maundy thursday lecture 2008

darwin, dawkins and dictatorship

(slide 1) where are we going?
let me welcome you here tonight, and let me begin by
telling you what i’m not going to do, and what i am
going to do.
what i’m not going to do tonight is attack the theory of
evolution. that may surprise or disappoint some of
you, but i’m not. neither am i going to defend six-day
creationism, nor the concept of intelligent design. that
again may be a surprise or a disappointment, but at
least you’ll know not to listen out for it.
and i’m not going to prove god exists, or even try to
do that.
what i am going to try to do is to look at the impact of
an idea. and i’m going to suggest that if this has a
generally negative effect on human life and humane
living, then there is something wrong, either with the
idea or with its application..
it’s an approach which is actually used by writers like
richard dawkins and the australian philosopher, peter
singer (to whom i will also be referring), and others,
so i think in the context it is fair to do this.
and then i will conclude by putting forward what i
think is a better way of looking at things.
(slide 2) let me start, though, with a quote from
augustine of hippo, writing at the beginning of the
fifth century AD, from his book the literal meaning of
genesis.
usually, even a non-christian knows something
about the earth, the heavens, and the other
elements of this world, about the motion and
orbit of the stars and even their size and
relative positions, // (slide 3) about the
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predicable eclipses of the sun and moon, the
cycles of the years and the seasons, about the
kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth,
// (slide 4) and this knowledge he holds to as
being certain from reason and experience. //
(slide 5) now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous
thing for an infidel to hear a christian,
presumably giving the meaning of holy
scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; //
(slide 6) and we should take all means to
prevent such an embarrassing situation, in
which people show up vast ignorance in a
christian and laugh it to scorn. (augustine, the
literal meaning of genesis, AD 408)
as regards the relationship between scientific
discovery and scripture, this is a very sound approach.
but remember, a lot of the science augustine was
referring to was in fact wrong. i wouldn’t go as far as
scott adams, author of the dilbert cartoons (slide 7):
the theory of evolution will be scientifically
debunked in your lifetime. (scott adams, the
dilbert future)
but i would certainly agree with richard dawkins at
this point (slide 8):
darwin may be triumphant at the end of the
twentieth century, but we must acknowledge
the possibility that new facts may come to light
// (slide 9) which will force our successors of
the twenty-first century to abandon darwinism
or modify it beyond recognition. (from a
devil’s chaplain p 81, quoted in a mcgrath,
dawkins’s god, 106)
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scientific enquiry has no place for intellectual
arrogance. however, i’m going to proceed on the
assumption that darwinism will not be refuted, and one
of the reasons for that is the compelling simplicity of
darwin’s original idea.
(slide 10) darwin’s big idea
charles darwin’s origin of species, published in 1859,
is over 480 pages long in the penguin paperback
edition. however, its important conclusions can be
summed up in a couple of paragraphs.
darwin had been struggling with this issue for several
years. amongst the things he noticed were that the
forms of plants and animals are adapted to their
specific needs and yet that some species had died out.
he also noted the uneven geographical distribution of
species — how some appeared in one location, but not
others. and, very importantly, he noted how many
creatures possess rudimentary structures with no
apparent usefulness, such as male nipples, and so on.
in addition, he was well aware that variations in plants
and animals could be produced deliberately, by
breeding. putting all this, together, the argument he put
forward was as follows (slide 11):
if ... organic beings vary at all ... and i think
this cannot be disputed; if there be ... at some
age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life,
and this certainly cannot be disputed; // (slide
12) then ... i think it would be a most
extraordinary fact if no variation ever had
occurred useful to each being’s own welfare //
(slide 13) ... individuals thus characterised
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will have the best chance of being preserved in
the struggle for life; and from the strong
principle of inheritance they will tend to
produce offspring similarly characterised. //
(slide 14) this principle of preservation, i have
called, for the sake of brevity, natural selection.
