Evolution as a Religion (Routledge Classics) [Paperback]

This book is an interesting, intelligent read. It explains why it is so easy to confuse evolution with teleological stories of progress. It also traverses the boundaries between religion and science, and shows why science is not always as objective as it might seem. At the same time, Midgley is definitely not in the creationist camp. The last reviewer has clearly not read any recent philsophy of science, and has not understood the simple principle that science is not created or interpreted in a social vacuum, but is socially, culturally and historically situated knowledge. Midgely explains this clearly and with interesting examples. I would advise you read the book for yourself and be inspired!

Mary Midgley, a philosopher, applies her extremely sharp mind to the idea that evolution, as it is expounded in the popular science press by eager biologists, can in some ways be interpreted as a religion. By religion we mean of course the standard ones such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam etc.

Rather than actually laying out in a strictly defined way the characteristics which make up the religious view, something which is very difficult given the vast differences in the previously mentioned cases, she approaches the subject by analysing some of the typical `literature' in the popular science press on evolution which express their views in a highly dogmatic fashion: for example Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, Jacques Monod and so on. Gradually she lays bare the inherent faults in each of these texts by noting how not only that in most cases they state views which are not supported by strict science but in fact express metaphysical views which have the ring of science with all of its evidential weight. At times she shows that these opinions portray the same faults as those they wish to get rid of eg: the religious, vitalistic, animistic or metaphysical view.

Midgley has the ability to analyse very carefully what is stated and see things the general public could easily skip past in their enthusiasm. This book demolishes all of these pseudoscientific fantasies although its writing style is sometimes heavy going and is not really suited to the lay public. This book is, I believe written more for the interested scientist who has already read some of the foregoing literature and wishes to get a deep analysis of these things to fathom their relevance. This she does does ably although one feels that throughout she does not express a clear and direct point of this analysis but rather a series of essays on several subjects which have some sort of coherent structure. This is the only problem with this book and one feels that no real definite conclusion has been reached.

Nevertheless, Midgley is worth reading for her truly impressive ability to seek out faults which often lie hidden in the material she analyses and are quite subtle and not at all obvious until she points them out. It's good someone has done this to provide a clear head in all the plethora of the popular science literature, which in general, is not up to any sort of serious study of the state of science as it is today. In this case there is no chance one can easily dismiss her analyses as the wafflings of creationists or vitalists.

Mary Midgley is a vigorous opponent of scientism, reductionism and the hypocrisy of peddlars of science as truth. She identified the metaphysical pretentions implicit in the writings of Richard Dawkins, reducing him to fulminating against her having discovered the king had no clothes. Dawkins was not the only advocate of scientism reduced to intellectual nakedness by Midgley's brilliant analysis. Writing about Nobel prize winner Harry Kroto's claim that, " Science is the only philosophical construct we have to determine TRUTH with any degree of reliability" she pointedly asked, "Is it a scientific statement? No. Can it be relied upon as true. No?" Midgley's analysis showed the hypocrisy of scientists when they embark on philosophical and political crusades based on an inability to distinguish between fact and belief.

This came to a head in 2008 when Kroto, along with Dawkins and other anti-theist scientists, forced the resignation of Michal Reiss as Director of the Royal Society because Reiss was a clergyman who suggested science shouldn't dismiss pupils' views about creationism or intelligent design but should explain how such views were incompatible with science. The attacks on Reiss were not motivated by what he said but what he represented - dissent from the proposition that science and atheism are two sides of the same coin. It was an example of fundamentalist scientism at its worst and roundly condemned by all those, including Robert Winston, who value freedom of thought over imposed conformity. Although "Evolution As A Religion" was written two decades before the Royal Society revealed itself as the authoritarian dispenser of metaphysics under the guise of science, Midgley had already identified the scientism of Dawkins et.al.

Midgley argues that Marxism and evolutionism have been the two great faiths of modern times. Both expressed themselves as secular and social religions. Marxism in action undermined faith in its self-proclaimed role as the liberator of the working classes. Evolutionism gradually became "the creation myth of our age" in the form of Neo-Darwinism. This myth relies on its symbolic appeal rather than a description of its truth or falsity. The violent social and political environment of the past two-hundred years (Midgley doesn't mention the French Revolution but it remains the focal point for the modern world) has resulted in a "number of the elements which used to belong to traditional religion...........regrouping themselves under the heading of science, mainly around the concept of evolution." T H Huxley's prime aim was for science to supplant religion. J D Bernal, a recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize, argued the "aristocracy of scientific intelligence" would give rise to societies run by scientists. William Day used the same argument fifty years later suggesting that within10,000 years a scientific elite would emerge as a different species and rule those specimens of humanity which had been left behind. Such thinking came into contemporary Neo-Darwinist thinking via Social Darwinism, Marxist determinism and the enforced eugenics of the inter-war period. Bernal and Day presented their world view as if it was science. It wasn't.

The evolutionary model based on the inevitability of progress did not come from Darwin but an earlier generation. It served as weapon to bolster the image of scientists as superior beings. It gave support to the implicit racism of Imperialism and support for free market economies. The impact of Nazism and human experimentation reduced that image to one of the mad scientist producing the equally insane Boys from Brazil. Biological science cannot predict the future. Pretending it can is a delusion. Claims that science corrects dogma is denied by scientists' own dogmatic approach to science as superior to religion which is essentially a metaphysical standpoint not a scientific one. Science is laden with unacknowledged values although the sociobiologist E O Wilson presented materialistic science as a viable myth in competition with religion. Francis Crick claimed that science would produce a new set of beliefs about the nature of humanity. Religion was criticised for not being science and despised for raising questions about scientific impartiality in the pursuit of a world view which fails by its own standard of proof. It was scientific orthodoxy which rejected Galileo's heliocentric view of the world. It was also scientific orthodoxy which initially ignored Lynn Magulis's Gaia hypothesis until the paradigm shift so superbly described in Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" took effect.

Midgley, whose rejection of Christianity was accepted matter-of-factly by her clergyman father, does not advocate a religious viewpoint. She acknowledges that "the more anthropomorphic a creed is, the more the notion of an arbitrary, personal will enters into thoughts of creation.... that notion is hostile to science." Science assumes a sense of order penetrable to the human mind. Yet science (as in the scientific method) also uses imagination. Midgely quotes T H Huxley's thoughts on the relevance and power of the imagination "within the limits laid down by science." As she points out science is populated by "narrow-minded, conformist sceptics". Bertrand Russell, in his debates with Copleston, refused to accept the universe had a reason for existing and therefore it was pointless to look for one. His successors have no such inhibitions, equating the universe with scientific discovery. Such claims lose the "vastness and mystery" of the universe and with it the "awe and reverence" which are essential factors in understanding mankind's perceptions of - and the place of humans - in it. Julian Huxley had no hesitation in describing this as a religious or spiritual experience.

Midgley regards evolutionary biology and related fields as selective research extrapolated to the whole biosphere where it is "supported" by computer simulations. The result is the imposition of a reductionist framework which denies the validity of other approaches. The late Harold Wilson was told, "never trust the experts". Midgley has put that advice into practice for which she deserves five stars. One suspects it will retain its validity long after the fashionable idea that science is truth is dead and buried.