Charles Darwin turned
our world upside down. His theory of evolution
by natural selection is one of the most profound and
far-reaching ideas in human history. It's also, alas,
one of the most controversial. Science now has the evidence
that proves evolution is true. Yet today, incredibly, the opposition to Darwin
is more fiercely vocal than ever - denying plain facts in more
and more elaborate ways. You haven't seen it
and I haven't seen it, so please stop calling it science! If we had gone from
slime to human beings, there'd be an
overwhelming amount of evidence. You are a teacher of science, and you think that the Earth
is less than 10,000 years old? Yes, I do. In this programme, the
increasingly aggressive backlash. "Right now, your destiny
is all (BLEEP) up. (BLEEP) atheist!" The battles that
I think really matter... We can't get into the business
of knocking down kids' religions and the religions of families. Why not, actually? Because... ..and how the first man
to understand evolution himself wrestled
with religious faith. For Darwin, the problem
was close to home - his beloved wife
was a devout Christian. Today, we have public battles as we confront the ranks
of religious fundamentalists eager to attack
Darwin's great legacy, which they just don't understand. When I was a young boy,
I looked to God to explain life. And then I was introduced to Darwin
and evolution by my father. At first, I didn't get it. It didn't seem possible to me
that something so simple could explain so much. But then I learnt, thought
about it a bit more and then suddenly the penny dropped. I really got it. This incredibly simple theory really was capable of explaining
everything about life - the beauty, the complexity,
the diversity. Then I thought, "Well,
if science can explain something "so apparently inexplicable as life, "who knows what the limits might be "on what science
could explain more generally, "without any recourse
to the supernatural?" At that moment, I became an atheist
and I've never looked back. Charles Darwin too changed his mind
about this biggest of questions. As a young man,
during his voyage on the Beagle, Darwin still believed that God had created the world
and everything in it. But then he came across
more and more evidence that showed that life
must have evolved. Fossil ancestors,
patterns of anatomical resemblance, startling similarities in embryos and the power of domestic breeding all showed that life forms
had changed over time. Darwin believed there was
an entirely natural explanation. All animals vary,
and in the competition of nature, some variations are more successful and more likely
to reproduce than others, passing their variation on. Here in his study at Down House, Darwin grasped that
the religious story of creation ran against the evidence
of the natural world. With evolution,
God just wasn't part of the picture. But there was a problem for Darwin.
His wife, Emma, was religious and the trouble began soon after
they got married in 1839. Emma wrote him a letter
describing her deep faith. But Darwin was no longer
convinced there was a God. He agonised over the letter
and scribbled on it, "When I am dead,
know that many times "I have kissed and cried over this." Darwin never criticised
religion directly in public. I think he didn't want
to hurt his wife's feelings. Instead, he let
his science do the talking. He predicted science
would bring about a gradual illumination of minds. Yet sadly today, it seems harder and
harder for people to see the light. Here, in the 21st century,
people are retreating from reason, trying to turn back the clock
to a world before Darwin. Genesis chapter one says everything
that God made was very...? None of you think kill or be killed,
survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth
and claw is good. Is the world really 6,000 years old? D'you realise, up till Noah's day, people lived to be
nearly a thousand? You don't die because you get old,
you die because you're a sinner. Up till Noah's day,
there's no record of rain. The Australian John Mackay is a celebrity among
evangelical Christians. He's a creationist. He believes in the literal truth
of the Bible's creation story and attacks evolution
on the very crudest level. I didn't grow up
brainwashed with this. It's the result of finishing
my university course, listening to students say, "If evolution is true,
why can't we see it happening?" Third-year genetics question
to the professor. You take that seriously? Oh, yeah! The professor, his answer, I took even more
seriously when he said, "It happens so slowly you wouldn't
expect to see it happening." All of a sudden
I thought, "Hang on!" And that's true. Good! In other words, what you
don't see happening is not science, it's unobservable, and you were
the first person to admit it on PBS. You're using the word "see" as meaning
"see within one lifetime". If a phenomenon
takes millions of years, of course you won't see it. Which means
you have a faith position... It does not mean... ..and you need to admit it,
as you weren't there. It means you use other evidence
than the evidence of one man's eyes. You have to look... Oh, sorry, Darwin was only 1859. That's only 150 years ago
almost, right? And you haven't seen it
and I haven't seen it, so please stop calling it science. Call what you're teaching
philosophy or atheism if you're gonna really be honest,
and my time is up. That's ridiculous, but anyway...
