Evolution and the problem of natural evil

[humphreyclarke]

Hi all

I figured there are some brainy theologically minded people here so I thought I would raise the question of evolutionary evil and see what people's thoughts on it were.

First up, this question is in Christianity rather than science, the reason being that if there is no god then evolution cannot really be said to be evil in any real sense; this is because the sense of evil is something we simply evolved while living in social groups and thus it has no objective value, neither does the concept of good.

One of the principle objections to this idea of a benevolent creator is that 'evil' or 'natural selection' of phenotypes is intrinsic to the evolutionary process. This has led some commentators to the morbid conclusion that our existence on this planet is primarily based on death, that is the 99% of all species that have gone extinct. This is based on the rather crude stereotype that nature is 'red in tooth and claw'.

Well, those are the objections; I would like to add a few secular responses without resorting to theology. Firstly the extinction of many species. I really can't see that this is a problem at all. Sure it might be nice if the giant sloth was around; ditto the Dodo or the odd Trilobite, but I struggle to think why we should refer a static creative process to a fluid one.

Secondly, instead of death I think it would be more accurate to say that life is based on life. All evolution tells us is that there is one death for every organism on the planet, which is nothing we did not know before.

Thirdly I think we overemphasise the gruesome aspects of evolution and tend to play down the kindlier aspects such as widespread altruism, co-operative strategies, especially at the unicellular level and also the fact that a large chunk of natural selection is actually based around breeding. The popular image is of lions ripping apart a gazelle but it could just as easily be the symbiotic relationship between flowers and insects or the fact that we owe our continued existence to the presence of tiny bacteria.

Fourthly I think in these debates the pathetic fallacy runs rampant. Certainly the higher animals feel suffering but these are often at the top of the food chain rather than squeezed in at the bottom. For example, the kinds of people that lament evolutionary evils have no problem heading to a restaurant for a steak or lamb chops. If we have no problems harvesting the creatures of the earth for our own sustenance then why should we have a problem with those same creatures undergoing a process of natural selection.

Turning to theology, the one point that is a serious problem that the same mutations the lead to the evolution of organisms also cause cancers and cause us to die. Here we might look at Polkinghorne's free-system defence. We exist with free will and it may be that we need to be the product of a free system for this to be the case; one that is necessarily on the edge of chaos and which can sometimes lead through contingency to actions which cause us suffering . We might also combine this with Swinburne's arguments regarding the necessity of natural evil for presenting us with moral choices.

Anyway those are my thoughts on what is a fairly serious problem. Be interested to see what everyone else thinks.

[Mike D]

It is an interesting question.

That God can and does use evil (without ever being the cause of the evil) to bring about good could be described as a theological mainstay of Christianity. But the question you raise is subtly different: for if God has used 'evil' to bring about his creation, then that 'evil' is built into the system, it's almost a necessary starting condition.

So the question is, is a system where all creatures exist by predation on other creatures and where advancement from simplicity to greater and greater complexity is based on the death of other creatures, evil? My own thought is that the water is somewhat muddied by the fact that there have been historical threads within Christianity that did see predation and death as evils brought about by the Fall. It never actually says this in Genesis, but is implied in other parts of the bible:

1. Isaiah's prophecy about the lion lying with the lamb, if taken literally, can be taken to imply that predation is part of the fallen order that will be done away with in the final triumph of God through the Messiah.

2. Paul words in Romans about death entering the world through one man (Adam) could be taken to imply that all manner of physical death has arisen as part of the rebellion of man against God.

Taken together, such passages could be taken to mean that death and predation are associated with the Fall and therefore natural evils. The corollary of this would be that, as evils of the created order, they could not then be used by God to achieve the creation, both because of God's moral character and the fact they proceed from the Fall rather than preceding the created order. However, all of this seems to rest on one particular interpretation of the passages in question without particular reference to anything else.

Mike

[mike l]

Is natural evil really evil? I mean there is an idea of what evil is based on morality... and another idea of what evil is based on popular culture (ie. stephen king, psycho). Our concept of moral evil is more like what we see in the movies than what we would read from the saints, but what we learned from the saints is really what moral evil is. Something like missing mass, or driving by the homeless, failing to forgive another person, can be excused as sins because it's not like we are praying to satan, or killing people with a hockey mask on. But even if we stay on track with what moral evil is, I feel that it gets confused when you start looking at natural evil. Natural evil as I understand it is more based on the random function of the universe. A hurricane, erosion, the next ice age or the next door house that had a roof collapse because of termites. Evolution would fit into this kind of evil, but I just don't see how to tie that into our concepts of moral evil. It would be like comparing being robbed to not winning the lottery.

