Back to Work: Confident Humilty

In a chapter I started on evolution I wrote:

The evidence for evolution comes from many areas of science. Because the evidence is gathered with the tools of science we can have confidence that it is accurate.  If the evidence is not accurate the self correcting nature of science will disprove it. 

After reading this my writing partner asked:

How does this fit with the concept of humility from the previous chapter?

He was referring to the following passage:

Humility is one of the most important things that I have learned about science, and that has ultimately helped me to continue to pursue science.  Humility in science reminds us that science is not perfect and it is limited in its scope. Good science in the purest form uses evidence to describe the natural world with natural causes.  Scientists strive for this every day and have been doing so for centuries. 

People have always been curious about the world around them and science, in a way, has always been useful in satisfying those curiosities.  That isn't to say that science has always done the best job at answering questions or even at following the guidelines described earlier in this chapter.  Some of the great benefits and great shortfalls of science come from who science is done by: people.  

While the discipline and nature of science is impartial, the reality is that science is done by people and people are not perfect. No matter what venture engaged in, people bring with them their own personal experience and bias that can color the conclusions they draw.  Science attempts to filter for these irregularities through methodology and peer review but I submit that science can never be 100% pure. 

This could have been a big discouragement to me when deciding if science was an acceptable co-author author of my life. However, the things I have learned about people and our relationship with God through the Bible, Church, pastors and friends, has encouraged me to pursue science with confidence. 

God makes it clear through the Bible that we are not perfect.  Sin has infected us in such a way that corrupts our hearts and minds so that we are guaranteed to mess up. But God also makes it perfectly clear that we are made in his image and we reflect his image to the world around us.  God is creative. God is intelligent.  A scientist reflects these same qualities.

As I reread the comments and reflect on what I wrote and the question it generated I wondered myself how the confidence of science is reconciled with the humility we are called to as Christians and the inherent humility I had recognized in science.  I couldn’t seem to articulate how the two were connected or what type of bridge brought the idea of scientific confidence and humility together. I did, however, remember that C.S. Lewis wrote on humility in The Screwtape Letters and I think his comments are pertinent.

Thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools...God wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. God wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love—a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own. C. S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters)

We can look on the cathedral of evolution that science has built, know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, with humility.  I was reminded in a recent excellent sermon (The Wisdom of God and Human Wisdom) that all truth is God’s truth whether articulated by an atheist or characterized by a Christian and that to deny that is the epitome of arrogance.

The Essentials: Observations in Brief

We have a very brief time here on Earth, so limited in fact that there are certain events that we have no possibility of perceiving.  The planet itself is a giant dynamic system that moves and shapes itself into continents, mountain ranges and expanses of ocean.  Unfortunately we don’t notice any of this stuff happening in front of us because we are not around long enough to see it unfold (in any significant way).  From birth to death the overall composition of the Earth is pretty much the same.  North America is an ocean away from Europe to the east and an ocean away from Asia to the west and has been for a really, really long time. 

While we can’t see the movements of the Earth in our lifetimes there are ways we can know that the continents have been otherwise arranged in the past.  Many people look at the world map and recognize that the continents look like they could fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.  In fact the continental boundaries that look like they fit together show evidence that at one point they really did.  As one example, similar rock layers and even fossils are found on the edges of separated continents where the land used to meet.  Modern laser guided, space based measurements show that continental movement is measured in centimeters per century so it is no wonder that we can’t see it happening in front of us.

Evolution faces a similar challenge because it occurs over extremely long periods of time.  When we look around we see a collection of animals, plants and other organisms that seem to always be the same.  Really in terms of the short time we are on Earth the collection of animals, plants and other organisms are pretty much the same. It takes a really long time for change to accumulate in a population just like it takes a really long time for an entire continent to drift thousands of miles away from land it used to be connected to. But just because there are challenges to observing super long term events doesn’t mean they haven’t happened or that they can’t be detected.

The Essentials: The Dawn of Dogs - Artificial & Natural Selection

Announcement:  I'm adding another topic to the list of typical evolution topics. New topic: What is survival and who are the fittest?

