Return to theology and philosophy page

Introduction

Religious writers blame science

Criticisms of science by religious fundamentalist mostly focus on the perceived deleterious effects of evolution. For example, John Morris, President of the Institute for Creation Research, recently declared, "Furthermore, evolution has evil fruits. The failed concepts of racism, fascism, Marxism, imperialism, etc., are all founded on evolutionary principles, as are the extant concepts of Freudianism, promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, drug use, etc." [Morris1997]. When Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis was asked in an interview with CNN if children are being harmed by lessons on evolution, he said, "Oh, absolutely. ... If there's no supernatural, if there's no absolute authority, if I'm just a product of death and violence in a struggle over millions of years, then who decides right and wrong? Who decides good and evil?" [CNN2000]. Jerry Bergman of Answers in Genesis, which operates the Creation Museum, further elaborates [Bergman1999]:

Of the many factors that produced the Nazi holocaust and World War II, one of the most important was Darwin's notion that evolutionary progress occurs mainly as a result of the elimination of the weak in the struggle for survival. Although it is no easy task to assess the conflicting motives of Hitler and his supporters, Darwinism-inspired eugenics clearly played a critical role. Darwinism justified and encouraged the Nazi views on both race and war. If the Nazi party had fully embraced and consistently acted on the belief that all humans were descendants of Adam and Eve and equal before the creator God, as taught in both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, the holocaust would never have occurred.

More recently, creationist Ray Comfort, declared, "Darwin was nothing but a blatant racist, a bigot of a man" [Comfort2008]. Along this same line, David Klinghoffer, a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute (the principal sponsoring institution for the intelligent design movement), associates the murderous excesses of Josef Mengele (of Holocaust fame) and Charles Manson with Darwin's legacy [Klinghoffer2009a; Klinghoffer2009b]. Benjamin Wiker, another Discovery Institute writer, blames Darwin for eugenics, Nazism, euthanasia and sex education [Wiker2004; Newton2010]. For additional details, see Creationism and Intelligent design.

Secular writers blame religion (and even science)

So do these claims (from both camps) have any substance? What are the real facts here?

Darwinism and the Holocaust

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.

(It should be added here that Hitler's profession of Christian belief in this passage should not be taken at face value, because from other sources it is clear that Hitler did not take Christianity very seriously.)

With regards to whether evolution inspired the eugenics movement, there may be some truth to this, but decades before World War II, biologists realized that human genetics was much more complex than earlier thought, and many scientists and defenders of evolution were speaking out against eugenics. As Clarence Darrow wrote, shortly after defending the teaching of evolution in the 1925 Scopes trial: "We have neither the facts nor theories to give us any evidence based on biology or any other branch of science as to how we could breed intelligence, happiness, or anything else that would improve the race." [Darrow1926]. Biological research has advanced considerably since Darrow wrote this passage, and numerous genetically-linked diseases and conditions have been identified. But the overall conclusion is the same as in 1925: the arena of human genetics is very complicated, and it is both futile and ethically questionable to attempt to "improve" the human stock by selective reproduction.

It is also worth pointing out that Darwinian evolution, as we currently understand it, argues against racism, both in the general sense of presuming that humans are utterly disconnected from the rest of the animal kingdom, and also in the more specific sense of presuming that some regional racial groups are fundamentally inferior. This is because recent in-depth studies of human genetics and DNA and have shown that humans are highly homogeneous, genetically speaking. Typically there is more genetic variation between members of a native tribe of, say, 100 members, than there is between a randomly-chosen set of 100 human beings scattered around the world.

Religion and religious wars

Some examples of decline

1. Internet fraud and porn. On one hand, the Internet has been huge benefit to society worldwide, bringing news and information, many times more than in any encyclopedia ever published, directly to the public, even in remote areas of the world that heretofore have been cut off from many of the amenities of the Western world. It has been a factor in toppling oppressive governments and exposing fraud. The Internet has been a huge boon to scientific researchers, the present author included.

