Responses to Darwin's Dis-ease:

Whoever wrote this article is very misinformed about the way evolution works. "At the heart of Darwin's evolutionary theory is the destruction of the unfit, and the survival and successful breeding of the fit. That's what makes evolution work. If the unfit survive, then evolution regresses, because the weak, the sickly, and the malformed breed just as much as the strong, the healthy, and the well-formed. To make evolution go forward—and this obviously includes human evolution—the unfit have got to be ruthlessly picked off." First off, evolution has no direction, and therefore cannot regress or go foward. Fitness, in the way Darwin explains it, depends on the environment. A trait that is "fit" for one environment may not be so fit for another. It doesn't make sense to say "evolution regresses" or "make evolution go forward" because it would have to be going in some pre-planned direction to begin with.. It does not follow a direction. It is a natural process. When the environment changes, certain individuals in that population will be better fit to survive than others. If the selection pressure is strong enough, the more "fit" individuals will survive and the others may die off. For example, if some individuals in a population are better at withstanding warmer temperatures, and the environment suddenly becomes much warmer (which it sometimes does), those individuals will do better. The individuals which are not so great in warm climates will not survive. The increased heat is a selection pressure selecting for those individuals who can bear the heat and selecting against individuals who cannot. Now you have a population of individuals who are all adapted to surviving in a warm climate. If the environment suddenly becomes much colder (which it sometimes does), the process happens again. Since the environment is always changing, and in no particular direction, evolution also has no direction. Secondly, if there are no selection pressures, evolution will not happen. There are no selection pressures strong enough to select against the "the weak, the sickly, and the malformed," so Darwin being sickly does nothing to hurt his theory. Thirdly, behaviors are just as heritable as any other trait. This said, there is no reason morality couldn't have evolved. Populations which included individuals willing cooperate, as in with parental care for offspring, would have a high survival rate and pass on those heritable behaviors to future generations. I wanted to point out lastly that evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive. Evolution explains the process in which man evolved, but not how the process began. – Jennifer

Dr. Benjamin Wiker Responds: Your points are well-taken, but let me throw a little confusion into your clarity. If Darwin’s theory were perfectly consistent, evolution would have no direction. Indeed, Darwin formed his version of evolution against other previous accounts which asserted that evolution did have a direction: it aimed at ever-increasing complexity that culminated in human beings. But that implied theistic oversight, and Darwin would not allow it. His account of natural selection was formed, in essence, against theistic alternatives, as a way to remove any need for a divine hand in evolution.

So, as you say, natural selection should be entirely aimless. Here comes the confusion. First, Darwin himself wasn’t consistent. He viewed the evolution of human beings in terms of the ever-increasing perfection of our moral and intellectual capacities, and in particular, put the evolution of “sympathy” as morally definitive. If he had been strictly consistent, no “moral” trait would be any higher or lower than any other. Sympathy, kindness, cooperation might fit one environment, but if (for example) it gets cold and crops fail for a few years and there is a drastic shortage of food, then ruthlessness, selfishness, and chicanery might be much more useful traits. Darwin couldn’t face that. Can you?

Second, Darwin himself insisted on there being constant selection pressure. Why? He believed that without it, evolution would not have gotten anywhere. Note the past tense. The difficulty facing his theory was in explaining how merely aimless evolution had succeeded so well in so short a time. If it were truly aimless, then as you say, with no selection pressure from the environment, things would more or less stand still. But since the fossil record showed an incredible development of creatures from less to more complex, Darwin needed a constant push upwards to explain what had already happened. This was especially true in regard to human evolution. At least in regard to the higher human races (yes, he did rank them), the extraordinary moral and intellectual qualities could not have developed “had not the rate of increase been rapid, and the consequent struggle for existence severe to an extreme degree.”

The severity of the struggle depends (as you say) on “selection pressure,” but that had two interesting implications for Darwin in regard to human evolution. We have to choose between evolution and devolution.  We can go further up: “Man…has advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher he must remain subject to a severe struggle.” We can slip back down: if we “do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world.” In short, relaxing the “selection pressure” meant devolution; ramping it up, meant further evolution. Therefore, society must not relax the selection pressure nor coddle the weak, sickly, and malformed. (And here, you are confusing two senses of unfit: having a different tolerance for warmer temperatures is different from being born with a malformed heart. Temperatures might rise, making a different heat tolerance more "fit," but nothing that happens in the environment will ever make a large hole in the wall of the heart more "fit.")

Darwin stops short of asking that we weed the weak, sickly, and malformed out ourselves, but note what he did affirm: “Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if in any marked degree inferior in body and mind…” Given Darwin’s own sickly nature, which he passed on to his children, that statement should at least seem a little ironic. If Darwin were consistent, then he should have regarded the death of his own children as contributing to the advance of humanity. I am thankful to report that his great sorrow showed him to be truly human rather than merely theoretically consistent. He tried to say in theory (as the last letter below would have it), "That's the way it is, folks. Deal with it." But the real Darwin was torn apart by it.

So, what does this all mean? Evolution as Darwin designed it is inconsistent with religion. He meant it to be that way. Furthermore, the inconsistencies crept into his argument precisely because he wanted natural selection to take the place of God. He wanted evolution to be aimless, but also to aim at particular moral and intellectual goals that had previously been explained as so extraordinary that God must have been their cause.

I just watched a PBS show on Darwinism and Intelligent Design, where a Dover school trial was recreated with actors, and Michael Behe seemed to be somewhat skewered. Would love to hear point / counterpoint re: that show. - T. S.

"Here is where the irony becomes acute. In the twenty years that followed, in which Darwin was working assiduously on his theory of evolution, he was a classic evolutionary misfit. At the heart of Darwin's evolutionary theory is the destruction of the unfit, and the survival and successful breeding of the fit." I believe you're confusing the ordinary, everyday meaning of the word fit (hale and hearty) with the scientific meaning (fertile). Natural selection requires variety and fecundity, with not enough food for all the offspring to survive. Natural selection is in part a misnomer. It is an attempt of scientists to express how such self-organizing processes work, such as the tendency for certain varieties to leave more offspring (and more grandchildren and great-grandchilden, and so on) than other varieties. There's no irony at all evident in Darwin's illness. He never said how wonderful it is that the many must die so that the few may live. He merely described his theory of biological evolution by natural selection in words (very roughly) analogous to these: "That's the way it is, folks. Deal with it." - Sally Morem