Evolution Series at St Bride's

Discussion Notes from Jonathan Clatworthy's Talk on Sunday 5th June 2011

We've just started a new four part Sunday morning series on evolution and its implications for the life of faith. Here are Jonathan's notes from the first of the series...

What the words mean

Evolution: gradual change over time. Occasional speculation about it among the ancients (though usually the changes were for the worse). Increasing scientific speculation from 17th century onwards. Until Darwin there was no satisfactory account of how changes accumulate and set a direction of change.

Natural Selection: Darwin’s proposed account. In any species, each generation will vary in their physical characteristics. Depending on the environment, some will be more successful than others, and over time the species will change. Darwin did not explain how natural selection works. The main breakthrough on this was by Mendel. The ‘neo-Darwinian synthesis’, now widely accepted, explains many features unknown in Darwin’s time.

Neither evolution nor natural selection presuppose materialism (no God, everything explained by physical processes) or determinism (no free will, everything the effect of a cause) but ‘new atheists’ tend to assume it presupposes both.

What they imply

Change

We are a little bit different from what our ancestors were hundreds of years ago, and from what our descendants will be in hundreds of years’ time. We are valuable as the product of milliions of years of development, but not the pinnacle of creation.

Responsibility: what they did then affects us, and what we do now will affect our descendants.

Diversity

All species that reproduce sexually need every generation to behave in diverse ways and tolerate different environments. Diversity is essential.

Traditional western moral teaching, both religious and secular, usually thinks in terms of universal moral rules which ought to be applied to everyone equally. Postmodern ethicists argue that good and bad actions cannot be reduced to universal principles. What is right for one person is not right for everyone.

Process

Human life depends on its natural environment. This is so complex that we cannot expect to gain a full understanding of it.

Every species of living being makes changes to its environment. It takes some elements out, changes them, and, apart from humans, every other species returns its waste to the environment in a form which can be used by some other form of life. We are necessarily part of a complex interacting system which has a place for us but will kill us off if we ruin our environment.

Modern western thought has often described humanity as primarily rational thinkers, and seen the natural environment as a mere backdrop. Evolution tells us we are necessarily part of a much bigger process.

Questions

1) Are there things you do, or can do, which make you feel responsible for what happens in the future? How do you feel about your responsibilities?

2) What limits do you think there should be to acceptable diversity in people’s lifestyles?

3) If you could abolish one limitation of human bodies, what would it be?