Teaching the controversy

Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection almost 150 years ago. Most people who debate its merits have never read it, and here in the States, his work has been reduced to whether one "believes in" evolution, as though it falls in the same category as astrology, elves, and Santa Claus.


To understand Darwin's work, you need to understand his reluctance to acknowledge his own conclusions. Evolution per se was not the difficult part--heck, Darwin's grandfather Erasmus published that decades before Darwin's work, and it wasn't original then.

If you grasp why Darwin was so torn by his own words, then you get the controversy.

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We make connections, even (or maybe especially) when we're children. The universe revolves each of us.

Rally caps, inside-out pajamas, horoscopes, and sidewalk cracks--all have power. We spend our time living in supernatural universes that do not yet (nor ever will) exist.

Starfish were designed to eat clams, alas....

We look at creatures, and of course they were designed--the dolphin has flippers to swim, the bee has a stinger to sting, humans have brains to think and thumbs to grasp tools. Every species alive today fits very neatly in its niche, as though designed just to do so.

Any child paying attention can reasonably conclude that organisms as complex as lightning bugs and robins and catfish were designed to be a part of the world, a specific part of the world.

That much is true. No matter what side you fall on, critters are obviously designed for their environments.

You can know this and not believe in the supernatural.

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The crux of Darwin's theory, the crux of the controversy, is this--natural selection reasonably and completely explains the diversity of life here on Earth.

This upset Darwin. It upsets a lot of people. It's a big deal.

You cannot fully explain Darwin's importance if you do not understand what the fuss is all about. Most of my students enter their sophomore year believing that Darwin formulated the theory or evolution.

He did not.

He developed a reasonable explanation for the diversity of species through natural selection alone. Others had similar ideas, but his work was cogent, concise, and readable.

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection reads as though it was written by a man trying very hard to convince himself he was mistaken, but failed to break through the chains of rational thought. The man Darwin was trying to convince was himself.

The theory of evolution removes the need for any other explanation for the diversity of life here--supernatural or otherwise. It requires no further layers to explain how species form.

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On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection does not, however, preclude a Creator. It does not explain how life began, nor makes any attempt to do so.

One of the first people to read the book was the Reverend Charles Kingley, a writer and a Protestant priest, who sent a note to Darwin congratulating him on his treatise. In the letter the Rev. Kinsley noted:

I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought.

The Reverend Charles Kingsley
Letter to Darwin, November 18th, 1859

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As for the "controversy," the attempt by a few folks with a perverse interpretation of the Gospels to create a scientific curriculum that includes Intelligent Design, well, I present the thrust of their argument--that organisms clearly designed for their environment require some sort of intelligence behind the design--without presenting their motives.

It's the way my sophomores think anyway--they're still children. Heck, it's how we all think.

The whole point of Darwin's work is that it demolishes the need for a designer. The Intelligent Design hypothesis is not a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution--it is that very idea that Darwin destroys in his book.

Calling Intelligent Design a scientific alternative to evolution is like recognizing the Flat Earth Society as a reasonable alternative to a round Earth.

I wish Darwin was wrong. I wish Santa Claus still brought me presents. I wish people would start thinking.

And I still wish upon stars....just not in science class.

*Even more important, you can know this, believe in the supernatural, and still accept,
indeed embrace, the theory of evolution, without any appeal to the supernatural.


Oh, my thoughts on a Creator? On cosmological origins? On energy? On mass? All great mysteries.
Let the mystery be--once you try to explain a mystery to me, you're no longer dealing with a mystery but a myth.