[In part 2, the author explained how fossil records pointed to the fact that many more living beings have gone extinct as compared to the ones existing. This dealt a final blow to the idea of some divine design thus establishing Darwin’s theory of ‘Natural Selection’ on a solid basis.] Then the God Failed The way these ideas had been rolling in Western society may be gleaned from a nano-tale. A rationalist campaigner of the USA in the nineteenth century, Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-99), had scripted it. He was a renowned advocate by profession, a good orator and writer, and a propagator in favour of science and scientific scepticism. And above all, he had a nice sense of humour of the typical American. He wrote: A bishop went on a morning walk with his son. While strolling they came to the bank of a lake and saw—a crane sitting just by the waterfront and picking up from time to time with its long beak a fish or a frog from the water. The son was enjoying the scenario with avid interest. The bishop told his son, “Behold my son there the beautiful gift of the benevolent Almighty! What a perfect beak He provided the crane with to gather its foods.” The boy had also noted the thing. But his childlike mind was musing in a different note and trying to grasp something else. Coming to senses at his father’s call he asked, “But daddy, the Almighty had considered the case of the crane only, hadn’t He? He left the fish and the frog out of His accounts?” [Ingersoll 1904, 31; narration changed] A highly illuminating story it is. Ingersoll meant to show, if you go to show a design behind the adaptation of the living world and extol it as a magnificence of God, you have to deny God His many other capacities. Given the design theory, God was able to devise a good design for the crane, but he failed in the case of the fish or the frog. On the contrary, once you give up the design theory and divine intelligence of God, you may explain every aspect of the organic world with Darwin’s theory of evolution—especially both the problem of survival as well as of extinction of species. One may object here, why, there you see quite a farsightedness of the Almighty in the story. God had ordained long beaks to the cranes so that the fishes or the frogs may not proliferate in an unlimited number. The cranes will feast on them and keep their number within a limit. Otherwise there will be an ecological catastrophe. Were it so, the problem is, then the number of cranes will grow beyond the sustainable limits. That will also be a burden on the ecosystem as a whole. Man and other animals which feed on fishes and/frogs will be deprived. Providence must think of that possibility. While thinking of the survival of the crane, He missed these issues. Or one may say He thought of none, for it is not possible to do so. We are imposing all these responsibilities on Him. Anyway, let us get back to the problem of evolution. Who will survive? Who will not? How is it determined in the long run? Let us probe the matter following Darwin’s line of thinking. Darwin had explored almost the entire coastline of the globe in his marine travel. He found that in South America, Africa, and the Pacific islands, with more or less identical ecological parameters like climatic conditions, seasonal cycle, soil, rainfall, wind, average temperature and humidity, and so forth, the flora and fauna varied widely. The species were altogether different. For instance, the monkeys of Asia and Africa and of the two Americas are thoroughly different (see fig 1); our tiger and their jaguar with a similar impression at the first sight are actually distinguishable as separate species (see fig 2). Take some similar wild plants of these regions; you will see them on closer observation to be different from one another. In the Galapagos Islands, Darwin found fourteen different types of turtles in the fourteen islands, which were situated side by side and had almost identical natural conditions. Moreover, he learnt that for a given catch the local residents could identify the islands for each of the turtles. Pretty interesting, isn’t it? A question arose in the mind of Darwin that had occurred to none till then. Supposing God had created the organic beings such that they would match the niche they were born in, why was this divergence in the same ecosystem? The islands being identical in their natural settings, why were the turtles dissimilar? Did their design follow the niche? In addition to God, he felt this was something at variance with Lamarck’s theory too. If adaptation of the body of a living being followed the demand of the natural environment, why did the turtles vary so much among themselves in the islands? They might have evolved similarly. In fact, they should have. Racking his brains with this anomaly, he found the only satisfactory answer in that the plants and animals were not created, nor did they evolve, in immediate response to the environment. The organisms came into being differently in the process of a random variation. Then those which had fitted with the niche survived and the rest went into extinction. We see only the end results, that is, those living creatures, which fitted and therefore survived, and then think in reverse order of the fact: living beings are so created that they may fit with the given conditions. Let us try to look at the problem of random variation from another perspective. We know, usually, the insects and birds with better and stronger wings are better adapted to the environment. But Darwin also found that in certain conditions a good design proved disadvantageous, whereas defective designs were helpful for survival. For example, well-formed wings, which were advantageous for the birds and insects in general, proved fatal for the insects and birds in the coastal forests. For them, ill-organized wings provided a survival advantage. Otherwise, with well-formed wings, they would be carried by wind into the sea and be deprived of food and shelter. If, however, they could not fly well and higher, they would be able to remain inland, gather food and make shelters. Thus they would survive and proliferate. This implied that the wrong designs were more suitable for them.
