MACROSCOPE

Evolution, Religion and Free Will

Gregory W. Graffin and William B. Provine

The most eminent evolutionary scientists have

surprising views on how religion relates to evolution

naturalist

K

theist deist

One hundred and forty-nine eminent evolutionary scientists responded lo a recent poll about theirviews on religion. In a change from the methodology used in previous studies of such beliefe,the authors allowed their subjects to place themselves at one of several points on a ternary scale(above). The majority (78 percent) described themselves as naturalists (A). Only two claimed to befull theists (F>, but two also described themselves as more tlieistic fhan naturalistic (D). Tliose whoconsidered tbeir beliefs to be midway between naturalism and deism chose J, and one evolutionistchose M, indicating no preference for any description. Three percent did not answer.

DURING THE 20TH CENTURY,three polls questiotied out-standing scientists about their attitudestoward science and religion. James H.Leuba, a sociologist at Bryn Mawr Col-lege, conducted the first in 1914. Hepolled 400 scientists starred as "greater"in the 1910 American Men of Science onthe existence of a "personal God" andimmortality, or life after death. Leubadefined a personal God as a "God towhom one may pray in the expectationof receiving an answer." He found that32 percent of these scientists believed ina personal God, and 37 percent believedin immortality. Leuba repeated basicallythe same questionnaire in 1933. Belief ina personal God among greater scientistshad dropped to 13 percent and beliefin immortality to 15 percent. In bothpolls, beliefs in God and immortalitywere less common among biologiststhan among physical scientists. Beliefin immortality had dropped to 2 per-cent among greater psychologists in the1933 poll. Leuba predicted in 1916 thatbelief in a personal Gtxl and in immtir-tality would continue to drop in grLMterscientists, a forecast clearly borne outby his second poll in 1933, and he fur-ther predicted that the figures wouldfall even moir in the future.

Greg Grc0ti is lecturer in life sciences at the Univcr-sity of California. Los Angch-s. and Will Prai'hie isAndreio H. and James S. Tisch Distiii-iiuiiiheii Pnjjvs-sor ill tlie departmait tjf Ecology and Euohitiannri/Biology at Cornell UiiixiTsiti/. Address for Prinme:Depmiment of Ecology and Eiiiliitionary Biology,Gjrsoii Hall. Carnell ilirnvrsity. Ulmca, NY 14S5XInternet: graffin@uda.cdu and wbp2@cariicll.edu;project URL: http://imim).polyptents.com

294 American Scientist, Volume 95

Edward J. Larson, professor of lawand tlie history of science at the Univer-sity of Georgia, and science joumaiistLarry Witham, both theists, polled Na-tional Academy of Sciences members in1998 and provided further confirmationof Leuba's conjecture. Using Leuba'sdefinitiotTS of God and immortality fordirect comparison, they found lowerpercentages of believers. Only 10 per-cent of NAS scientists believed in Godor immortality, with those figures drop-ping to 5 percent among biologists.

2003 Cornell Evolution ProjectOur study was the first poll to ftxussolely on eminent evolutionists andtheir views of religion. As a disserta-tion project, one of us (Graffin) pre-pared and sent a detailed question-naire on evolution and religion to 271professional evolutionary scientistselected to membership in 28 honor-ific national academies around theworld, and 149 (55 percent) answeredthe questionnaire. All of them listedevolution (specifically organismic),phylogenetics, population biology/genetics, paleontology/paleoecology/palcobiology, systematics, organismaladaptation or fitness as at least one oftheir research interests. Graffin also in-terviewed 12 prestigious evolutionistsfrom the sample group on the relationbetween modern evolutionary biologyand religion.

A primary complaint of scientistswho answered the earlier polls wasthat the concept of God was limited toa "personal God." Leuba considered animpersonal God as equivalent to pure

naturalism and classified advocates ofdeism as nonbelievers. We designedthe current study to distinguish theismfrom deism—that is to day a "personalGod" (theism) versus an "impersonalGod" who created the universe, allforces and matter, but does not inter-vene in daily events (deism). An evo-lutionist can be considered religious, inour poll, if he calls himself a deist.

