Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution
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Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution is a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising Young Earth creationism and espousing evolutionary creationism. The essay was first published in the American Biology Teacher, volume 35 125-129, and the title is widely cited as the mantra of evolutionary biology.
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Overview
Dobzhansky starts with an reductio ad absurdum of the geocentrism of an Arab sheik who believes the Sun revolves around the Earth because Scripture says so. He asserts his belief that Scripture and science do not contradict each other. He criticises creationists for implying that God is deceitful and that this is blasphemous.
Dobzhansky then goes on to describe the diversity of life on Earth, and that diversity cannot be best explained by Creation because of the ecological interractions between them. He uses examples of evidence for evolution; the genetic code of cytochrome c to show evidence for common descent; embryology and his own work on fruit flies in Hawaii. Dobzhansky concludes that scripture and science are two different things; "It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology".
The central issue
The central issue of the essay is the role of Creation and evolution in public education in the United States. The essay is aimed at the intelligent lay reader who has religious feelings, and is unsure of the validity of biological evolution.
The phrase
The notion of the "light of evolution" came originally from the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whom Dobzhansky much admired:
- (Evolution) is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must hence forward bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow — this is what evolution is.
The phrase "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" is often used by those opposing creationism.
It argues that Christianity and evolutionary biology are compatible. Despite this, many use the phrase in a way which the original was not intended. Many would argue that "in biology" includes anthropology, and just three years later Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene arguing for universal Darwinism.
Quotations
- I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.
- Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. ...the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.
External links
- Full text (http://www.2think.org/dobzhansky.shtml)
- Does Nothing in Biology Make Sense Except in the Light of Evolution? (http://www.rae.org/nothing.html) asks Young Earth Creationist Jerry Bergman and concludes no, but see index to creationist claims claim CA042: "Biology can reasonably be taught without evolution." (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA042.html)