Thank you very much and bye. The refusal to believe in anything
you can't see yourself is absurd. Think about it. I never saw Napoleon
with my own eyes, but that doesn't mean
Napoleon didn't exist. 'John Mackay can't see
a cell or an atom 'or weather systems
on the other side of the world. 'Does that mean they don't exist?' Darwin didn't just
trust his own eyes. He checked his theory
against evidence gathered through extensive correspondence
with naturalists across the world. Mackay, it seems to me, misunderstands science
at a deep level. Science is precisely not limited by what we can see
with our own eyes in one lifetime. 'The whole wonderful
endeavour of science 'is to investigate phenomena
beyond human experience, 'from far-off galaxies
to microscopic bacteria.' 'from far-off galaxies
to microscopic bacteria.' 'Creationism's next best strategy
is not flat denial 'but to claim there is evidence
against evolution 'and that a genuine debate
is yet to be had. 'This is the creationists'
favourite claim in America, 'where the battle between
faith and science really rages.' Charles Darwin's struggle
with religion was private. 'Today,
the battle has become public. 'In my lifetime,
opposition to evolution has grown, 'particularly in the United States.' 50 years ago,
the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and the space race began. In response, the Americans
made science priority number one. The Government poured money
into science education. For the first time, evolution was taught
in every classroom in America. But the religious
fundamentalists hit back. Tell me, Joe,
how does he explain away God? Well, why don't you come
to the science club meeting? Let him tell you. 'To defend their Bible
against the biologists, 'they developed creation science, 'a bizarre fusion of scientific
language and religious doctrine 'that they touted as
a real alternative to evolution.' Our eyes are
amazing little instruments. But they're only one part of the
wondrous body that God has given us. 'I worry that this
is brainwashing, not science. 'And I've felt compelled
to take a stand.' '40th floor.' 'My book, The God Delusion,
has put me firmly in the front line 'in the battle
between religion and reason.' Can I sign in? Richard Dawkins. Hello. I'm one of your biggest fans. Can I speak to the number one
British intellectual? I've read all your books. That's very kind. Thank you. Can I touch the hem of your gown? LAUGHTER 'The most powerful nation
on Earth is polarised. 'At this conference of atheists,
I'm treated almost like a rock star. 'But there are
sections of American society 'that would happily lynch me.' Are you religious at all?
I mean, do you pray? No, of course not. You're not religious at all? Do I look religious? "I hope you die slowly
and you (BLEEP) burn in hell, "you damn blasphemy. "And you should realise that
your entire life has been a delusion "and that right now your destiny
is all (BLEEP) up. (BLEEP) atheist! "Go (BLEEP) yourself.
You, sir, are an absolute ass. "Your feigned intelligence
is nothing more "than the fart of God. "You suck. Go burn in hell. "Satan will enjoy torturing you.
Christian living for God." "There is a God.
Her created all of us. "The only one who is blinded
are the unsaved and stubborn. "Everything Darwin said is wrong
and evolution has never been proven "and nothing is evolving now.
The Bible is the best book. "Nothing even comes close
to its accuracy "and if you think
God's judgment is bad "the devil has worse in store
for all unbelievers." No punctuation at all in that one. 'It doesn't scare me.
