Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
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From Thomas Henry Huxley and Herbert Spencer down to William Hamilton and
Edward O. Wilson, evolution took on the trappings of a religious faith. It offered a
story of the origins of life and a meaning to existence. The Alpha and Omega. A reli-
gion of evolutionary naturalism that was thoroughly postmillennialist, in the sense
that it pointed to a brighter tomorrow if only we would do what is demanded of us.
—Michael Ruse
Symbolism, then, is not just a nuisance to be got rid of. It is essential. Facts will
never appear to us as brute and meaningless; they will always organize themselves
into some sort of story, some drama. These dramas can indeed be dangerous. They
can distort our theories, and they have distorted the theory of evolution perhaps
more than any other. The only way in which we can control this kind of distortion
is, I believe, to bring the dramas themselves out into the open, to give them our full
attention, understand them better and see what part, if any, each of them ought to
play both in theory and in life. It is no use merely to swipe at them from time to time
like troublesome insects, while officially attending only to the theoretical questions.
This will not make them go away, because they are a serious feature of life.
—Mary Midgley
Perhaps we should not begrudge Mr. Huxley the expression of such hopes—
his vision of science rising to approach the “infinite source of truth.” In
arguing that his religiosity functioned to sustain the campaign to overhaul
English science, I am certainly not saying that it was insincerely professed.
The threads of religious meaning that I have detected in
Man's Place in
Nature
were clearly and openly expressed in his private correspondence.
Readers only exposed to the folklore that has typically shaped public mem-
ory of this great man might think otherwise, but clearly Huxley was as fully
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