A
further legacy?
"Darwin’s
legacy is far from exhausted in the sciences. It is rightly celebrated
in 2009.
In the religious sphere it has proved more equivocal. The oppositional
stance
of fundamentalist groups and the equally aggressive rejoinders from
exasperated
atheists has contributed to a polarization that the membership of ISSR
deeply
regrets. There is another legacy from Darwin,
which, if appropriated, could only be beneficial in contexts where
dogmatism on
either side prevails. The manner in which Darwin
conducted himself in his dealings with friends and critics alike might
still be
held up as an example. There was an attractive humility in the
self-deprecating
way in which he declined to dogmatise on intractable questions such as
the
existence of God or the existence of transcendent purposes in the
universe.
Darwin also
displayed an impressive honesty in his rhetoric, conceding the
difficulties
surrounding his theory as well as underlining its strengths. One of his
grievances against the evolutionary biologist St George Mivart was
that, in a
severe critique of Darwin’s
dependence on natural selection, Mivart dwelled only on the
difficulties,
disregarding the strengths. Mivart was a convert both to evolutionary
thought
and to Roman Catholicism, making it easy for Darwin and Huxley to
impute a
religious motivation to his critique. There were other qualities in Darwin that are
often
lacking among contemporary antagonists. He knew where to draw the lines
on the
limitations of his science, recognising that the future would bring
fresh
insights and a deeper understanding of the processes he sought to
understand.
Two presuppositions characterise much of his thinking on questions of
science
and religion. One was that it would be sacrilegious to suggest that the
deity
was incapable of achieving its creative purposes through natural
causes. The
other, associated with his agnosticism, was an attitude of tolerance to
those
whose intimate beliefs he did not share. In so far as he had a creed at
the end
of his life, it was that each man should hope and believe what he can."
JWH
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