What Does Evolution Want?
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Saturday, May 21, 2011
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Science and the Search for Meaning
“Science and the Search for Meaning: 5 Questions” grew out of our continuing fascination with the interplay between science and spirituality. As well all know, the relationship between science and religion is complicated and often strained. We covered many of the core issues in the science & religion debate in our 2006 series “Electrons to Enlightenment.” This time, we wanted to move beyond the usual arguments between atheists and religious believers to explore some even more provocative questions.
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If there's one strand of evolutionary theory that sticks in the craw of nearly every religious believer, it's the idea that human beings are just an evolutionary accident. But what if we aren't? What if the evolution of humans, or some brainy creature like us, was inevitable once life first appeared on Earth?
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll talk with maverick paleontologist Simon Conway Morris and explore the question "What does evolution want?"
Comments [1]
I was so pleased when I heard John Haught pointed out that science does not tackle things like purpose, value, meaning, importance, God or even intelligence. This limitation of science is well supported by philosophers of science Peter Medawar and Karl Popper. And then immediately disappointed when Haught went on to say that what we learn form science can actually tell us something about purpose. When Paulson called him on the seeming switch in point of view, Haught said that we must distinguish between science as a method and what science produces in the way of discovery. Haught was right to say that purpose is outside the empirical realm of science and wrong, I think, to bring purpose back into the realm of science. Science is not so fickle about what it can and cannot do.
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