[humphreyclarke]

The problem it seems to me is that competition is presented as the engine of evolution and death as the fuel for the fire. This view of nature is used as the stick with which to beat theistic views of evolution. It has been argued by Dawkins and others that the god of the Galapagos is cruel, blundering and wasteful and that we are the simply the by-products of a horrific and evil process. This then is the cancerous truth that lies at the heart of the human condition.

My answer to this would be that in natural selection, death is not the requisite fuel for the fire. Natural selection does not require death. Natural selection could conceivably go on in a landscape where creatures are immortal. All natural selection requires is differential reproduction of genotypes; in other words that some genotypes leave more offspring than others. In a finite world you do need to have death and for organisms like us it comes as part of the package. Secondly natural selection is not equal to competition. Competition is a situation in which the presence of two individuals either of the same species of different species negatively influence the fitness or reproductive success of the other. But you could have natural selection simply by the discovery of a new niche where competition does not come into it at all. You might get a co-operative synergy between species in which the exploitation of a new niche positively influences other individual. Indeed scientists like Martin Nowak have suggested that co-operation should be considered one of the motors of evolution along with mutation and natural selection.

In theological terms, death is neither fundamental nor is it final eschatologically. Looking at evolution we see that life has not emerged out of non-life, it has emerged out of life. Secondly, why are we characterising nature as ‘red in tooth in claw’ at all?. If we went on pure percentage terms we should be calling it ‘green in shoot and bark’.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, prior to evolution death was something that simply happened to organisms – one could argue that, in this static view of creation, the problem of death was maximised as nothing good came of it. In the light of evolutionary theory we now see that out of the life and death of living organisms come sensory awareness, behavioural flexibility and consciousness. If nature has a message it is out of death does come good, something you will be familiar with if you are a Christian. For example the sandwich I had at midday contains a slice of dead poultry, layered on top of the dead products of photosynthesis which were fed from a soil created by thousands of years of dead organisms. The human body it feeds is made up of the products of dead stars. Does this make me and my lunch evil?, should I have spent my break lamenting the futile blundering wastage which went into it?. Perhaps the whole problem of evolutionary evil is just a red herring.

[jamierobertson]

Hmm. Seems to me that the whole thing is begging the question of "Given the limits that are traditionally placed on God's omnipotence, could God have done it any better?" I'm sure God COULD have made the world without the "red in tooth and claw" bit, but it would surely be a very different world - and it is an ENORMOUS assumption by the skeptic to say that this alternate world would be "better". We simply aren't in the epistimological position to make that statement.

Given God's frequent demonstrations of his love and justice in my life and the lives of others, I'm prepared to approach the issue much like Job at the end of his eponymous book and give him the benefit of the doubt!

[humphreyclarke]

I think it is worth repeating that if we are talking in percentage terms, well over 90% of visible life on this planet is plant life. When you think about it that way, nature is less ‘red in tooth and claw’ and far more ‘green in shoot and bark’. It’s just that for some reason we chose to focus on the relationship between predator and prey; I think probebrly because we are the nastiest predator of the lot.

[Petersean]

Humphreyclark wrote:

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, prior to evolution death was something that simply happened to organisms – one could argue that, in this static view of creation, the problem of death was maximised as nothing good came of it. In the light of evolutionary theory we now see that out of the life and death of living organisms come sensory awareness, behavioural flexibility and consciousness. If nature has a message it is out of death does come good, something you will be familiar with if you are a Christian.

Here's how Aquinas put your idea (1 q.22, a 2):

"Objection 2. Further, a wise provider excludes any defect or evil, as far as he can, from those over whom he has a care. But we see many evils existing. Either, then, God cannot hinder these, and thus is not omnipotent; or else He does not have care for everything. "

"Reply to Objection 2. It is otherwise with one who has care of a particular thing, and one whose providence is universal, because a particular provider excludes all defects from what is subject to his care as far as he can; whereas, one who provides universally allows some little defect to remain, lest the good of the whole should be hindered. Hence, corruption and defects in natural things are said to be contrary to some particular nature; yet they are in keeping with the plan of universal nature;inasmuch as the defect in one thing yields to the good of another, or even to the universal good: for the corruption of one is the generation of another, and through this it is that a species is kept in existence. Since God, then, provides universally for all being, it belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular effects, that the perfect good of the universe may not be hindered, for if all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live, if there were no slaying of animals; and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution. Thus Augustine says (Enchiridion 2): "Almighty God would in no wise permit evil to exist in His works, unless He were so almighty and so good as to produce good even from evil." It would appear that it was on account of these two arguments to which we have just replied, that some were persuaded to consider corruptible things--e.g. casual and evil things--as removed from the care of divine providence."