   But the Internet and related information-processing technology also has a dark side. It has unleashed tidal waves of pornography, fraud and "Internet addiction" that show no sign of abating. For example, matrimonial lawyers report that excessive interest in online porn is a factor in half of all U.S. divorce cases [Divorce2010]. Even though some progress has been made recently in thwarting spam, 70.5% of all email is now spam [Liebowitz2011], much of which is utterly fraudulent -- enticing users to enter personal data into a phony website for identity theft, or to pay money in advance of a fictitious financial transfer, or, even more tragically, to meet a child abuser. In spite of numerous advances in anti-fraud and anti-spam technology, as well as campaigns to educate the public as to the potential dangers involved, serious problems continue [Whitney2009]. Along this line, many youth and young adults devote huge amounts of time to Internet-based distractions such as gaming and social networking, which time, in many cases, is crowding out time for homework and family involvement. A 2010 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation in the U.S. has found that young people spend on average 7.6 hours per day connected to one or more electronic media (often two or more simultaneously!), which is up a full hour from a similar study five years earlier [Kaiser2010]. This does not bode well for the future of the U.S. K-12 educational system.

2. Out-of-wedlock births. One other area of grave concern in modern society is the rising percentage of children born to unmarried women. In the U.S., this percentage has risen from just 10.7% in 1970 to 18.4% in 1980, to 28% in 1990, to 33.2% in 2000, and to 41% in 2010 [Health2010]. For births to American women under 30, fully 50% are now out of wedlock [DeParle2012]. These figures are even higher in certain nations of Western Europe, although there are some signs that they may have finally stabilized. Children born to unmarried women are more likely to grow up in poverty (particularly in the U.S.), have lower-than-average educational attainment and become unwed parents themselves, among other things, compared with children born to married couples. Some have said that high rates of unwed parentage are an inevitable feature of a highly technological, urban, and secular society. But this claim is countered by Japan, which is certainly highly technological, urban and secular, but where only 2% of children are born to unwed mothers [Ventura2009].

Other statistics: decline or not?

1. Crime. It is widely believed that crime, from minor burglary to serious violent offenses, is growing worse every year, and is prima facie evidence of societal disintegration and a wholesale breakdown of morality. Yet the facts point in quite the opposite direction. Indeed, the latest U.S. crime data has stunned even the most optimistic of observers. In spite of the worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression, with millions out of work and many others in desperate economic straits, violent crime in 2010 actually declined by 5.5% from the 2009 level, and the 2009 level declined by a similar percentage from the 2008 level. Property crime is also down, declining 2.8% in 2010 after a 4.6% drop in 2009. In fact, the 2010 overall U.S. crime rate is the lowest in 40 years, and is down by more than a factor of two since peaking in 1994 [Oppel2011]. Declines have also been seen in most other major western nations, although not as dramatic as in the U.S.

2. Divorce. One of the most commonly mentioned ills of modern society is a soaring rate of divorce. But here too the facts say something different. In the U.S., the divorce rate per thousand people peaked in 1981, and has declined ever since. Indeed, the divorce rate in 2005 (3.6 divorces per 1000 population) was the lowest since 1970. It is true that the marriage rate has also been declining, but even if one computes the number of divorces per married couples, here too the rate has fallen, from a peak of 22.8 divorces per 1,000 married couples in 1979, to only 16.7 in 2005 [Stevenson2007]. These figures are based on a 2007 study and data only up to 2005, but U.S. divorce rates since 2005 have continued the pattern of slow decline, according to the latest federal government data [National2011].

3. Teenage sex and birth. It is also widely believed that teenage sex and birth rates are exploding out of control. Yet a 2010 report from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics reported that the percentage of American high school students who have had sex (2007 data) is somewhat lower than in 1991 (47.8% versus 54.1%) [Parker2009]. Similarly, in 2010 the U.S. teen birth rate fell to 34.3 births per 1000 teens, a record low. This is a nine-point drop from 2009 and a whopping 28-point drop since 1991, when the rate was 62 births per 1000 teens [CDC2011].

4. Abortion. Some say that the teen birth rate is lower only because more young women are getting abortions. But the number of abortions in the U.S. peaked in 1991 at 24 per 1000 U.S. women aged 15-44, and has dropped since then to 16.1 [CDC2008].

5. Teenage alcohol, cigarette and drug use. Here again, the latest facts differ sharply from public perception. According to a 2011 report by University of Michigan researchers, only 12.7% of 8th graders reported any alcohol usage in the prior 30 days, which is down by nearly half from the 25.1% level in 1991. Among 10th graders, the figure is down from 42.8% in 1991 to 27.2% in 2011, and among 12th graders, it is down from 54% in 1991 to 40% in 2011. Even more dramatic declines have been seen in teen smoking -- in 2011, only 6.1% of 8th graders, 11.8% of 10th graders, and 18.7% of 12th graders reported any smoking in the prior 30 days, which are down from 14.3%, 20.8% and 28.3%, respectively, in 1991. Cocaine and crack usage have also declined sharply -- in the 2011 report, these rates were at the lowest levels since the study began tracking them. One area of concern is marijuana usage: in 2011, 7.2% of 8th graders, 17.6% of 10th graders, and 22.6% of 12th graders reported some usage in the previous 30 days, which figures are roughly the same as in 2003. But even these figures are down from 1997 when these rates peaked [Johnston2011].