(charles darwin, the origin of species, 169-170,
quoted in kirsten birkett, the essence of
darwinism, 20)
it is a brilliantly simple idea (blank slide 15). the only
thing darwin lacked was evidence. specifically, there
was no known biological mechanism by which the
variations to which he referred could be preserved
from one generation to the next. there was also a lack
of sufficient evidence in the fossil record.
so early resistance to darwin’s theory wasn’t just based
on obstinacy or obscurantism.
but his ideas soon found acceptance — gradually in
some quarters, but rapidly and willingly in others. and
it would be fair to say that just as some people resisted
darwin’s ideas because they didn’t like their wider
implications, there were others who embraced them
precisely because they did.
(slide 16) implications and responses
so what were the first implications and responses. the
most obvious was that it contradicted the popular
theory, advanced by william paley, that the evidence
from nature showed that god had designed and created
each species individually.
paley is famous for his concept of the “divine
watchmaker” — just as a watch suggested a
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watchmaker, so the complications of plants and
animals suggested a creator. but darwin’s theory
apparently didn’t need a watchmaker. now i think it’s
fair to say the elimination of the watchmaker was
challenged then and can be challenged now, but for
many christians, this presented a profound problem.
yet by no means all christians saw it that way. indeed,
it may come as a surprise to some to discover that
darwin’s ideas found support amongst the original
fundamentalists — the men whose collection of essays
on the fundamentals gave us the term — including
benjamin warfield and james orr.
others, however, such as thomas huxley, happily
seized on darwin’s theory precisely because they saw
in it a tool against religion.
huxley is famous for his debate with samuel
wilberforce, the bishop of oxford (although there is a
great deal of myth about that debate). however, it is
interesting to note that on several key points, huxley
actually didn’t agree with darwin.
his enthusiasm for darwinism was as much about his
distaste for dogma as it was about his scientific
convictions. in fact, huxley coined the term
‘agnosticism’ to describe his own, preferred, position.
(slide 17) a new perspective
but there were other implications in darwin’s theory,
which were to have massive consequences as they
gained acceptance.
in particular, it seemed to require a shift from a ‘top
down’ understanding of human nature to a ‘bottom up’
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understanding.
(slide 18) before darwin, there was a widespread
assumption that human beings were at the ‘pinnacle’,
if not of creation, at least of the animal kingdom.
coupled with this, there was (again) an assumption in
historical tradition that the human body was, for want
of a better word, the vehicle of the soul.
clearly, darwin’s theory challenged these assumptions.
to quote the full title of his greatest work, the human
species was essentially the result of (slide 19) ... the
preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.
(slide 20) thus the ‘top down’ view of humanity was
challenged by a ‘bottom up’ view, where the human
race as simply one branch of the evolutionary tree: a
higher animal — if that.
darwin himself later wrote (slide 21),
we must ... acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities ... still
bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of
his lowly origin. (darwin, the descent of man,
quoted in mcgrath 45)
instead of being a little lower than the angels, as the
bible puts it, mankind suddenly found itself, in the
eyes of many, a little higher than the apes. and this
idea opened the door to new possibilities.
(slide 22) from darwin to dictatorship, phase 1
whilst some people were deeply unhappy with this
new perspective, there were others who were not only
happy to embrace it, but who were eager to apply it to
their understanding of society. indeed, they felt duty-
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bound to do so.
darwin’s theory of natural selection via the struggle for
existence, had an immediate problem with respect to
human beings, as darwin himself noted (slide 23):
we civilised men ... build asylums for the
imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we
institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert
their utmost skill to save the life of every one
to the last moment. // (24) [...] thus the weak
members of civilised societies propagate their
kind. // (25) no one who has attended to the
breeding of domestic animals will doubt that
this must be highly injurious to the race of
man. (darwin, the descent of man, 1882, 133-
134, darwin-online.org.uk)
(blank slide 26) it was darwin’s cousin, francis galton,
who really ran with this idea. in a book published in
1883, inquiries into human faculty and its
development, galton coined the term ‘eugenics’ for
what he had n mind. the 1921 second international
eugenics conference defined eugenics as, (slide 27)
“the self-direction of human evolution.” (source,
wikipedia, illustration of conference logo)
what this meant in practice was that those people in
the categories darwin mused about, the imbecile, the
destitute, generally the weak and incompetent, would
basically be encouraged to breed less.
galton’s ideas found widespread support in this
country, where hg wells and george bernard shaw,
were enthusiastic supporters, but it was in the united
states of america that they found their greatest
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practical application, were groups were targeted for
slide 28)
... “feeble-mindedness” ... “pauperism,”
prostitution, low intelligence, epilepsy, mental
illness, “criminality,” and even blindness.