There are a lot of different types of dogs. Big dogs, little dogs, smart dogs, dumb dogs. Pretty much any characteristic you want in a dog you can get, as long as it already existed in a wolf.  All domestic dogs share a common ancestor with wolves. The story of early dog domestication from wild wolf relatives is pretty interesting and has close similarities to the natural selection process that drives evolution.  Before getting into the dawn of the domesticated dog age, a review of modern breeding basics will prove helpful. 

The methods for creating, and refining dog breeds are pretty straight forward. If you to want to breed a certain shape, size, or characteristic into a dog you simply faithfully select for that trait from generation to generation and allow that trait to accumulate more and more in the individuals of subsequent generations.  As an example, let's say you want to develop a really fast dog.  To get thing going quickly you could start by finding a pair of relatively fast dogs then mate them.  However, while pre-selecting for speed in the founding generation will surely help in your doggie development duties, it isn't necessary. To end up with faster and faster dogs you just have to choose the fastest dogs in each generation and continue to pair them with other fast dogs.  Following this simple method will result in faster dogs.  (Real breeders, those who are careful, keep detailed records of lineage in order to prevent family lines from crossing their own paths.  Aside from the cringe factor, inbreeding has some serious and negative genetic consequences that are worth the effort to avoid.)

Variety truly is the spice of life

Artificially selecting for particular traits has produced an incredibly wide variety of dogs but the key to the possibility of selective breeding is that there is inherent variety in every population of dogs.  Every litter will have slow, average, and fast dogs.  This universal variability is true for any population and isn't limited to speed.   Every trait imaginable is variable and is therefore selectable. This is one of the basic, yet revolutionary ideas Darwin described as he laid out his case for evolution.  Variability occurs naturally in populations and variability provides the raw materials for breeders, and nature, to select from.

Variability is what allowed dogs to be domesticated in the first place.  As I mentioned above all domestic dogs are descended from wolves. So what crazy breeder mated wolves and selected the ones most willing to wear sweaters and chase after tennis balls?  The easy answer is there was no breeder.*  The more tricky answer is that the wolves actually selected themselves for domestication.   

This may seem like a crazy idea but it is true and it all connects back to variability in populations.  Just as there are fast and slow dogs there are also skittish and trusting individuals in wolf populations.  Skittishness is a survival mechanism for wolves because it keeps them away from danger.   Trusting behavior has the potential to be very harmful.  Imagine throwing caution to the wind when approaching a dangerous animal. In many natural environments the possibility for being killed goes way up if you are too trusting.   However the natural environment is always changing and what was once an undesirable trait can actually become useful if the situation is right.  

In the case of wolf domestication the major environmental change that happened was the introduction of humans.  In the presence of humans a more trusting wolf will have a new food source open up in the form of human refuse.  To a skittish wolf the garbage pile just outside a human encampment would put them too close for comfort but to the trusting wolf the garbage is just in reach.  This extra source of nourishment increases the trusting wolf’s chance of survival and it will therefore be more likely to produce offspring.  Just like the dog artificially selected for speed by the breeder, the trusting wolf will be naturally selected by its increased ability to survive in the presence of this new food source.  As generations pass, the trusting trait will accumulate in the population and due to variability more and more trusting individuals will result. 

Of course the timid wolves haven't gone extinct because the trusting wolves have moved toward domestication.  As described above there are certainly advantages to being timid and the natural environment of the wolves will continue to provide selection pressures to increase their fitness for survival in that environment too.  

Final note: Wolves can't decide to be timid or trusting any more than I could decide to be 6'11 or have blue eyes. In artificial selection a thoughtful breeder chooses traits to survive from generation to generation.  These traits are available for selection because every population has variety.  Natural selection doesn't have a thoughtful breeder but rather uses survival as its selecting agent.  Traits survive on their own (naturally, if you will) if they help an individual survive and ultimately produce offspring.

* The easy answer is there is no spoon, oops Matrix flashback.  This sentence was originally in the essay but a very dedicated focus group was pretty sour on its inclusion so I promptly removed it.