6. War. It is widely believed that recent years have seen more violence and deaths due to warfare than ever before. Surely the 20th century, with tens of millions killed in two horrific world wars, must be the worst ever? In raw numbers, this is undeniably true. But if we normalize these statistics by population, then beyond the "blips" of the two world wars there is an unmistakable trend of decline. According to Harvard scholar Steven Pinker, "violence has been in decline over long stretches of time, and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence. ... [I]t's a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars and perpetration of genocides to the spanking of children and the treatment of animals." [Pinker2011a]. Pinker documents this phenomenon in detail in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined [Pinker2011b]. Other researchers have come to the same conclusion. For example, a new Canadian study confirms that since 2000, military conflict has killed 90 per cent fewer people each year than in the 1950s, and since the end of the Cold War 20 years ago there has been a 70 per cent decline in in the number of high-intensity conflicts [Reuters2010]. See also [Mueller2009].

7. Religious belief and participation. There is a widespread perception that church attendance and religious belief have significantly declined during recent decades. Indeed, according to a 2010 study, Americans 18-29 years of age are less likely to be affiliated with a particular faith than the older generation. But in other ways they remain fairly traditional. Beliefs in life after death, for instance, closely resemble those of the older generation, and more Americans 18-29 engage in daily prayer today than 20 years ago [Pew2010]. Similarly, a 1997 study of American research scientists (physicists, biologists and mathematicians) revealed that 40% of these scientists believe in God, a figure not significantly different than in 1916 [Angier1997].

8. Life expectancy. Even most die-hard pessimists acknowledge that people are living longer than in earlier decades and centuries, but it is widely believed that this increase has leveled off in the last decade or two, particularly in North America and Western Europe. Not so. The latest 2011 statistics from the U.S. government's Division of Vital Statistics indicate that life expectancy rose for the tenth consecutive year, to an average of 78.2 years, up from 70.8 years in 1970 [Kochanek2011]. The only blight on the U.S. picture is that its ranking among developed countries has slipped from 20th in 1987 to 35th today [Park2011]. Worldwide average life expectancy reached 70 years in 2010, fully ten years higher than in 1970, increasing from 56 years to 68 years in developing countries, and from 71 years to 80 years in developed countries. See also the next item for more details.

9. Worldwide living conditions. There is widespread concern that our global economy, while lifting up some, has condemned hundreds of millions of others to extreme poverty, particularly in light of the current worldwide economic recession. Weren't living and working conditions better, at least on average, before all the complications of the 21st century interconnected world? The United Nations tracks a Human Development Index (HDI), which is a composite of life expectancy at birth, mean and expected years of schooling and real gross national income per capita. According to the latest report, published in November 2010, in all but three nations (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe) of the 135 nations for which reliable statistics are known, the HDI index increased from 1970 to 2010. For example, worldwide average income per capita in 2010 was $10,760, which is twice the inflation-adjusted level in 1970. Over this 40-year period, income per capita rose in all but six nations worldwide, with increases averaging 184% in developing countries and 126% in developed countries. China's income per capita rose by an astonishing factor of 21 during this period. Similarly, worldwide literacy stood at 83% in 2010. Literacy rose from 50% to 81% in developing countries, and from 97% to 99% in developed countries. Not a single nation experienced a decline in literacy or years of schooling from 1970 through 2010. Child mortality rates dropped impressively -- 6.7 million fewer children died in 2010 than in 1970, with a total savings of over 260 million lives during this period. Infant mortality rates declined by 59 per 1000 live births from 1970 to 2005, almost four times the decline (16 per 1000) achieved in developed countries. Not only do these statistics paint a near-universal picture of economic progress (at least on a decade-to-decade time scale), they also document the fact that the gap between rich nations and poor nations is decreasing, a phenomenon the UN report termed "convergence," refuting the widely believed misconception that the gap is widening. For additional discussion and full details, see the UN report [UN2010].

