Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying
and inspiring science.
Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts-some of them interesting or curious
but making no meaningful picture as a whole. This is not to imply that we know everything
that can and should be known about biology and about evolution. Any competent biologist
is aware of a multitude of problems yet unresolved and of questions yet unanswered. After all,
biologic research shows no sign of approaching completion; quite the opposite is true. Disagreements
and clashes of opinion are rife among biologists, as they should be in a living and growing
science. Antievolutionists mistake, or pretend to mistake, these disagreements as indications
of dubiousness of the entire doctrine of evolution. Their favorite sport is stringing together
quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of context, to show that nothing
is really established or agreed upon among evolutionists. Some of my colleagues and myself
have been amused and amazed to read ourselves quoted in a way showing that we are really
antievolutionists under the skin.
Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further
study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of
the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant
to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms
that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives
to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly
learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms. It is remarkable that more than
a century ago Darwin was able to discern so much about evolution without having available
to him the key facts discovered since. The development of genetics after 1900-especially
of molecular genetics, in the last two decades-has provided information essential to the understanding
of evolutionary mechanisms. But much is in doubt and much remains to be learned. This
is heartening and inspiring for any scientist worth his salt. Imagine that everything is
completely known and that science has nothing more to discover: what a nightmare!
Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder
to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology,
and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean
can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to
blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.
One of the great thinkers of our age, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
wrote the following: "Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more
-it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforward
bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light
which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow-this
is what evolution is." Of course, some scientists, as well as some philosophers and theologians,
disagree with some parts of Teilhard's teachings; the acceptance of his world view falls short
of universal. But there is no doubt at all that Teilhard was a truly and deeply religious
man and that Christianity was the cornerstone of his world view.
Moreover, in his world view science and faith were not segregated in watertight compartments,
as they are with so many people. They were harmoniously
fitting parts of his world view. Teilhard was a creationist,
but one who understood that the Creation is realized in this world by means of evolution.