I mean, I rather pity these people.' They react in a way
that sounds defensive and, actually,
really rather pathetic. "Ha-ha, you (BLEEP) dumb-ass. "I hope you get hit by a church van
tonight and you die slowly." (LAUGHS) 'But there's also an entirely
different kind of opposition - 'slick in style and with
a more polished line of attack. 'Wendy Wright is president
of Concerned Women for America.' Wendy Wright, yeah. 'She represents half a million
evangelical women 'concerned about issues ranging from
lesbians on TV to poor old Darwin.' Hi. Hello. I'm here to see Wendy Wright. I'll take you right in. Thank you very much. 'I worry that her organisation 'would condemn
American children to ignorance 'by attacking sound,
scientific evidence.' Why is it so important to you that people not believe
in a creator? That's not the point. The point is that as a scientist, I'm concerned that children
in American schools and in schools elsewhere should be exposed to the evidence and allowed to make up their minds
about the evidence. We completely agree. In fact,
that's why the challenge in America, whenever this debate comes up, is teach the controversy,
teach the evidence, because as it is now, in many cases, school children are only
being taught about evolution, they're not being taught
about the frauds in evolution and the lack
of evidence in evolution. So it's actually us who are arguing
for teaching all the evidence, not just the ones that
are favourable to evolutionists. You could say,
"Which controversy?" I mean... 'Teach the controversy.
Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? 'And it would be
if it was a controversy 'between equally
valid points of view. 'But it isn't. 'I doubt if Wendy Wright
would "teach the controversy" 'about the Earth being flat 'because the evidence for the Earth
being a sphere is so massive. 'There's also massive evidence
in favour of evolution, 'but she doesn't seem to want
to know about it.' Oh, really? And actually, the way you frame
this and your very closed mindedness really is a very good example
of the kind of censorship we see within the scientific community
that won't even allow discussion about the controversy that
if evolution had occurred, then surely whether
it's going from birds to mammals or even beyond that, surely
there'd be at least one evidence... There's a massive
amount of evidence. I'm sorry, but you people keep repeating that
like a kind of mantra. Because you just listen
to each other. I mean, if only you would
just open your eyes and look at the evidence. Show it to me. Show me the bones. Show me the carcass, show me the evidence
of the in-between stage from one species to another. Go and look at some
modern palaeontology labs, talk to some modern
palaeontologists. Look at that evidence,
it's beautiful. The evidence
for the transition between the reptilian jaw
and the mammalian jaw. The reptilian jaw has several bones, the mammalian lower jaw
has only one bone, and the other bones
that were in the reptile have now moved into the inner ear. It's a beautiful transition.
There are so many beautiful stories. You would be fascinated. 'So, is there evidence for evolution
or isn't there? Let me show you.' 'I'll begin with fossils. 'There are now literally
millions of fossils 'in museums all over the world. 'They've been dated and documented 'and the relationships
between them analysed. 'When mapped out through time, 'the anatomical connections
can only be explained by evolution. 'All life is related
in a vast family tree.' Fossils also show how
life forms change over time along individual branches
of the tree. Look at these skulls. The so-called "missing links" show
the growth of our ancestors' brains over the last three million years as we evolved from something like a
chimp on hind legs to modern humans. But there's even more
convincing evidence. There is a code of four chemicals in
every cell of every living thing - DNA. Today, machines like these can analyse and compare
DNA with absolute precision. So Darwin's theory can be tested. Is it true? Yes. The results match the fossils. DNA links all life through the code and the more closely related
two species are physically, the more similar their code. 'This is just part of the mountain
of evidence that supports evolution. 'Some religious people just don't
know enough about it. But some do. 'And their strategy
is even more bizarre. 'They see God's infallible
hand in everything.' Well, the evidence that we have
is the same for both of us. Whereas you might see fossils
as evidence for evolution I might say this is evidence
for a worldwide flood. 'Would you want someone like this 'teaching your children
science in Britain in 2008? 'This is Nick Cowan,
chemistry teacher 'at a well-respected
Northern grammar school. 'And he uses American
creationist material ' in his general studies class.' But you know,