   Along this line, in 2012 the World Bank reported that the numbers of persons living in extreme poverty (defined as less than USD$1.25 income per day) fell in every developing region from 2005 to 2008. Even in 2009 and 2010, in the midst of the most serious worldwide economic reversal since the Great Depression, worldwide extreme poverty rates actually fell further, confounding predictions by economists that such a deep recession in the western economies would wreak havoc in the third world [Lowrey2012].

The family is gathering around the hearth in the simple timber-framed house. Father reads aloud from the Bible while mother prepares to dish out a stew of beef and onions. The baby boy is being comforted by one of his sisters and the eldest lad is pouring water from a pitcher into the earthenware mugs on the table. His elder sister is feeding the horse in the stable. Outside there is no noise of traffic, there are no drug dealers and neither dioxins nor radioactive fall-out have been found in the cow's milk. All is tranquil; a bird sings outside the window.

Oh please! Though this is one of the better-off families in the village, father's Scripture reading is interrupted by a bronchitic cough that presages the pneumonia that will kill him at 53 -- not helped by the wood smoke of the fire. (He is lucky: life expectancy even in England was less than 40 in 1800.) The baby will die of the smallpox that is now causing him to cry; his sister will soon be the chattel of a drunken husband. The water the son is pouring tastes of the cows that drink from the brook. Toothache tortures the mother. The neighbour's lodger is getting the other girl pregnant in the hayshed even now and her child will be sent to an orphanage. The stew is grey and gristly yet meat is a rare change from gruel; there is no fruit or salad at this season. It is eaten with a wooden spoon from a wooden bowl. Candles cost too much, so firelight is all there is to see by. Nobody in the family has ever seen a play, painted a picture or heard a piano. School is a few years of dull Latin taught by a bigoted martinet at the vicarage. Father visited the city once, but the travel cost him a week's wages and the others have never travelled more than fifteen miles from home. Each daughter owns two wool dresses, two linen shirts and one pair of shoes. Father's jacket cost him a month's wages but is now infested with lice. The children sleep two to a bed on straw mattresses on the floor. As for the bird outside the window, tomorrow it will be trapped and eaten by the boy.

Conclusions

On the other hand, there is no room for complacency. Just because progress has been achieved in crime and other social ills for the past 15 years or so is no guarantee that these declines will continue -- they may reverse! And we may yet see serious large-scale warfare, genocides and other mayhem that will obliterate any notion of progress in civility. Also, it is important to note that current U.S. crime rates are still much too high. U.S. homicide rates, for example, are still five times or more higher than levels that have prevailed in much of Western Europe for many years [Pinker2011b, pg. 118-119].

With regards to crime, it is worth pointing out that many observers have credited significantly improved law enforcement for at least part of the decline. In New York City, for example, improved policing strategies have led to one of the most dramatic declines in crime in the U.S.: from 1990 to 2011, homicide dropped by 80%, burglary dropped by 86%, and auto theft dropped by 94% [Zimring2012]. On the other hand, to the extent that these declines are the result of improved law enforcement, this undercuts claims of fundamental improvements in morality among individual citizens.

Furthermore, from a larger perspective there are many serious challenges that urgently need our attention, ranging from a worldwide economic recession that has thrown many millions out of work, to long-term global warming, to the many biological species threatened with extinction, to the hundreds of millions of the human family that still remain in extreme poverty. Dealing effectively with these problems, many of them new to the 21st century, is certain to strain international economies and political relations, and may place new strains in the interface between science and religion. Along this line, society certainly needs to redouble efforts to educate youth, preparing them for a global information-focused economy, and to guide them through the ever-changing landscape of potentially destructive paths, ranging from alcohol, tobacco and drugs, to difficult-to-treat sexually transmitted diseases, to the serious personal and societal consequences of out-of-wedlock births. Note that education can help in many areas -- as noted above,

This is an arena where both science and religion can join hands in benefiting society. Science can study and document the dangers of social ills and our progress (or lack of progress) in combatting them. Religion can work with both youth and adults to help them recognize their obligations to society, both locally and globally, and to recognize the folly of resorting to violence and warfare to settle differences. Along this line, there is one bright spot in the report, mentioned above, that 50% of births to American women under 30 are out of wedlock: nonetheless women with a 4-year college education overwhelmingly still wait until after marriage before bearing children [DeParle2012]. Thus encouraging all young people, men and women, to become well educated, particularly in scientific disciplines, not only helps them become better informed and economically independent, but also helps ensure that the next generation of children are raised in ideal homes.

For additional discussion, see Morality, Progress and Violence.

References