The Cowtown Humanist
The Official E-Mail Publication of
the Humanists of Fort Worth
http://www.hofw.org;
E-mail: info@hofw.org
A chapter of the American Humanist Association,
and allied with the Council for Secular Humanism
June 2003 Volume 5, No. 3
E-mailed June 20, 2003
Fort Worth Humanists Elect NEW VICE
CHAIR
EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES TO BE SHARED
EVOLUTION STUDIES BEGIN; TO CONTINUE ON SECOND WEDNESDAYS
HUMANISTS TO PICNIC AT TRINITY PARK JUNE 22, 2:00 p.m.
HARRISON RESIGNS AS VICE CHAIR; CHEATHAM ELECTED
Fourteen members participated in the May 20th meeting
at which a new vice chair was elected. Jim Cheatham takes
over the responsibilities of the vice chair albeit he voiced the
expectation that someone else would subsequently be found to edit the
newsletter in view of his inadequate computer skills. Subsequently,
Michael Rivera volunteered to help with those duties. The
newsletter, thus, will be a joint responsibility.
The new team wishes to
congratulate Wallace on a job well done. He will be sorely missed.
We wish him well in his new endeavors. Your new editors do not
aspire to replicate Wallace's inimitable style and intellectual heft.
We do, however, have ideas of our own concerning format and
substance that will be implemented over the coming months. In the
meantime, we ask for our readership's indulgence for any and all
failings. We will improve as we go along. We will welcome any
feedback, voiced or written, on the virtues and shortcomings of our
efforts. We also urge members to contribute either with pieces of their
own on some aspect of humanism that we may be missing or with comments that
will alert us to how this publication can better serve the humanist community
of the area.
The next HoFW meeting will
be a picnic at Trinity Park June 22 at 2:00 p.m. Bring your own food and
drink. Let's try for a good turnout to celebrate the summer
solstice.
The next regular HoFW
meeting will be July 15 at West Side Unitarian Church. Our own Dick Trice
is the featured speaker. Mark the occasion down in big red
letters on your calendar.
Following the business
session, the members were treated to the first two video lectures on
evolution. Lectures three and four were attended on June 11 by 11
persons. Following is a description:
Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy
Lecture Three:
Darwin's Inspiration
I.
Charles Darwin entered the scientific debate
over origins inconspicuously.
A. Born in 1809, Darwin came from the British
landed gentry. His maternal grandfather was the wealthy china
manufacturer Josiah Wedgewood and his father, a prosperous physician.
1. On both sides, members of his family were active capitalists at the dawn of the industrial age.
2. After his mother died when he was nine, Darwin went to a dismal boarding school.
3.
Science became an early outlet and led, in 1825,
to Darwin's attendance at medical school at Edinburgh, the traditional center
of experimental science in Britain. He could not stomach dissection, surgery,
or the sight of blood; he liked only natural history.
4. Darwin transferred to Cambridge University to prepare for a career . in the ministry at a time when the Anglican clergy served mostly a social function. He continued to study natural history, which was then viewed as a prop to religion.
5.
He excelled in natural history, and his
professors recommended him to serve as naturalist aboard the Beagle on a
five-year British naval survey of the South American coast, with return voyage
around the world.
B. Darwin's experience on the BeagIe changed the course of intellectual history.
1.
Darwin took with him Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and was converted
to uniformitarianism after seeing a volcano on the Cape Verde Islands and
experiencing an earthquake in Chile.
2. Adopting Lyell's evolutionary view of geologic history did not shake his faith in the special creation of organic species. Lyell, too, accepted a form of creationism.
3.
Species on the Galapagos Islands changed
Darwin's view of origins. He found only a few basic types of plants and animals
there, but those few took a wide variety of forms.
4. On his return voyage, Darwin began speculating that those various Galapagos forms must have evolved from a common ancestor. He adopted this view after ornithologists confirmed that various birds in his collection constituted distinct species.
5.