it's not just fossils, don't you? The molecules of DNA,
the molecules of protein, when you look at a mole and a rat and a kangaroo
and a human and a monkey, they're all hard molecules
that you can see, just as you can
in your chemistry teaching, and they fall on
a perfect family tree. It all fits. It's so elegant
and you, as a scientist, would appreciate it, if only
you could remove your blinkers and look at it
as a scientist should. How old do you think
the world is, by the way? I don't have a... If I said less than 6,000 years, you'd probably feel,
"This man is crazy," but I've had a look at this,
I don't know, the dating methods we have
are flawed in their methodology. You are a teacher of science
in a major British school and you think that the Earth
is less than 10,000 years old. Yes, I do. I would rather believe God
who was there, who's told us, than scientists who are fallible, who don't know the past,
who weren't there. And again, all I'm doing is... 'This is a classic old chestnut - 'God is infallible,
therefore the Bible is right. 'It's as if I claimed
Darwin was infallible 'so what he said was always right. 'Luckily, scientists
don't work that way. 'We sustain our ideas
not through sacred texts, 'but through reason and evidence.' And again, all I'm doing is bringing healthy debate
into the science lesson. We have about a dozen different
radioactive clocks and they all point
to roughly the same answer, which is that the world is between
four and five billion years old. And when you say, "God told us," you're talking about
a particular document for which there is no particular
historical authenticity and you're putting that
above the whole of science and you are a science teacher. If there is a God,
his word must be more important than the work
of fallible human scientists. I'm all in favour of teaching
children to think for themselves and to question for themselves -
that's great. But there are limits to that and I think that
when the evidence is so massive, you owe it to the children
to teach them what the evidence is. What creationists like Nick Cowan
claim is God's perfect creation is in fact the result
of evolution's arms race. Animals have evolved
extraordinary adaptations to fit their environment,
but they're not perfect. Designers can go back
to the drawing board. Evolution is condemned
to modify what's already there. So nature is full of
compromises and imperfections. Creationists also ask how something
so apparently perfect as the eye just sprang into existence. Well, it didn't. The basic chemistry that makes up
a light-sensitive cell is shared right across
the animal kingdom and natural selection has seized
on this time and time again. Science has uncovered species at every stage
in the evolution of the eye. It is a cumulative process
and each step of the way is more useful than the one before. The eye has evolved independently
at least 40 different times around the animal kingdom and it has evolved gradually,
improvement on improvement. And yet... No sensible person would have ever
left the body the way it is. Like what?
What's a good example of that? The most dramatic is...
is the human eye. You know, it's held up as this
example of perfection in the body. It's not perfect! It's the perfect example of...
of why the body is not designed. Cover one eye if you would, please. And we take the pin
and we move it right... You have to keep looking
right at the bridge of my nose. Right, OK. Keep your eye fixed. Now we'll move it out a bit, about
15 degrees and right about there... Yeah, it's gone. It's gone. You can't see it? No. Now can you see it? Yes. Now can you see it? Yes. Now can you see it? No. A blind spot. That's lousy. Our bodies are so fabulous
in some respects. Our heart keeps beating and
never takes a five-minute vacation for decade after decade,
that's astounding! But we have an appendix,
and wisdom teeth, birth is difficult, many people get near-sightedness, and the combination
of some things so perfect and other things being
being such botched jobs is what should make us
all sit up and take notice this is something
shaped by natural selection - it has a lot of
vulnerabilities built in explained only by
how natural selection works. 'So our botched, compromised bodies 'are themselves
evidence of evolution. 'They're shot through with history. 'Evolution is a fact. 'It's documented by science to the
same degree Napoleon is by history. 'Some things are just true, they're
not a matter of choice or opinion. 'But you'd never guess
that in the place 'where this matters more
than anywhere - in our schools, 'where the teaching of evolution 'has become a hugely sensitive
issue for science teachers.' This is multicultural Britain
and one of its fault lines runs straight through
our children's classrooms. How do we reconcile scientific truth with the deeply held convictions
