The Philosopher's Stone Issue 2

Evolution and our attitude to it

Evolution is a well-established scientific model of how organisms develop. Evolution presents a different view from the Creation Story in the Bible. In light of scienfitic facts, evolution wins, hands down.

Does it follow as Nietzsche and Hitler suggest that the strong have the right to oppress and even eliminate the weak? Evolution seems to suggest that that's what happens spontaneously. So, do we or do we not believe in the evolutionary model, after all?

The prominent atheist Richard Dawkins thinks evolution explains how we got here but it doesn't tell us what to do. This seems to be nonsense: physics explains how objects have got to where they are right now but it doesn't tell us how they'll move from now on? Now, honestly. That's not the way scientific models work, they explain how things happen in general. You can't draw an arbitrary cut-off line and say science is valid up until this morning, but not any further, this afternoon, we'll be governed by a different scientific model.

Suppose evolution was only valid until Darwin discovered it. Has it stopped since then? It obviously hasn't. Suppose it was only valid until Mr. Dawkins first said it doesn't tell us what to do. Has it stopped since then? No, it hasn't. Mr. Dawkins might want to rethink his position. Or when he says evolution doesn't tell us what to do, does he mean something else? Can he have a valid, though ill-expressed, point?

This is a thorny problem, so I need your help, readers. What do you think our attitude to evolution should be?

Some ideas: we could say
- evolution is what happens against our better wishes and utmost efforts or
- evolution is what was happening to us until we evolved consciousness or
- evolution is hampered rather than spurred on by those involved or
- evolution involves stress while conscousness reduces it, so calmly reflecting on evolution is a contradiction in terms
- or...