, ‘simple’ and ‘primitive’ are relative terms. Even simple and primitive life forms are mind bogglingly complicated and sophisticated. We have no idea how the simple and primitive life forms came to be in the first place. Nevertheless, we should not say: ‘We don’t know how that happened, therefore God did it’. That is a terrible argument.

What role does natural selection play in evolution? We looked at Charles Darwin’s book the Origin of Species, what happened after its publication, and some modern-day discussion of the theory. This book accepts evolution as a fact, as almost all scientists do; but it also takes the view that it is sensible to remain agnostic about the idea that natural selection, on its own, explains how evolution happened. Nevertheless, this idea does not need to be proven beyond doubt to raise crucial questions not only about Christianity, but any attempt to find meaning in human existence. It only needs to be plausible, which it undoubtedly is.

 

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