Book contents
- Understanding Evolution
- Series page
- Understanding Evolution
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface: There is More to Resistance to Evolution than Religion
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Public Acceptance of Evolution
- 2 Religious Resistance to Accepting Evolution
- 3 Conceptual Obstacles to Understanding Evolution
- 4 Charles Darwin’s Conceptual Change
- 5 Common Ancestry
- 6 Evolutionary Processes
- 7 Evolutionary Theory and the Nature of Science
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References
- Figure Credits
- Index
Concluding Remarks
The Implications of Evolutionary Theory for Human Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2020
- Understanding Evolution
- Series page
- Understanding Evolution
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface: There is More to Resistance to Evolution than Religion
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Public Acceptance of Evolution
- 2 Religious Resistance to Accepting Evolution
- 3 Conceptual Obstacles to Understanding Evolution
- 4 Charles Darwin’s Conceptual Change
- 5 Common Ancestry
- 6 Evolutionary Processes
- 7 Evolutionary Theory and the Nature of Science
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References
- Figure Credits
- Index
Summary
I believe that the problems with the public acceptance of evolution do not have only to do with understanding science, but also with respecting one another’s worldviews. I try to respect those who disagree with me. We do not always do this, and I believe that misallodoxy (a Greek word: misos: hate; allo: other; doxa: belief), that is, hating other people because they hold different beliefs than one does, is a major problem in human societies and in part responsible for the so-called evolution wars. The problem in the case of evolution and religion is that we fail to respect the views of those who disagree with us. Militant atheists fail to respect the decision of religious people to believe; religious fundamentalists fail to respect the decision of irreligious people or atheists not to believe. Militant atheists blame religion and religious fundamentalists blame science. I think they are all wrong. Writing on the science side, I want to conclude that evolutionary theory influences but does not guide atheism, as well as that it has implications for religion but does not necessarily hurt it. Evolutionary theory provides a deep, coherent understanding of our natural world; it does not have much to say about the supernatural, although one can draw several philosophical conclusions about it. As all science, evolutionary theory is a human construct and indeed a successful one given how many questions it can answer and how many applications it has. How we use it to make claims about anything beyond the natural world is our own problem, and not one of the theory itself.
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- Understanding Evolution , pp. 169 - 172Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020