Comprised of 17 questions and spacefor optional comments, this question-naire addressed many more issues thanthe earlier polls. Religious evolutionistswere asked to describe their religion,and unbelievers were asked to choosetheir closest description among athe-ist, agnostic, naturalist or "other" (withspace to describe). Other questionsasked if the evolutionary scientist werea monist or dualist—that is, believed itia singular controlling force in naturalscience or also allowed for the super-natural—whether a conflict betweenevolution and religion is inevitable,whether humans have free will, wheth-er purpose or progress plays a role inevolution, and whether naturalism is asufficient way to understand evolution,its products and human origins.

Perhaps the most revealing ques-tion in the poll asked the respondentto choose the letter that most closelyrepresented where her views belongedon a ternary diagram. The great ma-jority of the evolutionists polled (78percent) chose A, billing themselvesas pure naturalists. Only two out of149 described themselves as full theists(F), two as more theist than naturalist(D) and three as theistic naturalists (B).

Taken together, the advocacy of anydegree of theism is the lowest percent-age measured in any poll of biologists'beliefs so far (4.7 percent).

No evolutionary scientists in thisstudy chose pure deism (I), but thedeistic side of the diagram is heavycompared to the theistic side. Elevenrespondents chose C, and 10 choseother regions on the right side of thediagram (E, H or J). Most e\'olution-ary scientists who billed themselves asbelievers in God were deists (21) ratherthan theists (7).

The responses to other questions inthe poll parallel those in the ternary di-agram and are summarized in graphsbelow. Furthermore, most (79 percent)of the respondents billed themselvesas metaphysical naturalists. They werestrongly materialists and monists: 73percent said organisms have only ma-terial properties, whereas 23 percentsaid organisms have both material andspiritual properties. These answers arehardly surprising given previous polls.But the answers to two questions weresurprising to us.

How Evolution and Religion RelateEvolutionists were presented with fourchoices on the relation between evolu-tion and religion: A, they are non-over-lapping magisteria (NOMA) whosetenets are not in conflict; B, religion is asocial phenomenon that has developedwith the biological evolution of HomoS(7;j/('HP—therefore religion should beconsidered as a part of our biologi-cal heritage, and its tenets should beseen as a labile social adaptation, sub-

the lean toward deism belief in God belief in immortality

left sideof diagram

right sideof diagram

distribution of non-naturalists

40

percent

| " 1 I believe in God as stated

• I believe in God (deist position)

H I don't believe in God (traditional)H I don't believe in God (leave room

for mystery)

empty

agree

disagree

40 60 60 100percent

Of those evolutionists who claimed a belief in God, Ihe majority placed themselves somewhere on the right side of the ternary diagram on thef.icing page (it). Nonetheless, when asked simply whether they believed in God, nearly 80 percent said no

how evolution and religion relate

120

140

percent60

180

non-overlapping magisteria

H religion is adaptation, a part of evolution

H mutually exclusive tenets

n totally harmoniousi empty

When asked how religion and evolutionaryscience relate, 72 percent of the respondentsthought that religion is an adaptation—simplya sociobiological result of evolution. Surpris-ingly, more view them as mutually exclusivetenets than suhscribe to Stephen Jay Gould'sconcept of non-overlapping magisteria.

ject to change and reinterpretation; C,they are mutually exclusive magisteriawhose tenets iiidicate mutually exclu-sive conclusions; or D, they are total-ly harmonious—evolution is one ofmany ways to elucidate the evidencesof God's designs.