that bind religious communities? Charles Darwin was the first person
to grasp the extraordinary idea that life on Earth had evolved,
without the intervention of any God. And I've always been intrigued
by how he himself wrestled with what that meant
for religion. Darwin was deeply worried
about how religion spread, not through reason and evidence, but by being seeded
in children's minds
at a young age at school. He wrote that it would become "as difficult for them to throw off
their belief in God "as for a monkey to throw off
its instinctive fear
and hatred of a snake". Darwin became concerned
by what he saw as
the "stupid classical education" at Rugby School, dulling his eldest
son William's once-lively mind. So he was prepared to brave
the snobbery of Victorian society to send his four other sons
to the less prestigious
Clapham Grammar School, because it had
strong science education. 150 years later, Darwin would find
reason to be equally anxious about what his children
were being taught at school. The compromised values
of multicultural Britain mean that teachers hesitate to offend
the religious beliefs
of their pupils, even when these directly contradict
scientific fact. Earlier in the series,
I took a science class from Park High School
in north London fossil-hunting. 'I was amazed
by their lack of knowledge
and understanding of evolution. 'So what do their science teachers
have to say about this? 'I worry they're tiptoeing
too respectfully
around traditional beliefs.' Some kids just won't accept it. You know, they're brought up
in families where they just
don't believe it and that's an end to it. There's no lack of understanding
of it necessarily, it's just, you know, we can't get
into the business of knocking
down kids' religions and religions of families. Why...why not, actually?
Why...why not? Because... Because we...
because we teach science and... I would not feel comfortable
talking about anything but science, so if I present the scientific case, and I make sure they understand
the scientific case, I think I've done my job. < But their acceptance of it
is a separate issue. For some students,
truth isn't something
they see coming through science. Even though our emphasis
is on ideas and evidence
to support these ideas, a lot of students
have a religious narrative
that is very important to them, it's an important part
of their life, through
their family and their culture. 'Would it be too unfair to suggest 'that these well-meaning teachers are
running scared? Who could blame them? 'Obviously, what we believe
is affected by our upbringing, 'but that doesn't mean
we can't change our minds. 'We all have the right
to see the evidence
and re-evaluate our beliefs. 'These science teachers
shouldn't be afraid 'to spell out the scientific truth
derived from evidence.' I don't see that we can expect
to convince them just by
showing them the evidence. < Really? Why not?
Because they've got other evidence which they've been brought up with.
< But that's not evidence. No. To them it's evidence,
though, isn't it? And to their parents. We're talking about something
very fundamental. > We're talking about young people
and identity. > It's not our place to...to... to fly the banner of science and say
there's no room for anything else. All we can do is present - this is
a way of thinking, this is... Science has given us so much. This is one way of interpreting
life. We believe this is... < Just one way of interpreting? We believe this is the way,
because we are scientists, but it's not my place to tell you
that you're wrong. "We believe it
because we're scientists"? Do you mean that,
or that we believe it because
the evidence is in the rocks? That's what I'm saying - because I'm a scientist
and that's the way I view the world. No, it's not because
you're a scientist, is it? The evidence is there. Their evidence
is not there. It's just made up. 'You don't believe
that the Earth is round
only if you're an astronaut. 'You don't believe Napoleon existed
only if you're a historian. 'You believe these things because
they're facts, proved by evidence. 'Evolution
is also a demonstrated fact. 'The truth really is out there.
It's not a matter of opinion.' Relativism, the quaint notion
that there are many truths all equally deserving of respect
even if they contradict each other,
is rife today. It sounds like a respectful gesture
towards multiculturalism. Actually, it's a pretentious cop-out. There really is
something special about
scientific evidence. Science works. Planes fly, magic carpets
and broomsticks don't. Gravity's not a version of the truth,
it is the truth. Anybody who doubts it is invited
to jump out of a tenth-floor window. Evolution, too, is reality. You don't decide whether
to believe it or not believe it on the basis of whim or culture.