(henri r mannasse, jr. ‘the other side of the
human genome’, american journal of health-
system pharmacy 2005;62(10):1080-1086)
the eugenics movement, however, was just part of
what came to be called ‘social darwinism’. this was an
idea developed by, amongst others, the english
philosopher, herbert spencer in the late nineteenth
century, who first applied the phrase ‘survival of the
fittest’ to human groups.
however, it was adolf hitler (slide 29) who gave this
aspect of ‘darwinian’ thinking its most dramatic
application.
hitler and darwin
the influence of darwinism can clearly be seen in this
passage from mein kampf:
(slide 30) ... the struggle between the various
species does not arise from a feeling of mutual
antipathy but rather from hunger and love.// in
both cases nature looks on calmly and is even
pleased with what happens. // (slide 31) the
struggle for the daily livelihood leaves behind
in the ruck everything that is weak or diseased
or wavering [...]. and this struggle is a means
of furthering the health and powers of
resistance in the species. // (slide 32) thus it is
one of the causes underlying the process of
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development towards a higher quality of being.
(blank slide 33) some have described hitler as
‘pseudo-darwinian’, and that may be true. but there is
no concealing the darwinian flavour of what he says.
similarly, we can see the influence of eugenic thinking
in the same document (slide 34):
the demand that it should be made
impossible for defective people to
continue to propagate defective
offspring is a demand that is based on
most reasonable grounds, // (slide 35)
and its proper fulfilment is the most
humane task that mankind has to face.
(adolf hitler, mein kampf)
the final outcome of that train of thought was seen in
the national socialist programmes of extermination,
which included not just jews, gypsies and
homosexuals, but disabled children..
(slide 36) two kinds of dictatorship
but i want at this stage to clarify what i am and am not
saying. i am not saying that darwin’s theory of
evolution leads directly to the gas chambers
specifically, or to dictatorship.
what i am saying is that the ideas darwin’s theory
provoked have a link with dictatorship, and we see this
in the fact that there are at two kinds of dictatorship.
first, there is the dictatorship of power, which is found
throughout human history from ancient rome, via
ghengis khan to much of what we see happening under
the communist regime in china today.
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in these kinds of dictatorship, the underlying principle
is that the authority of the state must not be
questioned. but provided the individual accepts this,
life can be lived more or less harmoniously and,
indeed, prosperously.
then there is the dictatorship of ideology, which is very
different. here, the underlying principle is a vision for
what society and individuals ought to be. an early
example would be the french revolution. another
would be pol pot’s regime in cambodia, but hitler’s
germany clearly fits in the same category.
a dictatorship of this kind requires conformity by the
individual to its own ideas about society and human
nature. and it will, if necessary, enforce that
conformity through laws and by force.
the question i am asking is how darwinism and this
kind of dictatorship might be linked and what we
might learn from this. clearly there was a link,
however tenuous, in the case of hitler. might there be
other links today.
(slide 37) ideas and opposition
the problem lies not in darwin, nor in the theory of
evolution. rather, it is that ideas about darwinism —
even half-digested and inaccurate ideas — impact the
way people think about themselves, about human
nature and about human society.
however, you don’t have to be a dictator yourself for
this to be a problem. a dictator needs pliant people
willing to be dictated to. thus hitler, despite having
openly declared his contempt for democracy in mein
kampf, was voted into power by the german electorate.
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an important question is therefore “what leads to
dictatorship and what encourages opposition?” history
suggests that opposition to ideological dictatorships
will come from those with ideas of their own.