Only 8 percent of the respondentschose answer A, tbe NOMA priticipleadvocated by Stephen Jay Gould, re-jecting the harmonious view of evolu-tion and religion as separate magiste-ria. Even fewer (3 percent) believe thatevolution and religion are "totally har-monious," answer D. A weak responseto both of these options is unsurprisingsince the participants are so stronglynonreligious, shown by their answersto other questions in the poll. But wedid expect a strong showing for choiceG, which suggests that evolution andreligion are mutually exclusive andseparated by a gulf that cannot bebridged. This was the answer chosenby Richard Dawkins, who has a strongreputation for declaring that sciencehas much better answers for humansociety than does religion.

Instead, the wide majority, 72 per-cent, of the respondents chose optionB. These eminent evolutionists viewreligion as a sociobiological feature ofhuman culture, a part of human evolu-tion, tiot as a contradiction to evolu-tion. Viewing religion as an evolvedsociobiological feature removes allcompetition between evolution and re-ligion for most respondents.

Evolutionary scientists are stronglymotivated to ameliorate conflict be-tween evolution and religion. Socio-biology offers them an apparent con-ciliatory path to the compatibility ofreligion and evolution, avoiding alllanguage of inescapable conflict. So-ciobiological evolution is the meansto understanding religion, whereasreligion as a "way of knowing" hasnothing to teach us about evolution.This view allows a place for religionand sounds superficially comforting tocompatibilists.

Charles Darwin was also loath totalk about evolution and religion m Onthe Origin of Species. He sought waysto lessen the conflict between his ideaof natural selection and Christianity itithe period just after 1859. Asa Gray, theHarvard botanist who was so taken bythe Origin, wrote two reviews arguingfor the compatibility of the intelligentdesign of God and Darwin's idea ofnatural selection. God, according toGray, guided the available variationand thus controlled the evolutionaryprocess. Darwin sought Gray's permis-sion to reprint parts of both reviews asa pamphlet that Darwin, at his ownexpense, distributed widely to thosewho raised religious objections to hisviews in the Origin. At this time, Dar-win privately believed that Christian-ity was incompatible with his idea ofnatural selection but used Asa Gray'sreviews to help mute public and aca-demic uproar from religious objectior\sto his book.

Nine years later. On the Origin ofSpecies had become a huge interna-tional success, and Darwin publishedThe Vnrintion ofAiiiinnls and Plants Un-der Domcsticntioii. No longer needinga compatibilist slant on natural selec-tion and religion, he clearly distancedliimself from Gray's views. In the lastparagraph of Volume II, Darwin rejectsthe possibility that God was guidingevolution and writes about Asa Gray:

... no shadow of reason can be as-signed for the belief that variations,alike in nature and tlie result of thesame general laws, which havebeen the groundwork through nat-ural selection of the formation ofthe most perfectly adapted animalsin the world, man included, wereintentionally and specially guided.However mucb we may wish it,we call hardly follow Professor AsaGray in his belief that "variation

has been led along certain beneficiallines," like a stream "along definiteand useful lines of irrigation."

If Gray were right, then natural se-lection was superfluous; an omniscientCreator determines the goals of evo-lution. "Thus," Darwin concludes inthe last sentence of the book, "we arebrought face to face with a difficulty asinsoluble as is that of free will and pre-destination." Darwin, however, hadsolved the problem of free will morethan 30 years earlier; he believed it wasnonexistent. He also believed that hehad solved the problem of intelligentdesign in adaptations—that also wasnonexistent for him, a view shared bythe vast majority of the world's mosteminent evolutionists alive today, ac-cording to our study.

If Asa Gray represented the com-monly held view of scientists whostudied evolution in the 186()s, evolu-tion could be subsumed under religionas a manifestation of God's design.Today, as our results show, the com-monly held view among evolutionistsis that religion is subsumed under so-ciobiological evolution. There has beena complete inversion of the naturalistworldview in the last 150 years.

