Darwinism defined: the difference between fact and theory - essay

If a misunderstanding of the different methods of historical inquiry has impeded the recognition of evolution as a product of science at its best, then a residual fear for our own estate has continued to foster resentment of the fact that our physical bodies have ancient roots in ape-like primates, waddling reptiles, jawless fishes, worm-like invertebrates, and other creatures deemed even lower or more ignoble. Our ancient hopes for human transcendence have yet to make their peace with Darwin's world.

But what challenge can the facts of nature pose to our own decisions about the moral value of our lives? We are what we are, but we interpret the meaning of our heritage as we choose. Science can no more answer the questions of how we ought to live than religion can decree the age of the earth. Honorable and discerning scientists (most of us, I trust) have always understood that the limits to what science can answer also describe the power of its methods in their proper domain. Darwin himself exclaimed that science couldn't touch the problem of evil and similar moral conun- drums: ''A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.''

There is no warfare between science and religion, never was except as a historical vestige of shifting taxonomic boundaries among disciplines. Theologians haven't been troubled by the fact of evolution, unless they try to extend their own domain beyond its proper border (hubris and territorial expansionism aren't the sins of scientists alone, despite Mr. Kristol's fears). The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, our greatest orator during Darwin's century, evoked the most quintessential of American metaphors in dismissing the entire subject of conflict between science and religion with a single epithet: ''Design by wholesale is grander

than design by retail'' --or, general laws rather than creation of each item by fiat will satisfy our notion of divinity.

Similarly, most scientists show no hostility to religion. Why should we, since our subject doesn't intersect the concerns of theology? I strongly dispute Kristol's claim that ''the current teaching of evolution in our public schools does indeed have an ideological bias against religious belief.'' Unless at least half my colleagues are inconsistent dunces, there can be -- on the most raw and direct empirical grounds -- no conflict between science and religion. I know hundreds of scientists who share a conviction about the fact of evolution, and teach it in much the same way. Among these people I note an entire spectrum of religious attitudes -- from devout daily prayer and worship to resolute atheism. Either there's no correlation between religious belief and confidence in evolution -- or else half these peple are fools.

The common goal of science and religion is our shared struggle for wisdom in all its various guises. I know no better illustration of this great unity than a final story about Charles Darwin. This scourge of fundamentalism had a conventional church burial -- in Westminster Abbey no less. J. Frederick Bridge, Abbey organist and Oxford don, composed a funeral anthem expecially for the occasion. It may not rank high in the history of music, but it is, as my chorus director opined, a ''sweet piece.'' (I've made what may be the only extant recording of this work, marred only by the voice of yours truly within the bass section.) Bridge selected for his text the finest biblical description of the common aim that will forever motivate both the directors of his building and the inhabitants of the temple of science -- wisdom. ''Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace'' (Proverbs 3:17).