Darwin kept his views on evolution a secret. He
knew that the idea had been ridiculed by scientists and that he lacked a
satisfactory explanation of how it worked.
II.
Returning to England in 1836, Darwin assumed the
life of a gentleman naturalist, living first in Cambridge and London, then at a
country home with his growing family.
A. Having
married his wealthy first cousin, Emma Wedgewood, Darwin did not need to work.
He devoted himself to natural history, secretly developing his theory of
evolution.
B.
Darwin gradually gained stature and friends in
the British scientific community.
1. He oversaw the identification and study of specimens brought back on the Beagle.
2.
He
published a highly popular narrative of his voyage and numerous scientific
articles and books about his findings on it.
3. He became an active member of leading British scientific associations.
C. As
his health deteriorated, he spent more time at home consumed by his biological
studies. Although this research seemingly dealt with various topics, it all
related to his obsession with understanding how evolution worked.
III. Darwin's breakthrough came in 1838 while reading Thomas Malthus's well-known 1798 essay on population.
A. Malthus
was a gloomy Anglican cleric who maintained that because the human population
far outstripped the food supply, only the fittest can or should survive. His
social thinking was popular among rising Whig capitalists of Darwin's class.
B. Applying Malthus's theory to all living things, Darwin struck on a purely materialistic mechanism that he believed capable of driving the evolutionary process: natural selection.
1. Despite the obvious similarity of individuals in a species, all do vary slightly.
2. Assuming overpopulation, only the fittest of these can survive to reproduce.
3.
Just as artificial selection propagates
varieties in domestic breeding, so this natural selection process should create
and maintain variety in the wild.
4. Given enough time and a changing environment, as postulated by uniformitarian geology, selected varieties would gradually deviate into separate species.
C. Darwin
composed a first draft of his theory in 1842 and a second in 1844, yet he kept
his idea secret from virtually everyone. He published seven books of basic
science during the years from 1842 to 1857 but nothing about evolution.
1.
Knowing the scientific opposition to earlier
theories of evolution, Darwin labored to anticipate and answer every
conceivable objection to his theory.
2. Although Darwin was never deeply religious himself, his beloved wife was a pious Christian and he valued the social role of religion. He feared the impact of his theory would undermine religious faith by making humans a product of nature and showing that a cruel process of survival of the fittest (rather than a loving God) formed species.
3.
Darwin gradually lost his own faith in God
during this period through a combination of his focus on materialist causes in
nature and his struggles with the problem of evil.
IV.
Darwin was shocked out his self-imposed
intellectual exile by the receipt in 1858 of an essay from Alfred Russel
Wallace outlining the theory of natural selection.
A. From
a poor family in rural England, Wallace had developed a passion for natural
history, particularly the study of beetles. He became a paid collector of
natural history specimens in the Amazon valley and East Indies.
1.
Radical in his political, social, and religious
views, Wallace favored a theory of evolution over creation on philosophical
grounds.
2. He went to the tropics with the ulterior motive of seeking proof for evolution by looking for evidence that similar species inevitably live near one another.
3.
Obsessed with conceiving a sufficient mechanism
to drive the evolution process, Wallace realized, during a malarial fever in
1858, that Malthus offered an answer.
4. He immediately wrote up his theory of natural selection in a cogent essay and sent it to Darwin, whom he knew had thought favorably of his early writings on evolution.
5.
Darwin showed Wallace's work to Lyell, who was
one of the three people who knew of Darwin's work on the same theory, and Lyell
arranged that essays by both men on the theory of evolution by natural
selection be published jointly in 1858.
B. Driven to get his evidence for evolution by natural selection before scientists and other educated readers as soon as possible, Darwin worked furiously to complete his classic book, On the Origin of Species, in 1859. This book revolutionized biological thought.
Essential
Reading:
Darwin,
Voyage of the Beagle, ch.19.
Lecture Four:
An Intellectual Revolution
Scope: On the Origin of
Species spawned an ongoing revolution in human thought. In it, Darwin
does not "prove" his theory of evolution by natural selection.