Hence the design argument fails on several counts. In a large number of cases, God made wrong designs. And in some other cases, He designed “correctly” to the detriment of the life forms. In other words, in most of the cases, He proved to be a poor designer. What a sorry state of affairs! With the argument of design, God’s intelligence is in trouble! Or, to save God’s face, you have to abandon the very argument. We repeat. Darwin concluded that diversity of the living beings was not a direct result of matching with the given environment. Contrary to what Lamarck had thought, the organism could not change themselves in one generation to adapt to the changing environment. It was not simply possible. The diversity is the result of random variation among the members of the same species, and selection of those which could match the obtaining condition. Others were gradually extinct. Those who study fossil records can easily understand this. But the common people usually do not see the records of the extinct species, nor do they see a species go out of existence (in all likelihood their parents and grandparents also didn’t see that). Having observed only the extant varieties of lifeforms they are prone to think that a super intelligence had created them with such a good fit.
On the other hand, as the crates Darwin had sent from the overboard journey were opened one by one before the public, the powerlessness of Herr God became more and more exposed. In a letter to a naturalist Asa Gray who was a staunch believer Darwin asked out of his scientific inquisitiveness, what intention God had purported to fulfil by creating mosquitoes and flies. Which design had He in mind while giving birth to the parasitic worms residing in the mammals’ intestines? What was the grand divine purpose behind creation of the germs of cholera, malaria, smallpox, etc.? [Darwin (ed.) 1958, 67, 248, 263, etc.]
Obviously, Gray couldn’t answer any. We think, if Darwin were alive today he might have as well asked the ex-minister Satyapal Singh what idea God had in designing the ailments like thalassemia, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and so on. Or whether at all the designs of those afflicted with these diseases were also the handicraft of God.
These are all leading questions. You have to answer contrary to the desire of the believers. In this way Darwin had intended to convey a message, namely, that if you want to protect the prestige of your God, you have to remove Him from the chair of the creator. If he continues in that chair, He will have to bear responsibility for fatal diseases like cancer etc. among an increasing proportion of the world population.
That means, it is nature which controls the phenomena of preservation or extinction of species; God has nothing to do with that. The sacred texts in pushing Him as the creator of the organic world have already put Him to much disgrace. Darwin wanted to protect Him from further embarrassment. At that time the Europeans were very sensitive about clocks (probably they are still so). They might not like the watchmakers devising bad clocks at the divine inspiration of the poor designs of the life forms. Can you guess the trouble?
In cases of other scientific discoveries and new theories, the religionists could simply say, “O, you mean this? It is none else but God who has done/created these. He willed them to be.” But in the case of the theory of organic evolution, the idea of random variation introduced by Darwin deters them from claiming so. Or they have to admit that God had made a larger number of defective designs compared to the successful ones. The epithets the religious texts adorn Him with—omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, mercifulness, and so forth -get challenged.
Horrible, isn’t it?
All religious bigots, with a modicum of biological knowledge, understand that here is for the first time a theory in science that cannot be fitted on to the scriptural maps. It challenges all attributes of God. If this theory survives in science, the providential epithets will become meaningless. It has to be opposed at all costs. Erase it from the curriculum! Hence the NCERT in India…
The author is a science writer. He is the General Secretary for Centre for Studies in Science and Society [CESTUSS], Kolkata.