The evidence supports it. Evolution is the plain truth. 'Where has all this wobbling
come from? 'Well, it started right back in
the 19th century, in Darwin's time. 'Rather than just denying
the evidence, 'the Church of England developed
the most sophisticated strategy 'to face the challenge of evolution.' It saw evolution as one truth
within a bigger one and embraced Darwin in what one might
call a comfortable, relativist fudge. Science would explain
the workings of nature and God could take the credit
for getting science started
in the first place. It's a subtle argument
put forward by the most powerful
Christians in the world. Let's take it on in its modern guise. Darwinism as a theory of how
evolution works, a highly plausible, highly credible theory
about biological history. I don't have a problem with that. Do you see God as having any role
in the evolutionary process? For me God is...is the power
or the intelligence that shapes the whole
of that process. As creator, God's act
is the beginning of all creation... By setting up the laws of physics
in the first place, in which context evolution
takes place.
Things unfold within that. What about intervening
during the course of evolution? I find that
that rather suggests that God
couldn't have made a very good job of making the laws of physics
in the first place if He constantly needs
to be adjusting the system. I think that's
a slightly different question. (Dawkins) 'But there's a problem
for the Church of England. 'Isn't it trying to have its cake
and eat it too? 'Trying to have both God
and the laws of science 'means that one or the other
is compromised. 'Either God can't interfere
and has no impact 'or if he does get involved,
it can't be squared with science.' You do believe in some of
the New Testament miracles... I mean, such as the virgin birth... Any others? I mean,
the raising of Lazarus? The empty tomb and the raising
of Lazarus, yes. Now, isn't there a kind of mismatch
between your view of science as something
that God doesn't interfere in
and that somehow he made it right in the first place? How do you reconcile that
with what looked to some of us more like cheap conjuring tricks and not the sort of grand creator
that you've been portraying? I think if you start with
a picture of God outside
messing around with the works, you are in danger of getting into
the conjuring tricks model. I think that there are
certain moments when there is
an opening in the world in which the underlying divine
action comes through in a fresh way. Take the birth of Jesus. Here you have a long history
of preparation for the coming of God in a new way, here you have
a particular life, that of Mary,
opening itself up to the action of God in a certain
way and then something fresh
happens which is not, if you like...a suspension
of the laws of nature but nature itself opening up
to its own depths, something
coming through... I'm not sure what that means. It
sounds awfully like suspending... It's poetic language. I realise that there are ways
of talking about that, which do simply sound like God
interrupting things. I, of course, love poetic language,
but there comes a time when you worry people
will misunderstand it as... Or that it's a way
of wriggling out of hard questions. Well, it's one thing to say
in some poetic way, it was sort of right
that Jesus should
have been born of a virgin... but when you say,
"I actually believe it happened," that's a statement of fact,
that's a statement of
scientific fact. It...it...it happened. It's true or not, yes. It's true or not. I don't think you can
wriggle out of that by doing poetry,
much as I love poetry. On the one hand,
I've got a lot of sympathy with the decent, middle-of-the-road,
moderate Christians. On the other hand,
I sort of feel that the decent,
middle-of-the-road Christians are tying themselves in knots
trying to have it both ways, trying to have both God and Darwin. And in a sense,
they're opening the door,
letting in the rabid creationists by making it respectable
to believe things on the basis of faith
rather than evidence. So deny, attack, absorb. Now we've gone through
the range of strategies by which religion
tries to deal with Darwin. I think they all flounder. But even I can see why religion
puts up this resistance. 'I get letters from readers who have
understood the truth of evolution, 'but somehow wish they hadn't. 'Darwinism can be unsettling,
even frightening.' Darwin himself was shocked
by what he called the low and horribly cruel behaviour
he observed in nature. And yet it was integral
to natural selection. One piece of research
shook Darwin to his core. He knew how some insects,
like this parasitic wasp, lay eggs in the larvae
of other insects so that their young,
when hatched, can feed on them. they also sting each part
of the prey's nervous system so as to paralyse it but not kill it, to keep the meat fresh. So the victim may be aware of being
slowly eaten away from inside but unable to move a muscle
to do anything about it. How do we face
this deeply disturbing truth? Duck under a security blanket
of faith in God? But then, Darwin wondered, what kind of God would create
an animal that can only exist
in this horrible way? Isn't it better to embrace reality,
bleak as it sometimes may be, than to avoid it and live a lie? In the teeth of life's hardships,
Darwin was determined
to live authentically. He hadn't just observed suffering
as a scientist, he experienced it himself,
in his own life. Darwin had always had
a particularly strong bond
with his eldest daughter, Annie. He was charmed
by her make-believe worlds
and her neat little scrapbooks, while she liked to smooth his hair
and pat his clothes into shape. But at just ten years old,
she suffered a painful,
lingering death following a bout of scarlet fever.
