Religion and Science

Evolution remains a contentious subject among conservative Christians, particularly in the United States, and also among many Muslims. Belief in the literal truth of sacred texts, and in the surpassing sovereignty of the divine creator, has led many to reject the theory of evolution, an enormously powerful and generally coherent scientific explanation, in favor of some variety of "creationism." This polarization of argument about evolution has restricted a very important area of theological exploration, namely how we can understand the activity of a God who seems to have created a system that contains very widespread suffering among animals, and in which over 90 percent of all the species that have ever lived are extinct. Evolutionary theory also raises other issues—in particular to do with the nature and distinctiveness of humanity. The Book of Genesis describes human beings as being uniquely made "in the image and likeness of God" (1:26). If we can explain a great deal about human beings in terms of our evolutionary inheritance, what becomes of these theological claims about humans?

The key phrase here is "a great deal." Advances in evolutionary explanation have been greatly accelerated by the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary theory with classical genetics, and then by the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, enabling us to describe evolutionary patterns at the level of molecular genetics as well as anatomy. It is sometimes thought that understanding genes effectively allows us to account for every aspect of human behavior. This "sociobiological" account of humanity implies that higher-level descriptions of human beings as creatures who worship, who pray, who exhibit self-sacrificial love can all be dispensed with. This kind of dismissal is an example of "reductionism" taken too far. Understanding higher-level properties in terms of simpler systems is part of the power of science—it goes back in a sense to the insights of Galileo—but reductionism has often been used too sweepingly when science has interacted with other types of explanation, such as those given by theologians.