Universal goodness and particular goodness may be in tension with each other. It is a good that lions exist, but for lions to exist as lions they must eat other living things, which is defect for those things. An order of nature that is developmental, dynamic and real - as opposed to a trip to Disneyland - is a good thing and must allow for particular defects, such as dead antelopes and the occasional dead human at the tooth and claw of lions.

I think that Aquinas' argument is strengthened by the theory of natural evolution, which is why it is strange that Darwin is said to have lost his faith because of his realization that nature was "red in tooth and claw."

That seems like a silly reason to lose faith. Nature would be just as red in tooth and claw prior to the construction of the theory of evolution; it just would be without meaning.

And since Aquinas pointed out that a feature of his theistic view was that defects in nature were on account of the goodness of the order of things, we might think that this would count as empiricial corroboration of his Christian philosophy.

[bjorn]

Jul 2, 2008 23:48:20 GMT Petersean said:

I think that Aquinas' argument is strengthened by the theory of natural evolution, which is why it is strange that Darwin is said to have lost his faith because of his realization that nature was "red in tooth and claw.

That seems like a silly reason to lose faith. Nature would be just as red in tooth and claw prior to the construction of the theory of evolution; it just would be without meaning.

And since Aquinas pointed out that a feature of his theistic view was that defects in nature were on account of the goodness of the order of things, we might think that this would count as empiricial corroboration of his Christian philosophy.

At least not as any decisive argument against.

What Darwin lost his faith about had little to do with Aquinas and much to do with his reading of Paley. As the latter attempted to prove God by showing that the intricacy of nature could only come from a wise and, not the least, benevolent deity, any sight of tooth and claw was rather a drawback to Darwin.

BTW, one good observation by McGrath is that Paley had been criticised rather heavily on theological grounds before Darwin by e.g. Newman.

I guess he knew his Aquinas.

[Al Moritz]

Jul 1, 2008 11:26:05 GMT humphreyclarke said:

One of the principle objections to this idea of a benevolent creator is that 'evil' or 'natural selection' of phenotypes is intrinsic to the evolutionary process. This has led some commentators to the morbid conclusion that our existence on this planet is primarily based on death, that is the 99% of all species that have gone extinct. This is based on the rather crude stereotype that nature is 'red in tooth and claw'.

Well, those are the objections; I would like to add a few secular responses without resorting to theology. Firstly the extinction of many species. I really can't see that this is a problem at all. Sure it might be nice if the giant sloth was around; ditto the Dodo or the odd Trilobite, but I struggle to think why we should refer a static creative process to a fluid one.

I don't see a problem with the extinction of species either. Whether it is individual death within a continuing species or the death of a species, to the last individual(s) of that species it cannot matter -- how would they know that they are the last ones of their kind? Only in the hindsight of history can we lament the extinction of a species, but there is no way that from the viewpoint of any individual of that species in those final moments this could be of any knowing consequence.

As to nature 'red in tooth and claw', I think it has already been pointed out that the real problem with animal suffering is not evolution, but an old earth -- an old earth with or without evolution.

The catchphrase “Survival of the Fittest” – not generally used by biologists, who prefer to use the term “natural selection” – was introduced by Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology in 1864, five years after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and only later adopted by Darwin. It is, in fact, rather misleading, since natural selection is not a simple “live or die” phenomenon, but one of living somewhat longer or somewhat shorter, and thereby – or for other reasons of “fitness” – exhibiting differences in reproductive capability. These differences do not have to be great at all to have an enormous impact over many generations, as a simple calculation shows*). Thus, associating evolution with “nature red in tooth and claw” (a phrase not coined by Darwin) appears to be an exaggerated concept.

As for animal suffering, it is undoubtedly very real (and I don't like to see our two dogs suffer either), but I do not think it can be compared to that of humans in psychological impact. Human suffering becomes particularly acute in light of not just memory of older, better times, but also in light of expectations of a better future. It can hardly be argued that this is what animals go through in a similar manner -- how can they have a meaningfully knowing expectation of a future comparable to that of humans? It is ironic how atheists, who constantly accuse theists of anthropomorphisms when it comes to ascribing attributes to God, have no problem to resort to anthropomorphisms when it is about comparing human to animal suffering, in order to further their case.


*) For example, it does not take too many generations for individuals with offsprings of each five per generation to totally overwhelm the reproduction of individuals with offsprings of each "just" four per generation. You can do the easy math yourself.