Darwin's bulldogs Natural selection is a philosophy of beauty and imagination

From The Times
August 8, 2008


Next year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin
and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his On The Origin of
Species. The Natural History Museum and the BBC plan extensive
education programmes. Anticipating the anniversaries, Professor
Richard Dawkins is presenting a series on Channel 4. These are welcome
ventures. On the evidence of its first episode, Professor Dawkins's
exposition of Darwinism will be an important public resource.

Darwin founded a branch of learning that has remarkable explanatory
power and also grandeur. That the mechanism of evolution is natural
selection is one of the great discoveries of science, with
implications far beyond evolutionary biology. As Ernst Mayr, the
biologist, wrote: "No educated person any longer questions the
validity of the so-called theory of evolution, which we now know to be
a simple fact."

It is an unfortunate wonder of the modern age that people who are
highly educated in some areas may still be resistant to scientific
inquiry. We customarily think of objectors to Darwinism as Protestant
fundamentalists. There is in fact a worrying trend for Muslim children
to be taught the myths of creation, and the pseudoscience of
"intelligent design", as an explanation of the origins of life.

Myths have beauty and narrative power. But their place is in art and
literature, not science. The ideas of Darwin are also a venture of
beauty and the imagination. And they have the merit of being confirmed
by mountains of empirical data. Darwin's modern expositors have a
difficult task but a noble calling. They merit an enthusiastic hearing
and gratitude.