It has been more than 150 years since Darwin published his ground-breaking book, On the Origin of Species. The idea of evolution, however, has not settled into the happy embrace Darwin's supporters had hoped. In fact, the debate has raged ever more fiercely. As proof of this we need only to listen in what some of the more eminent evolutionists have to say.
It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
Richard Dawkins, New York Times, 9 Apr 1989: sec.7, p.34.
. . . religious believers are like wild animals who may have to be caged, and that parents should be prevented from misinforming their children about the truth of evolution.
D. Bennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 515-516; emphasis added.
. . . it may not be long before the practice of religion must be regarded as anti-science.
John Maddox, "Defending Science Against Anti-Science," Nature 368 (1994): 185.
Science is traditionally, and as it ought to be, regarded as an objective discipline in which scientists seek to conclude only what the evidences permit them to do. Why then do men such as an Oxford professor like Richard Darkins speak with such strong—intolerant—emotions that, quite honestly, amount to pure intellectual imperialism and social totalitarianism—the very kind of thing they often accuse the Church of doing to honest seekers in the past?
Thankfully, Richard Darkins, brilliant thought he may be, does not have the final say on the subject. Nor Dennis Bennett and John Maddox. Others, just as brilliant and competent to speak on the subject think differently.
No wonder paleontologist shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it ususally shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.
Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin (New York: Wiley, 1995) 95.
We conclude—unexpectedly—that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinism view; its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak.
Jerry Coyne, "The Genetics of Adaptation: A Reassessment," American Naturalist 140 (1992): 126.
Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing . . . that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said 'I do know one thing—it ought not to be taught in high school.'
Colin Patterson, unpublished lecture, cited in Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1993) 10.
In 1977 the English translation of Pierre Grassé's 1973 French original L'Evolution du Vivant was published. Reviewing the book, eminent neo-Darwinian scholar Theodosius Dobzansky says,
The book . . . is a frontal attack on all kinds of "Darwinism." Its purpose is "to destroy the myth of evolution, as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon," and to show that evolution is a mystery about which little is, and perhaps can be, known. Now one can disagree with Grasseé but not ignore him. He is the most distinguished of French zoologists, the editor of the 28 volumes of Traite de Zoologie, author of numerous original investigations, and ex-president of the Academie des Sciences. His knowledge of the living world is encyclopedic.
So who is right? If even a person of such glorious credentials such as Pierre Grassé can entertain grave doubts about evolution . . . ? As the remarks by Richard Dawkins, Dennis Bennett and their kind, show, this is not a question of purely academic interest. It impacts everything we think of ourselves as humans and colours all our decision about how we live on and care for this delicate world on which we make our home. It shapes the countours of our hope, despair or cyncism. Richard Dawkins is brilliant as a zoologist though seldom wise as a thinker. But he is right when he says that, assuming evolution is true, then,
. . . Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn.
Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden (London: Phoenix, 1996) 112.
Evolution is, therefore, too important a subject to be left to the specialist, though Darwinists often like to think that only specialists who endorse their views are permitted to discuss the subject. It is not a difficult subject; like all intellectual disciplines, understanding evolution is simply a matter of rigourously-disciplined common sense. Yes, the subject requires familiarity with a broad range of different disciplines that, on their own, requires years of study to master. But what we seek is not mastery of the subject, only to know what are the important questions, and what are the honest answers that have been voiced out there, to form an informed opinion.
For most of the time the debate has largely been a European affair, first in England, and then in North America where the discussion in the general public descended into ugly confusion and a battle-ground for those who insisted that evolution should, or should not, be taught in schools, and in academia, into a culture of intellectual intolerance amidst which one's career depended on whether one endorses or criticizes Darwinism. In the last three decades, however, things have begun to change when those 'outside the box' decided that it was their business to think about evolution and to think outside the box. This has led to alternative ways of understanding the evidences such as intelligent design as an alternative to gradualistic evolution. Chinese scholars also have waded into the field and contributed greatly to the discussion and the controversy, especially since the 1980's, with the discoveries of the vast fossil beds first at Chengjiang in Kunming and later at Liaoning. There has, indeed, never been a more exciting times for acquiring an appreciation of evolution that today.
This course is designed to help you cover—systematically—enough of the vital grounds for you to work out an informed appreciation of evolution, by outlining the most important questions and pitfalls and making available the sources for thinking through honestly through them.
The approach adopted here is broadly historical, beginning with the developments leading to the formulation of the theory of evolution now so inextricably associated with Charles Darwin, its reception and influence in the year afterwards. We then trace its ups and down as new researches and evidences challenge its viability as a scientific theory, and we end with a survey of the current stage of the debate. We believe this approach will provide the opportunity for understanding the subject in its proper historical, scientific, and social contexts, as the questions of scientific methodologies, discoveries, and controversies are woven into the narrative.
This course assumes you have no formal scientific training. It only assumes that you are prepared to learn. Scientific jargon cannot, of course, be avoided; it is simply one of the givens we have to deal with in a subject like evolution. We have, however, included a built-in glossary that explains in plain and simple English every unfamiliar word or concept you will come across. In addition, we have provided supplementary as well as important source documents that will take you deeper into many of the ideas and concepts raised in the course.