Rather, he argues that his theory offers a better explanation for the origin of
organic species than creationism. In his
later book, The Descent of Man, Darwin carries this argument on to provide a
materialistic explanation for the origin of the human species and such
supposedly human traits as love and consciousness.
The
implications of Darwin's theory provoked immediate controversy. Although
accepting his theory did not preclude belief in God, it did dispense with the
need to believe in a supernatural creator of species. Further, it
undermined natural theology by suggesting that species evolve through random
chance and a struggle for survival. As extended in Descent of Man,
Darwin's thinking dispensed with God as the creator of humans, love, and
consciousness. The study of man and nature became an investigation of
natural (rather than Supernatural) causes.
Outline
I.
Darwin wrote his 1859 masterpiece, On the Origin
of Species, to persuade scientists and educated readers that evolution was a
better explanation for the origin of species than creation and that natural
selection was a plausible mechanism for driving the process.
A.
Darwin could not offer a traditional
"Baconian" scientific proof that evolution had transformed one
species into another because he had not observed it happen. Rather, he artfully
marshaled overwhelming circumstantial evidence for evolution.
1.
Descent from a common ancestor accounts for the
existence of natural groupings or families of similar species; creation does
not.
2. Descent from a common ancestor accounts for the geographic proximity of similar species (Wallace's argument); creation does not.
3. Evolutionary descent accounts for the existence of rudimentary organs; creation does not.
4. Evolutionary descent accounts for progression in the fossil record; creation does not.
5. Descent from a common ancestor more logically accounts for the geographic distribution of species than does creation.
B.
Darwin also could not prove that natural
selection of random, inborn variations caused evolution, but he argued that it
could do so.
1. Artificial selection in agriculture showed the power of selection to maintain a variety.
2.
The ability of introduced species to displace
native ones both shows the power of selection and discredits the notion of
special creation by a beneficent creator.
3. Competition and cruelty in nature support selection over creation.
4. Bright colors for male animals and for flowers support selection over creation.
C.
None of Darwin's arguments proved that evolution
actually occurred, but together, they were persuasive for readers already
inclined toward naturalism over supernaturalism.
II. Darwin's theory dealt a body blow to traditional Western religious thought.
A.
Darwin's chronology of, and outline for, the
origin of species differed on its face from that set forth in the Genesis
account.
1.
Early nineteenth-century theories of geologic
history had already forced many educated Christians to accept a metaphorical
interpretation of the Genesis account.
2. Cuvier and Lyell had offered new chronologies and outlines for creation without arousing significant religious opposition.
B. Darwin exceeded Cuvier and Lyell in dispensing with the need for a creator to fashion individual species.
1.
Although some atheists had appealed to science
in their rejection of God, most eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century
scientists accepted either a theistic or deistic God and posited the need for a
creator as prime evidence for God's existence.
2. Although Darwin acknowledged some place for an initial creation, the creator's acts were pushed back in time and out of the realm of science.
C. Darwin's theory undermined natural theology, which had become a mainstay of Protestant Christianity.
1.
Natural theology sought objective evidence of
God's existence and indications of his character in his creation. This was a
key prop to religion in Protestant cultures that had rejected Church authority
and elevated individual interpretation of scripture.
2. Without the special creation of species, there was less immediate evidence for God's ongoing interaction with the physical world and, thus, less evidence of His existence.
3.
Under Darwin's theory of natural selection, new
species evolved through chance variations and a ruthless struggle for survival.
If nature reflected its creator, then natural selection challenged His justice
and love.
4. In 1874, in a tightly reasoned book, the noted Princeton theologian Charles Hodge spoke for many when he concluded that Darwin's denial of design in nature denies God.
D.
Although Darwin consciously avoided the issue of
human origins in Origin of Species, to the extent that his theory of evolution
applied to man, it also threatened deeply entrenched religious and
philosophical opinions on human uniqueness and dignity.
III. Scientific, religious, and popular debate swirled over the applicability of evolution to the origin of humans.
A. The central issue concerned the origin of man's mental and moral attributes, not whether his physical body had evolved.
