To celebrate Darwin Day (Charles Darwin’s birthday), let’s look at how Darwin, unwittingly and unfortunately, played into the hands of his detractors.
Unwisely, he used a word that stimulates disagreement in the title of his most famous book, commonly known as On the Origin of Species (1859). The full title includes the phrase ‘by natural selection’, and the unfortunate word is ‘selection’.
In common parlance, ‘selection’ is understood to have the following meaning: ‘the action or fact of carefully choosing someone or something as being the best or most suitable.’ E.g. ‘such men decided the selection of candidates.’ (Definition and example from Oxford Languages via Google.)
Notice the implication of agency. ‘Selection’ means an action: choosing. The online dictionary example even identifies the choosers as men.
That was Darwin’s shot in the foot!
Despite the whole of the rest of his book explaining how change occurs without any agent making the changes, or any intention to go in any particular direction or achieve any aim, he’s already queered his pitch! He’s given his critics the opening they want; the word ‘selection’.
We are still handling the fallout.
It may not be entirely his fault because the concept of agency is deeply embedded in the modern human psyche, but he didn’t need to encourage his critics!
Today’s world, in particular, shows us that Homo sapiens is responsible for pretty much everything. This may not have been the perception of early man who wandered through forests and grasslands picking the fruit and catching the fish, but today, it’s obvious who has modified our environment: it’s us.
We’ve dammed rivers and built harbours, canals, and cities. We’ve created transport and communication systems. We have invented money and services and goods that it can pay for. We’ve visited the moon and lived on the space station. We’ve even accidentally changed the planet’s climate. We are the do-ers and, therefore, we think that everything must be done by someone.
That is completely at odds with evolution.
Evolution has two components: 1) Variation and 2) Filtering.
Variation is the result of reproductive ‘inaccuracies’. It’s not like photocopying: offspring are approximate replicas of parents. There’s no control over the process; no agent. That’s why some children are born, sadly, with genetic defects (does that point to a benevolent god?), which, thanks to science, we are beginning to cure with gene replacement therapy.
‘Filtering’ (a much more appropriate word that I wish Darwin had used in preference to ‘selection’) is done by the environment, and once again, there’s no overseeing controller. This is compounded by the fact that the environment changes and thus what passes through the filter now may differ from what was able to pass through previously.
Enter the religious.
They recognised two things: 1) that most people are willing to accept that some ‘other power’ might have control, and 2) it’s very hard, if not impossible, to refute fanciful claims.
Conclusion? This is an opportunity ‘made in heaven’!
When that understanding dawned, the door to easy income, possibly even stupendous wealth, swung open.
Cunning men thought, ‘If I can spin a good yarn about a creator deity and claim to be his agent, I might get paid without having to work! Nobody can credibly deny me, and I can make promises which don’t have to be kept!’
That was such a good business proposal, it didn’t even need to be taken on Dragons’ Den! No investment was required other than the clothes you stood up in and the sandals on your feet. It’s been so successful that it has paid for swathes of land, impressive buildings, and a huge staff over many, many centuries. (I choose ‘staff’ as more appropriate than ‘workforce’ since labour is not involved.)
It’s the Perfect Scam.
Like many good ideas, it can’t be intellectually protected (I’d love to have the copyright to the Quran or the registered trademark of the crucifix), but it can be culturally protected by threats of shunning, or even execution. Being first to market and having a book is useful—it’s something to sell that can weld your customers into a community of subscribers. Today’s equivalent would be joining a channel and signing up for notifications.
Of course, there wasn’t just one inventor. It’s such an easy eureka that it’s occurred to many people, at many times, in many places. There have been, among many others, Guru Nanak (founder of Sikhism), Abraham (founder of three Middle Eastern faiths), Paul (founder of Christianity), Mohammed (founder of Islam), Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), and L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology).
It’s still effective today and has even been ‘syndicated’. The main businesses have spawned sub-branches; Christianity has thousands of them, and Islam and Judaism have several each.
Some Christian entrepreneurs have made fortunes. They include TB Joshua, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, and Joel Osteen. Not only have they managed to amass enormous personal wealth, including private jets, but they’ve also fooled the taxman into allowing them to have it all tax-free.
Truly the Perfect Scam!
In 1859, Darwin nearly debunked this whole fraud. If only he hadn’t mis-spoke…
We must Break FREE!
We have to Break FREE!
We’ve got to Break FREE!
Atheism UK (AUK) launched the BreakFREE! campaign at ‘Hitchmas’, which featured Sir Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Murray, and Lawrence Krauss celebrating the life of their late friend Christopher Hitchens in the Royal Geographical Society’s hall on 14 December 2024. You can join AUK or make a donation and receive a BreakFREE! button badge at our website: atheismuk.com.
Look out for our forthcoming BreakFREE! YouTube channel.
More of my content is on Patreon: Freethought Productions (subscriptions gratefully accepted).
In further commemoration of Darwin Day, please enjoy this special video, produced by Rod Bradford of The Truth Seeker.
Related reading
Thought for Today: There’s nothing intelligent about ‘intelligent design’, by John Richards
Is ‘intelligent design’ on the cusp of overthrowing evolutionary science? by Samuel McKee
The future of biology, science vs. religion, and ‘ideological pollution’ in science: Interview with Jerry Coyne, by Samuel McKee
The Galileo of Pakistan? Interview with Professor Sher Ali, by Ehtesham Hassan
Why Design Arguments Necessarily Fail, by Samuel McKee
Image of the week: The Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, by Daniel James Sharp
The Scopes Monkey Trial a century on: A global mess that nobody won, by Samuel McKee
The Ghost of Scopes: Creationists Never Give Up, by Samuel McKee
Debunking creationists, flat-earthers, and other enemies of science: interview with ‘Professor Dave’, by Samuel McKee
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