10) Ideological controversies surrounding evolution

Reception of Darwin’s theory

‘on the origin of species’ was a very popular book but polarized it’s audience

• Darwin waited 20years to publish this book bcs he knew that it would create controversy

• scientifically oriented readers were convinced (<=> orthodox christians)

• controversy over Darwin’s ideas deepened with the publication of “the descent of man, and selection in relation to sex'“

  • here he presented that humans have evolved from apes & share a common ancestor

Who took place in the public debate in Darwins place?

Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (‘Darwin’s bulldog’)

• argued against religious control of science

• coined the term “Darwinism” to describe that live has evolved from a single common ancestor

Eugenics movement

selective breeding among humans → ‘increase of traits that are good for the society’

• idea was there before the scientific theory of evolution

1900: eugenics became more biologically informed

• pos & neg eugenics: promoting / preventing mating of people with desirable / undesirable traits

• ‘noble’ cause : prevention of the degradation of the race & promotion of quality of humans

20th century: neg eugenics were incorperated in political movements

Dark times in 20th century due to neg eugenetics

most extreme: Holocaust

• 12 million were killed by the Nazi regime bcs they were ‘gentically inferior'

involuntary sterilization of those considered “unfit”

• Finland : during 1935-1970 around 55 000 mentally or physically disabled individuals were sterilized without consent

politically acceptable but morally unacceptable?

sterilization & transgenders?

In many countries (finland 2022 (?), Sweden 2013) transgenders need to undergo sterilization if they want to legally change gender

Moral question of eugenetics

Who has the authority to decide what is desirable?

• theory of natural selection does not define what is a desirable trait in a given society

  • => not valid to argue that biology would determine who should reproduce in human species

    • science is here to provide us with facts but how we use this information & for what purposes is something else

Genetic modification of the human germ line

biology should not offer guidance what should be done in these cases, only tells us what might be possibe

It is legally prohibited

Chinese CRISPR-babies

genetically modified to be resistant to HIV

exp.: couple where the father had HIV so that they could get 2 healthy daughters

• CRISPR = a new technique with very precise cutting, copying & pasting of genetic material

  • Not perfect, sometimes it might change a gene in unexpected ways

  • Baby’s are healthy right now but mutations in their genes are slightly different from the naturally occurring ones => might be that one of the girl is not even resisted to HIV

• Ethically many controversies about using gene editing techniques in human embryos

  • What would be the implications for the baby’s born + their children

  • There was no need to do this

  • Much more safer ways to protect an individual from catching an HIV protection then tampering with their germ line

=> BAD EXP

Give two questionable ideas that in the 20th century were advocated with arguments borrowed from theory of evolution by natural selection

1. eugenics

2. justification of the abuse of non-Western people (‘ less evolved ‘)

= social darwinism

Social darwinism

When arguments of evolution are used to justify inequality

• these arguments do NOT logically follow from the theory of natural selection

Stage for the SSSM (standard social science model)

Countermovement against great chain of being + evolution (1900s)

• improve treatment of marginalized people

Claims of the SSSM

Humans = blank slates, general learners than can become anything depending on the environment

• no innate biological differences → equal human rights

Cultural relativity 

• variation among humans is caused by differences in culture

• was called for given the eugenics & mal treatment of non-Europians

Merits of SSSM (verdiensten)

There is indeed low genetic diversity

culture is indeed very important for human behavior

humanism has improved the lives of millions by advocating equal treatment of different groups

Biophobia

labelling biological explanations as a taboo / a priori false

What was a problem for behaviorism (which was based on SSSM)

animal exp.: natural behavior overrode the behaviorist conditioning

• eg. peaks continue to dig the earth although they were conditioned to do something completely different

• evidence that there are instinctional patterns of behavior that are realised in different species

Sociobiology

human social behavior has a biological basis

• Wilson ‘Sociobiology: the new synthesis’

• critisized (unethical in the light of history of biological discourse of human behavior - eugenics, slavery, WOII, colonisation…)

  • most critique came from the general public (<=> scientific community)

Evolutionary psy

tries to explain processes of the mind (<=> behavior directly)

• explains mind with the same evolutionary logic as sociobiology but is more general, less behavior-centered

• less politcal controversy

  • some state that it is the same as sociobiology but just a different name

How can theories and findings of EP cause some people to feel personally uncomfortable?