Darwin was devastated. "We have lost
the joy of the household
and the solace of our old age." His devout wife, Emma,
told the other children
that Annie had gone to heaven. For Emma, suffering helped "to exalt our minds
and to look forward
with hope to a future state". Darwin, by contrast,
could find no meaning
or religious consolation as he faced the desperation
of bereavement. After the initial period of mourning,
he and Emma scarcely spoke of Annie, but they never forgot her.
Religion became
a source of tension between them. Finally, I think the tension
had to spill out. In his 60s,
Darwin wrote an autobiography in which he revealed
his anger at what he called
the "manifestly false" Bible story. And he added,
"I can indeed hardly see "how anyone ought to wish
Christianity to be true "for if so,
the plain language of the text "seems to show that the men
who do not believe, "and this would include my father,
brother and almost
all my best friends, "will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine." Though his autobiography
was written for his family, Darwin must have known it would be
published after his death. And he grasped the opportunity
to finally say in public what he had long struggled with
in private. But if Darwinism
demolishes the religious delusion,
what can go in its place? How did Darwin himself find
consolation in a Godless universe? Religious people attack Darwin for, in their view, draining some of
the wonder out of our world, for the bleakness
of his vision of nature. The playwright George Bernard Shaw
really hated Darwinism. He said, "When its whole significance
dawns on you, "your heart sinks into
a heap of sand within you. "There is a hideous fatalism
about it, "a ghastly and damnable reduction
of beauty and intelligence, "of strength and purpose,
of honour and aspiration." There's no doubt that people do find
a Darwinian view of life bleak and unsympathetic,
but it's still true
and we can't get away from that. And further, in any case,
there is a sort of happiness, there's a sort of bliss
in understanding the elegance with which
the world's put together
and Darwinian natural selection is a supremely elegant idea. It really does make everything
fall into place and make sense and I find great consolation,
great happiness,
in that level of understanding. Just ponder for a moment Darwin's
central idea, the tree of all life, now verified as fact
by our decoded DNA. It means we are related
to every living thing on the planet. And, what's more, we are descended
from ancestors who were winners, adapting in any way possible
to survive
and pass on their genes. You and I and every living creature
can make the following proud claim. Not a single one of my ancestors
died young, not a single one of my ancestors
failed to copulate. Plenty of other individuals died
young and failed to copulate, but they didn't become ancestors. It's blindingly obvious,
but from it much follows. It means that every single living
creature has inherited the genes of an unbroken line
of successful ancestors. We have, all of us, inherited what
it takes to survive and reproduce. That's why
we're so good at what we do,
why fish are so good at swimming, why birds are so good at flying,
why aardvarks are so good at digging, why humans are so good at thinking. That, in essence, is Darwinism. Darwin had to bury two more
of his children in his lifetime. Another daughter and a son
died in early infancy. "In memory of Mary Eleanor "and Charles Waring, "children of Charles Darwin." 'Darwin confronted grief
in his own way. 'He found solace, I think,
in the very earth 'in which he had to bury
his children. 'For his last book,
he turned to earthworms.' Darwin was fascinated by how, little
by little, over huge lengths of time, their slow turning of the soil
churned the whole surface
of the earth. Nature's ploughs had their own
extraordinary, underground economy, a damp, dark, life-and-death struggle
to which we humans were
totally oblivious. "I doubt," Darwin wrote,
"whether there are many other animals "which had played so important a part