1.
Traditional Christianity had ascribed these
attributes to a divinely created soul, the existence of which divided humans
from other animals.
2. Scientists generally segregated humans from other animals on this basis, from Aristotle's theory of the rational soul found only in humans, through the Cartesian dualism between physical matter and the human and divine soul, to Cuvier's classification of humans and primates into separate orders.
3.
To the extent that the human mind, human
behavior, and human morality had become topics of academic study, humans were
studied on their own terms or through religion.
B.
Darwin equivocated on the matter in Origin of
Species but announced for the materialistic origins of humans from simian
ancestors in his 1871 book, Descent of Man.
1. Darwin did not believe that humans descended from apes (because they coexist now) but argued that they had a common ancestor.
2.
He asserted that the difference between the
mental powers of humans and animals was one of degree rather than of kind. To
do so, he exaggerated the human-like qualities of animals, such as in
intelligence, emotions, and communication.
3. Darwin argued that moral feelings (including love and belief in God and immortality) would have survival value such that they could incrementally increase through natural selection.
4.
He appealed to Lamarckian mechanisms to suggest
that the force of habit could augment the development of mental and moral
attributes in humans.
5. He invoked sexual selection to account for the development of traits in humans (such as monogamy) and in other animals (such as the male peacock's tail) that have no direct survival value.
6.
Although more speculative and less influential
than Origin of Species, Descent of Man anticipated developments in the social
sciences and evolutionary psychology.
C.
Even such loyal supporters as Charles Lyell and
Alfred Russel Wallace broke with Darwin over the evolution of man. Both
maintained that humans were simply too different from other animals for those
differences to have evolved by chance variations.
D.
Applying
materialistic Darwinism to the origins and nature of human beings carried profound
significance for Western thought. It ended the perceived divide between humans
and the rest of nature enshrined by biblical religion and Aristotelian science.
Essential
Reading:
Darwin,
On the Origin of Species, ch. 14
Darwin,
The Descent of Man, ch. 21
The above outlines © 2002, The Teaching Company Limited
Partnership
Editorial
Note:
An excellent introduction for the general reader to Darwinism is Ernst Myer's What
Evolution Is. Myer was 96 years old (!) at the time of its
publication in 200l. In an appendix he gives short answers to frequently
asked questions about evolution. One answer that I had not heard before
is: How did human consciousness evolve? ...The answer is actually
quite simple: from animal consciousness! There is no justification
in the widespread assumption that consciousness is a unique human
property. ...Every dog owner has had occasion to observe the 'guilt
feeling" a dog displays when in the absence of its master; he has done
something for which he expects to be punished. (Mine did this
morning!) How far "down" in the animal kingdom one can trace
such signs of consciousness is arguable. It may well be involved even in
the avoidance reaction of some invertebrates and even protozoans. However,
it is quite certain that human consciousness did not arise full-fledged with
the human species, but is only the most highly evolved end point of a long
evolutionary history.
Check
it out. JHC/
DICK TRICE TO SPEAK AT JULY 15 MEETING OF HUMANISTS.
Our very own Dick
Trice will talk about the origins of Christianity at the Fort Worth Humanists'
session on July 15: “CHRISTIANITY;
THE POWER OF RECYCLING AND REPRESSION.”
The success of Christianity rests to a great extent on the repression of its
origins. If the faithful only knew that
its very dogma was a complete recycling of the ancient superstitions and the
terrifying punishments for dissent that had evolved over centuries of trial and
elimination, there might be fewer Christians and many more Humanists.
We'll take a look at the remarkable sameness of Christianity with pagan
religions, of Mithraism, Zoroastrianism,
and the Gnostic Gospels discovered in a cave near Nag Hamaddi, Egypt, in 1945,
and learn why Christianity's origins are so unknown."
Humanists, as well as the faithful, need to know more about this intellectual stew from which the world's largest religion was formed. Let's all try to give Dick a hearty welcome.