(slide 38) from darwin to dictatorship, phase 2
the second world war, however, ended with a great
sense of an evil narrowly-averted. as a result the
population of this country was largely immunised
against dictatorship of the nazi variety.
however, we must remember this was also the era of
donald mclean, guy burgess, kim philby and anthony
(later to be sir anthony) blunt — all cambridge
graduates, all from privileged social backgrounds, and
all soviet spies.
despite the fact that the communist regimes of eastern
europe and soviet russia, soon to be joined by china
and other parts of the far east, were just as much
dictatorships as nazi germany, there was a widespread
and active support for communism in this country.
and again, lest we excuse this on the grounds that
communism was not nazism, the ideological
oppression in these countries was plain for all to see,
and the deaths of millions under josef stalin, mao
zedong, pol pot and others would eventually become
undeniable.
the fact that these things were denied and ignored,
especially amongst the so-called intelligentsia, ought
to be a lesson to us.
(slide 39) the arrival of postmodernism
the collapse of communism, however, coincided with a
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change in the intellectual climate in the west. the
certainties of marxism were replaced with
uncertainties of postmodernism — uncertainties that,
ironically, were upheld with equally strong conviction.
postmodernism is notoriously hard to pin down or
define. its importance, however, is once again in the
‘filtering down’ effect into society as a whole.
people who had never read paul de man or jacques
derrida, and who had no idea what was meant by the
deconstruction of a narrative, nevertheless grasped that
‘what matters is ‘what matters for you,’ that ‘everyone
is entitled to their opinion,’ and, ‘you don’t have the
right to say i’m wrong.’
and so the postwar intellectual mood shifted from
relief, through optimism, via the pessimism of the
thatcher years (whether you liked margaret thatcher or
not), to a directionless confusion in which no one is
allowed to say anyone is wrong, and everyone is
allowed to believe they are right.
but as dire straits put it years ago, “two men say
they’re jesus, one of them must be wrong.”
(slide 40) atheist absolutism
into this atmosphere, the atheist absolutism of richard
dawkins, christopher hitchens, philip pulman, peter
singer and others dropped like a bombshell.
what is immediately obvious about all of them is that
have no truck with the ‘everyone is entitled to their
opinion’ mood of popular postmodernism. in one
respect at least, they are convinced that they are
absolutely right: it may not matter much what else you
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believe, provided you don’t believe in god.
but atheism is a negative philosophy. as richard
dawkins himself asked (slide 41),
... why would anyone go to war for the sake of
an absence of belief? (richard dawkins, the god
delusion, 316)
if we are to function as human beings, or even to get
out of bed in the morning, we must have more to
motivate us than an unbelief. and so richard dawkins
puts forward evolutionary theory to fill the gap.
(slide 42) reality and morality
one of the striking things about dawkins and the other
new atheists is that they are passionate moralists. one
of their principle objections to christianity is that it is
not merely mistaken but immoral.
yet dawkins himself denies that the concepts of good
and evil have any meaning in relation to the universe
as a whole (slide 43):
the universe we observe has precisely the
properties we should expect if there is at
bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no
good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
(richard dawkins, river out of eden, quoted in
birkett, 97)
i am not sure what the word ‘pitiless’ is doing there —
but the australian philosopher peter singer writes in a
similar vein (slide 44),
justice is not ... a sacrosanct moral principle
imposed on us by a divine being, nor is it
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somehow engraved into the bedrock of the
universe. (how are we to live?, 176)
so where do we get our morality? the answer they, and
others, give is: from instinctive altruism.
(slide 45) instinctive altruism
altruism is defined as behaviour which may not be in
the best interests of the individual, but serves the
interests of others. however, within a darwinian
framework, this apparently unselfish activity can have
a survival advantage. dawkins famously coined the
expression, ‘the selfish gene,’ but in the god delusion
he points out (slide 46),
there are circumstances — not particularly rare
— in which genes ensure their own selfish
survival by influencing organisms to behave
altruistically. (247)
this, incidentally, is a typical example of dawkins’s
misuse of purposive language. genes are not selfish,
they do not ensure their survival, nor do they go
around influencing organisms. the point may seem a
minor quibble, but in this field the use of language is a
key issue.
leaving that aside, however, dawkins claims this
explains a lot about human behaviour. things like our
‘good samaritan’ instinct to help others are actually
what he calls ‘misfirings’ of an altruistic survival
mechanism, rather like when a reed warbler feeds a
young cuckoo (slide 47):
we can no more help ourselves feeling pity
when we see a weeping unfortunate (who is
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unrelated and unable to reciprocate) // (slide
48) than we can help ourselves feeling lust for
a member of the opposite sex (who may be
infertile or otherwise unable to reproduce).
both are misfirings, darwinian mistakes ...
but it is just as well these mistakes happen, because in
his view these are (slide 49) ...