in the history of the world." Darwin didn't wallow
in man-made notions
of the supernatural or an afterlife. 'His down-to-earth wonder at nature
was his cure for loss of faith.' 'I'm going to visit someone
with a similar outlook -
the philosopher Dan Dennett. 'I've known him for 25 years. 'We're the same age,
but I think of him as a kind of
intellectual elder brother.' 'But recently,
he had a brush with mortality.' There was a terrible crisis
with his heart and his friends were all told
that he was going to die. It was a very scary moment. Afterwards,
when he was recovering in hospital, he made the point that
many of his friends
had said that they prayed for him and he thanked them, but then added,
"And did you also sacrifice a goat?" 'Dan has no shred of faith in God
or eternity. 'Does he think his Darwinism
would deny people comfort?' 'I think it only undermines
a crutch that they don't need 'and that's the crutch
of an absolute immortal soul.' That's an idea that a lot of people
think is very important. And what it does, of course,
is it replaces it with the idea of a material,
mortal soul. Yeah, we have souls,
but they're made of neurons and the little neurons individually
are just blind little bio-robots, they don't know, they don't care,
they're just doing their jobs. The amazing thing is that
if you put enough of them together in the right sort of teams,
you have, basically, a soul. You have the...the control system and the memory of a being
that can be held responsible, that can hold himself or herself
responsible, that can look into the future. And when people say, "Where do you
get your consolation from?" I sort of feel,
well, how much more d'you want? Indeed. What could be more wonderful than
being part of this amazing,
living tapestry of...of growth and exploration
and innovation, all happening
in not a million, not a billion,
but in a trillion places at once? The...the...
Just to look just at our planet, the exuberance of the life processes
going on around us, all of the creativity
that is there is...is just stunning. It's great to wake up in the morning
and realise you're a part of this. And not only are we a part of it, but we can reflect on the fact
that our ability to realise that, our ability to understand it
and to exult in it is itself the product of the same
process. Our brains that are so... ..so capable of appreciating this... have been produced by the very same
process that we are now appreciating. Yep. Sometimes I like to say
the planet has grown
a nervous system and it's us. Yes. Charles Darwin died in 1882. "I'm not in the least afraid to die," he whispered to his wife, Emma,
in his last days. Darwin had wanted to be buried
in Down, next to his
two dead children. In the event, however,
the scientific establishment insisted on the accolade of burial
in Westminster Abbey. A host of scientists, philosophers
and celebrities attended on the day. In true C of E style, the Church
attempted to absorb the man who had brought down the house. Yet, even so,
the Archbishop of Canterbury
turned out to be indisposed and God-fearing Prime Minister
William Gladstone
pleaded prior engagements. Perhaps not for them the funeral
of the scientist whose work, more than any other, has proved the Biblical
creation story shallow and wanting. 'I revere Charles Darwin.
He made sense of life. 'The world is amazing,
even more amazing than Darwin knew
and the more we discover, 'the more petty
our little private beliefs seem.' 'Does Darwinism leave a gaping hole
where religion once was? 'No. Rather it opens our minds
to a world of majesty,
the real magic all around us, 'not based on uncertain faith,
but sound science.' In this handful of soil
there are about 25 billion bacteria. That's four times the entire
human population of the planet. We humans and the animals
we can actually see are a tiny fraction
of life on Earth. In the perspective of the universe, the vastness of the universe
and of geological time,
we are insignificant. Some people find that thought
disturbing, even frightening. Like Darwin,
I find the reality thrilling.
