this is a good primer in what's out there on the evolutionary perspectives..
Julia
JOIN THE REAL DARWIN DEBATE
By Douglas Todd
Vancouver
February 28, 2009
Join the real Darwin debate
North American public schools and media are failing to educate the public
about evolution -- especially about the 12 major theories explaining how the world evolved into being.
With all the attention given this month to the 150th anniversary of the
Charles Darwin's earth-shattering book, On the Origin of Species, you would think evolution would be firmly embedded in the North American psyche. But there is chaos in the public's mind.
Many conservative Americans, steeped in Christian culture wars over
abortion, homosexuality and six-day creationism, have become infamous for resisting the general tenets of evolution. And it turns out Canadians are
almost as much in the dark as Americans.
An Angus Reid poll recently showed only 58 per cent of Canadians (compared to 42 per cent of Americans) accept the fundamental teaching of evolution; that "human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years."
It's disturbing that 24 per cent of Canadians (39 per cent of Americans)
told Angus Reid pollsters they embrace Biblical creationism, or the belief
that "God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years." Another 20 per cent of Canadians said they weren't sure.
In other words, one out of four Canadians believe humans once walked with dinosaurs. Maybe I need to say the obvious: Even though this is the belief of B.C.-based Conservative party cabinet minister Stockwell Day, no
mainstream biologist believes women and men co-existed with Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Before I get to the 12 different schools of evolutionary theory, I'll spell
out how evolution is inadequately taught in many Canadian schools (and
over-simplified by most media outlets.)
This is not only the case in many religious schools, where many of the
country's 65,000 independent-school students are taught by taxpayer-funded teachers that creationism deserves more respect than Darwin-based evolutionary theory.
Most Canadian public school students are also not taught evolutionary theory in mandatory science classes. Retired B.C. high-school teacher Scott Goodman and others justifiably worry only a small sliver of Canadian students --typically those who choose elective biology classes in Grades 11 or 12 -- ever focus on it.
The education systems' inadequate handling of evolutionary theory is partly based on political correctness.
Many governments and teachers are afraid of offending conservative
Christians, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses (often not recognizing
mainstream Protestants and Catholics, as well as Buddhists and Hindus,
generally accept evolution.)
In addition to the piecemeal teaching of evolution in Canadian public
schools, which are a provincial jurisdiction, most university science
classes offer students virtually no sense of the wide array of evolutionary
theories in existence.
Whatever the cause of the lack of evolutionary education, it explains why
polls show fewer than three out of five Canadians generally accept
evolutionary thought, why conservative politicians across the country defend creationism and why the Royal Ontario Museum could not find any corporate sponsors in 2008 for its supposedly "controversial" exhibit on Charles Darwin.
Most media outlets also fall short on enlightening the public on this
wide-ranging theory about the origins of life. These media contribute to a
false-choice debate about evolution, acting as if there only two polarized
camps -- neo-Darwinism and Biblical creationism.
A much richer discussion about evolution is occurring behind the scenes. It
involves 12 current theories.
Only one of these evolutionary theories is neo-Darwinism, the school based
on genetic mutation and random selection that is dominant in most
universities.
Neo-Darwinism is advanced by high-profile, anti-religious biologists such as
Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.
To my mind, some of the other 11 theories of evolution are more complete
than neo-Darwinism.
I suspect there's more complexity to the universe's evolutionary process
than Dawkins's reductionistic conclusion that: "We are survival mechanisms-- robot machines blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."
Four of the alternative evolutionary theories to neo-Darwinism are
exclusively scientific, making no reference to spirituality, writes Carter
Phipps in a readable, comprehensive article on the 12 theories in a journal
called EnlightenNext (formerly known as What is Enlightenment?)
For instance, one scientific theory highlights how cooperation is essential
to the evolutionary process. This school is championed by American
biologists such as Lynn Margulis, who shared her viewpoint with her late
husband, noted astronomer Carl Sagan.
Another scientific-mathematical approach to evolution is "complexity
theory," in which physicists such as Ervin Laszlo postulate that organisms
have a "self-organizing" ability.
A group of evolutionary psychologists also strongly oppose Dawkins's view
that selfish genes can explain everything. These social scientists are known
as "directionalists" because they see elements of purpose in life.
At the other end of the theoretical pole are those who emphasize spiritual
explanations for evolution.
One school is called Intelligent Design. It's typically proposed by
evangelical Christians who find "young earth" creationism too crude.
Another spiritual explanation for evolution is associated with the New Age
movement. It supports the esoteric form of evolution promoted in 1877 by
Madame Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy.
The final cohort of evolutionary theories creatively melds elements of both
science and spirituality.
The schools of thought in this category embrace both science and metaphysics in the name of developing a new synthesis on evolution. I'm drawn to how they discern both chance and purpose in the universe.
One of these evolutionary theories, "conscious evolution," is based on the
work of rebel Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It proposes
that humans are called to evolve in self-awareness. It has inspired everyone from Al Gore and Marshall McLuhan to Brian Swimme and Barbara Max Hubbard.
"Process philosophy" is another member of this group blending science and
spirituality. Biologists such as Charles Birch and progressive Christian
theologians such as John Cobb maintain the divine is "the creative advance
into novelty," the source of the universe's process of change.
A final group profiled in the helpful series on the 12 theories of evolution
is called "the integrationalists."
These thinkers follow the lead of philosopher Ken Wilber. They attempt to
thoroughly integrate science, developmental psychology and mysticism into a comprehensive form of evolutionary understanding.
It's my hope this fascinating array of evolutionary theories will soon
receive more media attention. But when will they be widely taught in
Canadian or American public schools and universities? Not likely soon.
The North American education system is not yet that evolved.