Evolution and the Family

7/17/01
 

  Does the doctrine of evolution by natural selection better named "random
selection" really constitute a fundamental denial of the moral fabric of
human life? I'd like to consider this question again this week, with
particular emphasis on the family, the most fundamental of human social
institutions.
 

Does the evolutionist account, bent on explaining everything without
recourse to God, leave any room to discover moral meaning on earth? I don't
believe so. Once we have denied the existence of an intelligence that
formed the result, it is hard to understand why we should ascribe any
significance to the forms comprising that result, whether these be the
physical forms of men and women or the forms of life and behavior that
arise from those biological differences. One can dream of a morality of
pure reason, with no roots in the physical realities of life on this earth.
But no abstract discussions about the "pure logic" of justice can escape
the radical evolutionist claim that even our intellectual judgments, the
law of contradiction itself, are epiphenomena in a world reduced to matter
and chance.

The philosophers and scientists can, and should, pursue questions ranging
from the physical evidence of the development of species to the
philosophical arguments for the existence of God. But the version of
evolution that begins from the atheistic premise ensures, from the
beginning, that such investigations cannot conclude to a world with an
intrinsic order that commands our respect. In principle, all the effects
that arise in such a universe are the result of chance, and human moral
judgments are no more bearers of a natural goodness or truth than is the
eye designed to see. It is an inescapable consequence of atheistic
evolutionary theory that human life is drained of all natural moral
significance, particularly in moral matters that are more obviously based
on the natural goodness of the physical order.

Why is that important? Consider the family. Over the course of human
history, a constant principle has been the fundamental importance of family
life and family structures. Preserving right order in families has, in
fact, been an essential element in the understanding of right and wrong in
almost every decent society that has ever existed. Any account of such
order, of course, depends in turn on an understanding of the male and the
female, and of their different roles and responsibilities in relation to
one another.

But according to the theory of evolution, the basic biological attributes
of our nature have no significance except as particular accidents at which
evolution has arrived. How, then, is it possible to ascribe moral
significance to them? Evolutionary doctrine removes the basis for making
moral judgments about human behavior. Once it is denied that any will or
moral being informed the creation of our bodily natures, it is necessarily
also denied that there is any moral significance to the biological
distinctions that were the consequence of that will. Therefore family,
marriage, and the decent constraints on human sexual behavior that have
been understood to be essential to society, all seem like totally arbitrary
impositions on human will unless, of course, they can be justified by their
utility in helping us to avoid immediate inconveniences.

Because there is nothing inherently respectable about those constraints, no
authority resides in the natural forms of which these behaviors are a
consequence. So, once we have reached the point that technology claims to
have freed us from practical inconveniences, we are freed from all such
moral constraints. Marriage itself is easily reinterpreted as a mere
survival strategy of an earlier phase of human existence, rather than the
natural moral foundation of decent human society.

The insistence with which debate about the scientific validity of
evolution, as well as discussion about its moral and political
implications, are suppressed ought to lead us to suspect the motives of its
advocates. Dogmatism of this kind is inappropriate to science. And since it
is inappropriate to science, what is driving those dogmatists who seek to
prevent the questioning of evolutionary theory? One would have to suggest
that the goal is not scientific, but rather political and ideological to
buttress certain forces that aim by their action to unravel the fabric of
traditional understandings, principles, faiths and constraints, and to
promote concepts of "liberation" that have from time immemorial been
considered inconsistent with the survival of societies.

Evolutionary theory is the natural ally of all those forces that seek to
undermine and destroy traditional social structures, precisely because it
appears to relieve us of the acknowledgement of a transcendent authority.
Accordingly, it destroys the basis for the possibility of objective truth
in any way relevant to our social and moral affairs.

Centuries ago, Machiavelli laid out the principles and characteristics of
the world of human affairs once transcendent authority and objective truth
were dissolved. The affinity between his account and the world of evolution
is striking. In politics, as in the natural world, the Godless account
leaves room for any purpose but to overcome fortune and accident by
imposing new forms to compensate for the absence of significant form or
meaning in the natural world. But, in both the political and the natural
realm, such a goal is indistinguishable from brute force, from the force of
circumstance, from the assertion that justice is determined strictly by
superior power. Now, obviously, that superior power can be a consequence
either of brute force or the consequence of technology and superior
knowledge. But the result is the same the only basis for justice is a
consequence of circumstances entirely determined by the balance of power in
human affairs.

Are we willing to accept that as our new understanding of the world, and
the foundation of our just political institutions? Our first inclination
may be to view such a future with dismay or with confidence depending on
where we think we will end up in it. Some of us may do well in the brave
new world that is to come, but a lot of us won't do very well at all. Those
who are able to grasp the new realities, and wield new technological
"advances" with confidence, will establish their dominance and be on the
winning side. And, of course, those who expect to be on that winning side
may be very sympathetic with the arguments that suggest that this is a fine
way to determine what justice is.

But what about the rest of us? What about those condemned to live through
that long dark night of oppression that Winston Churchill foresaw as the
consequence of a world dominated by science, bereft of all overriding moral
principle? The world implied by evolutionary theory will impose its terms
on whatever human realities fail to "compete" successfully according to the
new calculus of power. Among the features of human life failing that test
will surely be those that are justified chiefly by man's perennial and wise
deference to a natural order he believes to be divinely instituted. Surely,
any of us who believe in the importance of the great American experiment in
self-government will reject such a future, regardless of individual
expectations of advantage.

The outcome of genuine scientific inquiry must be respected, and I am
confident that defenders of the belief that nature contains a
divinely-crafted order have little to fear from an open and principled
debate. What we must not do is barter away our commitment to the central
features of rightly-ordered human life because of a "scientific" theory
that remains only questionably established, but which is being used by its
non-scientific proponents to intimidate us. We must remain confident in the
goodness of the natural order, in our reason which discerns that order and
in the God who is the author of both.
 

(Dr. Keyes is founder and chairman of the Declaration Foundation, a
communications center for founding principles.)

POWRÓT