I'm a mathematician who studies evolution. I'm also a person who thinks about how people can find meaning and purpose in their lives. And so, combining these, I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about what, if anything, evolution can tell us about the meaning and purpose of human life.
My friend Connor Wood recently wrote on this topic. Specifically, he probed the question of why, precisely, many conservative religious traditions find the idea of evolution so objectionable. His argument is encapsulated in this quote:
Even though scientists generally don't intend it as such, evolution fills the role of a creation story. Like other creation stories, it explains where we came from and how we got here. But unlike other creation stories, it gives us few clues as to where we're going or what we're supposed to do. In fact, it tells us that we're the product of random events. If this randomness had gone differently, we might not be here at all. Additionally, evolution accords us no special status relative to other living things. I think the randomness and lack of specialness or purpose implied by the evolution story is why so many people find it hard to swallow.
(Note that this has nothing to do with the strength of evidence for the theory of evolution. It's my opinion that, for issues connected to deeply held values, evidence often factors little in what people believe.)
Interestingly, several thinkers have tried to turn this equation around, claiming that evolution can, in fact, satisfy the psychological/spiritual needs that religion might otherwise fill. One of these is Stuart Kauffman, one of the biggest names in complex systems. Kauffman's latest book, Reinventing the Sacred, argues that evolution is such a creative and fundamentally unpredictable process that it can provide us with all the divine-like inspiration we need.
Unfortately, Kauffman's idea doesn't quite get there for me. It's true that the variety of life is awe-inspiring, with more and more surprises the closer one looks. However, I think that just being awestruck by the beauty and creativity of nature is not enough to fill the role of a religion. It doesn't give a satisfying answer to why we're here or what we should try to do with our lives.
Another approach is to focus on the potential of evolution to produce cooperation, creativity, and complexity. These aspects of evolution are highlighted in Supercooperators, the new book by my boss and mentor Martin Nowak. I think one of the reasons for the past few decades' surge of research into this side of evolution (the "snuggle for existence") is that it changes the story evolution tells about us, allowing us to understand how love, empathy, and compassion are also products of our evolutionary history.
But I don't find this to be of great philosophical comfort either. First, for every example of the evolution of cooperation, there's a complementary example of evolved selfishness and violence. Second, knowing that my feelings of love and empathy exist because they were successful traits in my ancestors doesn't make me feel better about them. In fact, it makes me feel worse. I want to think of these as fundamental to who I am, not some ploy to reproduce my genes. Every time I try to think about all my love and altruism as being a product of evolution, I become sad and want to stop thinking about it. Perhaps I'm just not thinking about it right, but I imagine others may have this difficulty too.
I made a handy (oversimplified) chart to summarize what I think evolution can and can't do for us in terms of filling spiritual voids:
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In short, my answer is that no, I don't think evolution can provide us with satisfying answers to our deepest questions.
Of course, the point of evolution, as a scientific theory, is to provide an explanation consistent with the available evidence, not to fill our spiritual voids. But I think that, in having conversations about evolution, we must acknowledge that (a) people look for meaning and purpose in their lives, (b) given a creation story (even a scientific one), people will try to find such meaning in this story, and (c) in looking for such meaning in evolution, people will often find it deeply unsatisfying.
I think these psychological (spiritual?) factors go a long way toward explaining the resistance in many quarters to the theory of evolution. I don't think that ignoring or belittling these concerns advances the cause of science---rather, it creates a gulf between those looking to accurately describe the world and those looking to find meaning in it.![]()
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My friend Connor Wood recently wrote on this topic. Specifically, he probed the question of why, precisely, many conservative religious traditions find the idea of evolution so objectionable. His argument is encapsulated in this quote:
I strongly suspect that evolutionary theory makes people so uncomfortable, not because it disagrees with Genesis (lots of things contradict Genesis), but because it presents a vision of a natural world whose “values” are fundamentally opposed to those of our religious cultures.By "values" (in quotes because evolution is an amoral process), Connor is referring to the often violent struggle to survive and reproduce one's genes, which includes such behavior as infanticide in some mammals and birds. While I agree with Connor's basic argument, I think it's not primarily the violence and struggle that offends some religious sensibilities (the Old Testament and many other religious texts are full of violence) but rather the inherent randomness and lack of ultimate purpose in the process.
Even though scientists generally don't intend it as such, evolution fills the role of a creation story. Like other creation stories, it explains where we came from and how we got here. But unlike other creation stories, it gives us few clues as to where we're going or what we're supposed to do. In fact, it tells us that we're the product of random events. If this randomness had gone differently, we might not be here at all. Additionally, evolution accords us no special status relative to other living things. I think the randomness and lack of specialness or purpose implied by the evolution story is why so many people find it hard to swallow.
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| Where did all this come from?? What does it mean?? |
(Note that this has nothing to do with the strength of evidence for the theory of evolution. It's my opinion that, for issues connected to deeply held values, evidence often factors little in what people believe.)
Interestingly, several thinkers have tried to turn this equation around, claiming that evolution can, in fact, satisfy the psychological/spiritual needs that religion might otherwise fill. One of these is Stuart Kauffman, one of the biggest names in complex systems. Kauffman's latest book, Reinventing the Sacred, argues that evolution is such a creative and fundamentally unpredictable process that it can provide us with all the divine-like inspiration we need.
Unfortately, Kauffman's idea doesn't quite get there for me. It's true that the variety of life is awe-inspiring, with more and more surprises the closer one looks. However, I think that just being awestruck by the beauty and creativity of nature is not enough to fill the role of a religion. It doesn't give a satisfying answer to why we're here or what we should try to do with our lives.
Another approach is to focus on the potential of evolution to produce cooperation, creativity, and complexity. These aspects of evolution are highlighted in Supercooperators, the new book by my boss and mentor Martin Nowak. I think one of the reasons for the past few decades' surge of research into this side of evolution (the "snuggle for existence") is that it changes the story evolution tells about us, allowing us to understand how love, empathy, and compassion are also products of our evolutionary history.
But I don't find this to be of great philosophical comfort either. First, for every example of the evolution of cooperation, there's a complementary example of evolved selfishness and violence. Second, knowing that my feelings of love and empathy exist because they were successful traits in my ancestors doesn't make me feel better about them. In fact, it makes me feel worse. I want to think of these as fundamental to who I am, not some ploy to reproduce my genes. Every time I try to think about all my love and altruism as being a product of evolution, I become sad and want to stop thinking about it. Perhaps I'm just not thinking about it right, but I imagine others may have this difficulty too.
I made a handy (oversimplified) chart to summarize what I think evolution can and can't do for us in terms of filling spiritual voids:
Of course, the point of evolution, as a scientific theory, is to provide an explanation consistent with the available evidence, not to fill our spiritual voids. But I think that, in having conversations about evolution, we must acknowledge that (a) people look for meaning and purpose in their lives, (b) given a creation story (even a scientific one), people will try to find such meaning in this story, and (c) in looking for such meaning in evolution, people will often find it deeply unsatisfying.
I think these psychological (spiritual?) factors go a long way toward explaining the resistance in many quarters to the theory of evolution. I don't think that ignoring or belittling these concerns advances the cause of science---rather, it creates a gulf between those looking to accurately describe the world and those looking to find meaning in it.