... blessed, precious mistakes. (ibid, 253)
but notice what has happened. on the one hand, we are
told emphatically that the universe is “pitiless”, with
“no design, no purpose, no evil and no good,” and
that, furthermore, the darwinian explanation reflects
that harsh reality, up to and including our own
behaviour.
but then we are asked to accept that outcomes which
are strictly unnecessary from a darwinian point of
view — indeed, which are the misfirings of our
survival mechanisms — can be deemed, in our case,
‘blessed and precious’, though not, apparently, in the
case of the reed warbler feeding the cuckoo.
what, we might ask, has darwin got to do with it?
(slide 51) misfirings made me do it
the seriousness of the problem is highlighted, however,
in the reverse case. we can all be persuaded that being
a good samaritan is a good thing, even when the
motivation might not be all we might have imagined.
but what about the opposite? what about the priest and
the levite, in the parable of the good samaritan, who
walked by on the other side? did misfirings also make
them do it?
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both dawkins and singer make hitler something of a
reference point in the moral debate. so what do we say
about the concentration camps and the gas chambers?
at first, the answer might seem straightforward. just as
we see in nature examples of altruism, so we also see
examples of selfishness which has its own
evolutionary advantages. so aren’t the gas chambers
just another kind of darwinian ‘misfiring’ — another
case of evolution going wrong?
the trouble is, there is something deeply unsatisfying
about the notion that we can explain this kind of
behaviour in this way, and certainly neither dawkins
nor singer seem to excuse it on evolutionary grounds.
(slide 51) the ‘repulsive duty’
the problem is worse than that, however, for a
darwinian explanation of moral behaviour.
the fact is that many of the acts carried out under the
nazi regime were done by people who, in at least some
cases, had persuaded themselves that they were acting
out of noble motives. heinrich himmler pulls out all
the stops in this speech to the einsatztruppen who
carried out many of the killings:
(slide 52) you ... are called upon to fulfill a
repulsive duty. but you are soldiers who have
to carry out every order unconditionally. you
have a responsibility before god and hitler for
everything that is happening. // (slide 53) i
myself hate this bloody business and i have
been moved to the depths of my soul. but i am
obeying the highest law by doing my duty.
(quoted from hitler’s elite, l l snyder, berkley
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books, 1990)
but here’s the problem: if altruistic behaviour is setting
aside self-interest for the ‘group good’, then himmler
was appealing to altruism. this is one of the reasons
why peter singer prefers speaking about ethics rather
than morals — because of the historic connection he
sees between morality and duty.
and if himmler succeeded, then the actions of at least
some of those he addressed derived from just the same
darwinian ‘misfiring’ that dawkins calls blessed and
precious in the case of the good samaritan
so we wind up with two kinds of altruism — the good
kind, which helps people, and the bad kind, which
kills some people to help others. but if they are both
drawing on the same evolutionary instinct, how do we
judge which is blessed and which is not?
(slide 54) reviewing the situation
now at this point, you may be feeling this all very
confusing. and if you are, that is precisely the point i
am trying to make.
one of the regular differences between a good theory
and a bad theory is simplicity — good theories
generally turn out to be simpler than bad theories. and
there is a much more simple way of accounting for
human behaviour than talking about instinctive
altruism and darwinian evolution. in fact, richard
dawkins himself tells us what it is (slide 55):
we have the power to defy the selfish genes of
our birth [...]. we are built as gene machines ...
but we have the power to turn against our
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creators. (from the selfish gene, 200-1)
but what is this power? the answer is the combinaiton
of cognition and volition (slide 56), or to put it another
way, consciousness (click) and will (click).
having consciousness means i am aware that i exist
(click). like rene descartes, i can say to myself, “i
think, therefore i am.”
having will means i can make choices (click) such that
i can even overrule my instincts or appetites. as
dawkins puts it (slide 57):
we can even discuss ways of deliberately
cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested
altruism — something that has no place in
nature [...]. (from the selfish gene, 200-1)
but having the power of cognition and volition,
consciousness and will, means we don’t have to talk
about the ‘misfirings of darwinian mistakes’. we just
talk about people doing good or doing bad.