Eminent evolutionists are nowcaught in a bind that i-eminds us of Dar-win in 1859. They worry that the publicassociation of evolution with atheismor at least nonreligion will hurt evolu-tionary biology, perhaps impeding itsfunding or acceptance. Asa Gray's glossand that of the evolutionists in this poll,however, differ fundamentally. Ciray of-fered a theological synthesis with natu-ral selection that Darwin carefully usedfor a few years before extracting himselffrom it. Seeing religion as a sociobiolog-ical feature of human evolution, whilea plausible hypothesis, denies all worthto religious truths. A recent informalpoll of our religious acquaintances sug-gests that they are not pleased by thethought that their religions originatedin sodobiology.

Human Free WillCharles Darwin recognized the im-portance of free will to evolutionarybiology. He first wrote about humanfree will in his M & N notebooks as bebecame a materialist in 1838, soon afterthe voyage of the Beagle:

The general delusion about freewill is obvious because tnan has

296 American Scientist, Voiume 95

belief in free wiii

empty

no

yes

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80percent

When asked whether they believe in (reewill, most scientists surveyed said they did,apparently viewing the philosophical con-cept of free will to be equivalent to choice.

power of action, & he can seldomanalyse his motives (originallymostly INSTINCTIVE, & there-fore now great effort of reason todiscover them....)

Darwin saw punishing criminals forany reason other than deterring othersas mortilly wrong: Criminals shouldbe pitied and rehabilitated rather thanhated. Revenge he abhorred. Further,"this view should teach one humility,one deserves no credit for anything(yet one takes it for hoauty and goodtemper)." And finally, he said, a "be-liever in these views will pay great at-tention to Education."

Our questionnaire offered evolution-ary scientists only two choices on thequestion about human free will: A, allorganisms are locally determined byheredity and environment, but humansstill possess free will; B, all organismsare locally determined by heredity andenvironment, and humans have nofree will. To our surprise, 79 percentof the respondents chose option A forthis question, indicating their belief thatpeople bave free will despite being de-termined hy heredity and environment.Only 14 percent chose no free will, and7 percent did not answer the question.

Some philosophers have come to tbeview that human beings are entirelydetermined but still possess free will—see, for exampie, the views of DanielDennett or Ted Honderich—but wedoubt the evolutionists polled haveread carefully this genre of modemphilosophy. This view was not men-tioned in the interviews nor in themany comments generated by the free-will question. Instead, we think thereis a conflation of free will with choice.

We anticipated a much higher per-centage for option B and a low per-centage for A, but got just the oppositeresult. One of us (Provine) bas beenthinking about human free will for al-most 40 years, has read most of thephilosophical literature on the subjectand polls his undergraduate evolutionclass (200-plus students) each year onbelief in free will. Year after year, 90percent or more favor the idea of hu-man free will for a very specific reason:They think that if people make choices,they have free will. The profession-al debate about free will has movedfar from this position, because whatcounts is whether the choice is free ordetermined, not whether human be-ings make choices. People and animalsboth certainly choose constantly. Com-ments from the evolutionists suggestthat they were equating human choiceand human free will. Tn other words,although eminent, our respondentshad not thought about free will muchbeyond the students in introductoryevolution classes. Evolutionary biol-ogy is increasingly applied to psychol-ogy. Belief in free will adds nothing tothe science of human behavior.

ConclusionOnly 10 percent of the eminent evolu-tionary scientists who answered tbepoll saw an inevitable conflict betweenreligion and evolution. The great ma-jority see no conflict between religionand evolution, not because they occupydifferent, noncompeting magisteria, butbecause they see religion as a naturalpnxiuct of human evolution. Sociolo-gists and cultural anthropologists, incontrast, tend toward the hypothesisthat cultural change alone produced

religions, minus evolutionary change inhumans. Tlie eminent evolutionists whoparticipated in this poll reject the hasictenets of religion, such as gcxis, life afterdeath, incorporeal spirits or the super-natural. Yet they still hold a compatibleview of religion and evolution.

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