Copernicus, Fanatics, Darwin, and You

In 1543, the idea that the Earth was only one of several planets which orbit the Sun was first widely published, in Nicholas Copernicus's landmark book De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium. The only reason Copernicus wasn't burned at the stake (like Giodorno Bruno) was that he was already dead by the time his book was rolling off the presses, having only authorized its printing from his deathbed.

Wasn't the world a great place when the ideologues and fundamentalists were in absolute charge of the world?

In 1616, Copernicus's book and all other books which affirmed the motion of the Earth were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books (here's the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation -- self-serving but entertaining) enforced by the Catholic Church. Not until 1822 -- almost 300 years after the idea had first been suggested in Europe -- did the Church allow its members to read books which state that the Earth moves.

In a rare example of doctrinal agreement, the Protestants found Copernicus's heliocentric model just as objectionable as the Catholics did. Both camps at the time were convinced that the Bible was the source of literal truth about the world. Joshua 10:13, according to this view, proves conclusively that the Sun moves around the Earth. What was that passage?

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Gosh, that just clears everything up, doesn't it?

Now here's the part I can't get over. Even though it's a manifestly really stupid idea, people in that time were actually willing to believe that some passage in the Bible invalidates all reason and observation, even when the Bible passage in question doesn't seem to have anything to say about the subject in question. I mean, Joshua 10:13 is the best the geocentrists could come up with, and it's not exactly unequivocal, is it?

Astronomy isn't a controversial topic among the vast majority of Christians anymore. Indeed, by the nineteenth century, only the most dogmatically fundamentalist sects could still maintain faith in the immobility of the Earth. As Thomas Kuhn says in The Copernican Revolution :

"During the century and a half following Galileo's death in 1642, a belief in the earth-centered universe was gradually transformed from an essential sign of sanity to an index, first, of inflexible conservatism, then of excessive parochialism, and finally of complete fanaticism."

There are still fanatics around, of course, such as the Flat Earth Society, but for all practical purposes, it's correct to say that Christians have finally come to agree that the Earth orbits the Sun. Good for them.

Now if only the Christians can learn from history. Today we don't have a controversy over astronomy; instead we have the controversy over evolution. The names have changed, but the story is depressingly similar.

As today is the 195th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, it's a perfectly good day to rant about this issue. Darwin, as most people are aware, first proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. Some people decided that this idea threatened their cherished creation myth, and the argument has raged ever since.

Once again, we have the spectacle of otherwise ordinary folks who think that Biblical verse is a perfectly good refutation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, or indeed any sort of evolution. For them, unless the earth is 6000 years old and was created in exactly six days, it just can't be true. Four hundred years ago, I'm sure that the vast majority of these people would have thought the same about Copernicanism. It's the same story. Then as now, people who advocate or advance the scientific theory were said to possess evil motives. Then as now, the theory is attacked not on the basis of the technical problems within its own field, which it explains with precision and economy, but because it is seen as a threat to a particular cosmological world-view. I think the only major difference is that people aren't burned at the stake as heretics any more.

Unfortunately it's still not true the authorities are on the side of reason. "On the issue of evolution," declared George W Bush as he was campaigning for President, "the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth." (Of course, we are talking about a guy who couldn't even manage to get a "C" in college without his family connections.) The state of Georgia caused a recent flap by attempting to remove the word evolution from its textbooks. The National Park Service even sells a book in the Grand Canyon bookstore claiming that Noah's flood made the Grand Canyon. The author's reasoning? "For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now, I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can't possibly be more than a few thousand years old."

You see how ass-backward that reasoning is? Because he proceeds from the assumption of Biblical literalism, all other facts and observations must be swept aside. I have actually had people citing Biblical verse to me as "proof" that evolution is impossible. Why this is supposed to be convincing, I don't know: I guess that not only must someone assume that the Bible is literally true, he or she must also assume that I accept the literal truth of the Bible. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? The only trouble is, I can't accept the literal truth of the Bible. In fact, it's hard to understand why anyone would. Four hundred years ago it wasn't such a bad idea -- but today?

Look: every year adds more weight to the already overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution by natural selection. Ultimately, the religionists and their political allies will learn to accomodate the theory, and fit their interpretations to prevailing scientific thought. After all, you don't find many people today who are willing to quote the Bible as an astronomical authority. It's not a biological authority either. Will it take another 200 years before the fundamentalists decide that they can accomodate evolution? Are we at the point where a belief in special creation is a sign of excessive parochialism, or are we at the point where it means complete fanaticism yet?

Former President Carter's wise reaction the Georgia flap deserves the last word:

"The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe,. There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy...There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith."

P.S. Or Maybe you prefer something more confrontational, like MC Hawking's song "Fuck the creationists"