(slide 58) the stages of existence
the problem with the darwinian explanation offered by
dawkins and others is that complicates things by trying
to ignore the fact that although biology is part of the
story, it is certainly not the whole story.
we can see this quite simply in our present
understanding of how the universe has developed and
how, at each stage, we need a new set of concepts to
give an account of reality.
the first stage is the ‘big bang’ (slide 59). and at this
stage we only need the language of physics because
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physics is all there is.
in the second stage (click), however, the formation of
stars and galaxies leads to the production of various
chemicals. the physicists will argue that everything is
still just physics, only more complicate, but actually
we now have chemistry and chemists have a job to do.
then in the third stage (click), we have the emergence
and development of. the physicists are still trying to
argue its all just physics. the chemists might want to
say it is just a complicated chemistry, but the
biologists know it is much easier to talk about biology.
in fact, if we use the wrong language, we miss
something about reality. the physicists will tell you the
world is really mostly space, and that it is the
interaction of sub-atomic particles that gives the
illusion that things are solid and that one thing can
therefore rest on top of another.
the chemist will say that life is just a vastly complex
series of chemical reactions, held together within a
cellular membrane which may be joined with other
cells to form a conglomeration of cells capable of
coordinated interaction.
the biologist says, “the cat sat on the mat.” and if the
chemist and the physicist refuse to admit that, then it is
they who are missing out on something, not the
biologist.
(slide 60) the fourth stage
but then there is a fourth stage to existence — the
emergence of beings with consciousness and will
(slide 61 and click).
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the problem comes when people want to use the
language of the third stage — the stage of biology —
to talk about this fourth stage. but this fourth stage
needs its own language, because it is uniquely
different from the previous stages. peter singer
indicates as much in his how are we to live? (slide 62):
the existence of a biological explanation for
what we do is quite compatible with the
existence of a very different motive in our own
minds. // (slide 63) conscious motivations and
biological explanations apply on different
levels. (peter singer, how are we to live? 124,
emphasis added)
conscious motivations and biological explanations of
our behaviour apply on different levels because they
are different things. and your or my helping a stranger
is therefore no more a ‘darwinian misfiring’ than my
tummy rumbling is a thought.
if we try to deny that, by trying to explain everything
about ourselves in terms of biological and
evolutionary mechanisms, we fail to give a true
account of reality.
(slide 64) the present problem
it is not, then, that the theory of evolution is wrong,
but that evolutionary theory cannot provide an
adequate basis for an account of human life.
but remember, we are talking here not just about an
idea, but the impact of an idea, and this means there is
a real danger in a campaigning atheism.
as we have seen, it was not darwin, nor was it his
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theory of evolution, that directly caused problems, but
those who applied his ideas to their understanding of
reality and society, and those who accepted that
understanding and went along with its implications.
so today, there are those who think darwinism
dispenses with god and explains human nature, and
there are those who are happy to think that, and then
there are those who want to apply that to the way we
live now.
(slide 65) from darwin to dictatorship: phase 3?
and so we come to the threat of dictatorship today. the
christian author, cs lewis, warned about this sixty five
years ago, when the outcome of the war against
nazism was still undecided. in a very small book
called the abolition of man, he wrote this (slide 66):
... many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez,
many a popular dramatist, many an amateur
philosopher in our midst, means in the long run
just the same as the nazi rulers of germany. //
(slide 67) traditional values are to be
‘debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into
some fresh shape [...].
of course, there have always been people around
wanting to reshape society. we have already mentioned
galton, hitler, stalin and mao. but what lewis thought
would be new about the people he called the
conditioners was that, because of the way they viewed
the world, all the time they thought they were
controlling nature, nature would be controlling them.
