Charles Darwin- Evolutionary Theory

1. Charles Darwin- Evolutionary Theory • Prior to Darwin science in grid of 4th century Greek philosopher Aristotle. • Aristotelian science supported church doctrines. • 2 main principles – 1. Species Types (separate, discrete entities fixed by an essence). 2. Evaluative Hierarchy (lesser and greater species – humans pinnacle). Consistent Genesis/humans dominion. • Science & religion complemented each other until Darwin.

2. Charles Darwin’s criticisms Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) • 2 Principles are incorrect – all species have evolved from simpler, extinct forms – not distinct. • Random variations in a species become a feature of that species where they promote the survival of that species. • Darwin proposed a theory of the survival of the fittest (this theory was also proposed by Spencer in Principles of Biology, in 1865).

3. Darwin called the principle by which species develop natural selection. The fittest, healthiest members of the species survive, and their characteristics become part of the character of the species. • Intense competition to survive = species has to be selfish to survive. • Darwin drew on the work of 18th century economist, Thomas Malthus, who argued that the world has a built in regulator which controls the population levels of living creatures. • In the future we might not even feature.

4. The Theory of Natural selection • The environment that surrounds the earth is unpredictable, ever-changing and basically hostile. • Within that environment organisms produce more offspring than can survive. • There are variations between these individual offspring- they are not all alike. • Some of these variations turn out to be favourable as the organism struggles to survive in its particular environment. • These offspring therefore survive better than their siblings who do not have the variation. • The offspring with the variation are more successful, those without dwindle in number • The variation becomes part of the organism. • All depends upon the transition of favourable characteristics – we are all subject to natural selection.

5. Darwin saw this process as gradual and ongoing. It explains the variations within a species, and also the apparently close relationship between different species.

6. Paley and Aquinas argued for intelligent design in the world. Darwin argued that the apparent design is in fact the result of a natural and random process. It is, in the words of the geneticist Steve Jones, ‘a series of successful mistakes’. (Almost A Whale, 1999) So what?

7. Richard Dawkins’s criticisms • Dawkins proposes a purely mechanistic universe, in which biological impulses drive life forwards. • Altruism – regard for others as a principle of action but • People do not behave altruistically, they behave in order to enable human genes to survive. • ‘We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.’ Inconsistent with the Church.

8. In The Blind Watchmaker (1986) and Climbing Mount Improbable (1996) Dawkins sees the development of life on earth as inevitable because of the genetic foundations for that life. In The Selfish Gene (1989) Dawkins claims that our genes are ‘selfish’. • He does not mean selfish in a moral sense, but that genes are engaged in struggle for survival. • These selfish genes survive using the human body, which is, so to speak, a ‘survival suit’. • At a fundamental level, genes are simply bytes of information that are engaged in a struggle for survival. Evolution is this genetic struggle in practice.

9. AS Question • Examine the design argument for the existence of God. • What are the strengths of the design argument? Comment on some of the criticisms raised against this argument?