Malcolm Cutchins: Digging deeper into Darwin’s quote book

In keeping with his 200th year celebration, here are some more of Charles Darwin’s words ... probably far more significant than his speculations on the eye. Darwin wrote in his famous book on origins and favored races, “I am well aware that there is scarcely a single point discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be advanced, often leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result could be attained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question …”

Unfortunately, there are those who won’t let this happen even though they believe strongly in nearly everything else Darwin postulated. The “scientific literature” locks out just about all but those ideas that agree with Darwinism.

The same is not true of books, however, as they can be published by getting around those who don’t want opposing views to come to light. One of the most revealing books is “Darwin’s God.” The book’s author is biophysicist C.G. Hunter.

More than 400 detailed notes document the main points in the nine chapters. In short, the author points out that “Darwin was significantly motivated by nonscientific premises.

He had a special notion of God in view … that view defined the framework of his thinking.”

Readers have probably heard a similar notion to Darwin’s from their friends even today: “God certainly wouldn’t do that, would He?”

Darwin claimed God wouldn’t allow “so much misery in the world,” wouldn’t design “a cat to play with mice,” ants to make slaves of other ants, or want an “incalculable waste” of pollen, etc. A dedicated naturalist, he was very concerned with explaining “natural evil.” The material in “Darwin’s God” concerning the different thoughts and interests of Darwin and a contemporary, 19th century geologist/theologian Adam Sedgwick, a popular figure at Cambridge, is quite revealing.

Author Hunter summarizes the conflict between the two men: “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.”

Returning to Darwin’s quote about “the facts on both sides of each question” in the second paragraph above, it is interesting to read some rare criticism of Darwin-hype. “Thousands of papers are published every year claiming evidence of adaptive evolution on the bases of computational analysis alone, with no evidence whatsoever regarding the phenotypic (visible characteristics of organisms) effects of allegedly adaptive mutations.” This is from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published last September.

“A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, — a mere heart of stone.” This is another quote attributed to Darwin. I don’t know many people who aspire to fulfill this definition, do you?

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a weekly column for The Opelika-Auburn News.