this may sound fanciful or exaggerated, but consider
richard dawkins’ call to arms (slide 68):
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we are built as gene machines and cultured as
meme machines [by a meme, dawkins means a
controlling idea or concept], but we have the
power to turn against our creators. we, alone
on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the
selfish replicators. (richard dawkins, the selfish
gene)
so we can rebel against our creators, perhaps. but who
is going to decide how the rebellion turns out? will it
be you or me, or will it be the lawmakers, the policy
makers and the educators?
and if those in charge of this rebellion are vaguely
atheistic people who accept, somewhere at the back of
their minds, that we are the products of blind evolution
driven by left-over instincts, what instincts will they
decide are blessed and precious, and which will they
seek to breed out?
(slide 69) a society of sheep?
in his book lost for words, broadcaster john humphrys
writes about the important connection between
language, thought and liberty (slide 70):
it is that much more difficult to think for
yourself if you don’t have the language. a
society in which people don’t think for
themselves is dangerous. // (slide 71) ‘a society
of sheep begets a government of wolves’ was
how the philosopher bertrand de jouvenel
described the consequence. (john humphrys
lost for words: how language reveals the way
we live now, 239)
(black slide 72) i have argued that the misapplication
 23
of darwin’s theory to human society can be shown to
be both wrong and dangerous. in the past it has
reinforced dictatorship and i believe it will do the
same in the future.
this time it will not be the dictatorship of flags and
jackboots, armbands and rallies. they will just tell you
how to live, and how you can tell others how to live.
let me quote from a speech given by nicholas
humphrey, another convinced darwinian, and by his
own account, a social liberal. this is what he said in a
speech to the oxford branch of amnesty international. i
apologize for the length of the quote:
(slide 73) freedom of speech is too precious a
freedom to be meddled with.[...] // (slide 74)
and, since i am so sure of this in general, and
since i’d expect most of you to be so too, i
shall probably shock you when i say it is the
purpose of my lecture tonight to argue ... in
favour of censorship, against freedom of
expression // (slide 75), and to do so moreover
in an area of life that has traditionally been
regarded as sacrosanct.
// (slide 76) i am talking about moral and
religious education. and especially the
education a child receives at home, // (slide 77)
where parents are allowed – even expected – to
determine for their children what counts as
truth and falsehood, right and wrong. (nicolas
humphrey, what shall we tell the children?)
of course it is extreme — particularly in its honesty. of
course the government are not going to take away your
 24
children — not yet, anyway. but what about those in
his audience, liberals living in oxford, who found
themselves nodding in agreement once they’d heard
the rest of what he had to say?
what if they are working in education, in local
government, in the social services?
(slide 78) a more excellent way
in the words of the apostle paul, though, there is “a
more excellent way.” richard dawkins says in the
selfish gene, (slide 79) “we have the power to turn
against our creators.” strangely enough, that is exactly
what the bible says we have done, in the third chapter
of genesis: we have turned against our creator.
to return to something we quoted earlier from the same
book, richard dawkins also says (slide 80),
we have the power to ... discuss ways of
deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure,
disinterested altruism — something that has no
place in nature ...
pure, disinterested altruism is what the bible calls love,
but the bible says it has a place in nature (as clearly it
does) because we are here, and we can love.
this is not to deny our biological roots. we sometimes
talk about people behaving like animals, but we used
to mean by that, they were not behaving how they
ought to. the danger comes when we think that ‘like
animals’ is the only way we can behave.
richard dawkins recognizes, though, that there is more
to human life than that (slide 81):
 25
... our biological impulses are filtered through
the civilizing influences of literature and
custom, law and tradition — and, of course,
religion. (richard dawkins, the god delusion,
254)
the difference between him and me is that i don’t want
to cut off the last bit. my fear is that if we do, the
literature, custom, law and tradition which we take for
granted will soon disappear as well.
richard dawkins writes (slide 82),
we can give up belief in god while not losing
touch with a treasured heritage. (richard
dawkins, the god delusion, 383)
personally, i don’t think so.