1. some EP findings are politically incorrect - they describe phenomna that are not desirable in society (violence, rape, infanticide…)

2. EP rests on a materialistic worldview and naturalistic ontology

when did scientific controversy over the fact of evolution in nature ended?

late 1800 → it became established that there is change in design of species over time

origin of creationism as a movement

related to teaching of evolution in schools in USA (<=> not so much about wether evolution is a fact or not)

• 1900 USA: debate over teaching of evolution

• 1925: ‘monkey trial‘ → teacher was fined for teaching evolution

• 1968: teaching of evolution allowed

  • Epperson vs Arkansas

• 2005: parents sued school for teaching creation in biology and WON the case

• debate continues: mostly in favor of evolution theory

what is the Epperson vs Arkansas case

Epperson = biology teacher

• challenged the Arkansan state law banning the teaching of evolution bcs it promoted religious believes in public education 

• before this case the Arkansan law had allowed the teaching of creation while not permitting the teaching of evolution

• reaction: law was changed → equal time for creationism and evolutionary theories

  • still allowed to teach creationism but as a religious dogma, not as a science

creation science (scientific?)

proponents of religious explanation rebranded their view bcs nowedays most societies believe that primary education should be based on science

• aim: be able to teach science in primary eduction biology as an alternative scientific theory of life

Not a scientific but a political movement!

4 characteristics of science

1. Systematic endeavour to collect information: what happened in the world? Why & how?

2. A-moral motivation : investigate how world is (not how it should be)

3. Falsifiable : outcome is not fixed

4. Goals concerning evolution of life

• find out what has created the diversity of life we observe + how this process works

Characteristics of creation science

1. systematic endeavour to promote a certain worldview

2. morally motivated

3. non-falsifiable → end result = fixed

• predominant ‘method’ tries to undermine other explanations

4. goals: promote the idea that life is created by a deity (godheid) & seek to undermine evolutionary explanations (biggest rival)

‘atlas of creation’ book

political campaign of creation science

• Turkish creationist created the two volume book (11kg) full of glossy pages of colorful pictures

• send 1000 of copies to schools, scientist and politicans over the world

• pictures of fossils & similar looking currently existing animals → claims that these pictures are the proof that species have never changed

FAULT: book has weird biological mistakes & a fossil is often compaired to a currently living animak that might not even be related to it

When should science debate with creationism?

private faith is of no cincern of science

• we are all entitled into believing what we want

decision making & education

• ideal of evidence based education

• evolution has practical implications in argiculture and medicine

→ would it be a problem if politicans in charge of decisions concerning education are creationists?

• eg. former presidentaal candidate of Finland Laura Huhtasaari is a creationist 

  • believes that evolution is a ‘totally impossible theory’

typical creationism arguments

• Life shows signs of design, and this implies a designer

  • natural selection leads to design in nature but without a designer

• Complex systems could not have emerged by chance

  • <=> theory of evolution does not claim that life has evolved from blind chance, but on the opposite it claims how mechanisms of evolution operate to guide evolution in non random ways to produce the design without a designer

• Science is not perfect

  • true, and there are many other things that science does not know, but even if theory of evolution is false that wont mean that creationism is right

• There are religious scientists

  • has nothing to do with evolution

Science and religion have a different set of axioms (+ implication)

science: arguments based on data → testbale and possibly falsifiable arguments are convincing

religion: arguments based on authority and personal experience are convincing

• possibility for doubt = problematic

→ neither party can convince another of the truth of their viewpoint as they have different criteria for what counts as convincing information

• real conflict is between criterion of knowledge!

Summarise of the problem between creationism & science

”The religious feeling does not need to be scientifically proven – the same cannot be said of science, which depends on evidence”

• science: rational arguments backed up with evidence and admit that you might not be correct 

• religion: believe that you are correct

→ If both parties stay true to their system, a debate cannot lead to any solutions

another concern of creationism (not origin of life)

if people think that humans are animals and that they have come to existence because of non-intentional evolutionary process, the world does not make sense (and maybe bad things will follow?)

Which method is used by creationism?

populist method: simple emotional arguments about complex topics

• apply to system 1 (intuition) of people who are not experts on the topics