It seems that 2009 is a year of anniversaries. It’s the 200th anniversary of the birth of famous evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin. It’s also the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Islamic revolution, and 20 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But what do all these dates have in common?
Let’s start with Darwin. The theory of human evolution marked the end of the 2,000-year-old literal belief that mankind was created in the image of God. Henceforth, the Genesis story would return to the realm of myth and the physical and human sciences would replace mythology as the arbiter of human affairs. Darwin’s discovery was a triumph for science and reason over superstition and ignorance, clearing the way for the ground-breaking research in molecular biology and genetics that is underway today.
The scientist and author Richard Dawkins is perhaps one of the most illustrious inheritors of Darwinian science. Dawkins, among others, holds that science has refuted the claims of religion. A belief in the ability of science to explain the world will, he claims, lead to the ultimate disappearance of religion in advanced western societies. Dawkins’ brand of scientific atheism is particularly positive about the future. Science holds the key to progress, he believes, and he urges all to share in this belief.
Dawkins has been described by some of his critics, most notably the philosopher John Gray, as an evangelical atheist. He wants us all to see the light and abandon our irrational notions. But more importantly, he wants us all to invest our faith in science and its promise of progress. However, according to Gray, this belief in progress is “more an article of faith, than a theory based on evidence.”
In his books, Gray has repeatedly made the point that scientific thinking has often culminated in war, genocide and destruction to no lesser degree than that of religious thought. The scientific belief in the emancipatory power of science is, says Gray, a delusion comparable in absurdity to the substitution it seeks to subvert. Just as Christians see history as a movement towards the final judgement day when the world will be saved, evangelical atheists see the march of history culminating in the incandescent light of absolute knowledge.
There has also been a curious complicity between the irrationality of science and religion. The growth of science has culminated in the creation of weapons of mass destruction. The United States is an example of the nefarious combination of both forms of thinking. America is a world leader in technology and yet deeply religious. This is also where Iran comes in. Although Islam rejects the theory of evolution, Iran’s Islamic revolution was inspired by western secular precedents.
Moreover, the rise of Islam since the seventh century was accompanied by extraordinary accomplishments in science. The period of Islam’s emergence, writes the historian Seyyed Hosein Nasr, was “without doubt the golden age of Iranian history in the domain of the sciences, particularly medicine and mathematics. To this period belong those Persian scientists who stand among the foremost stars in the firmament of the history of science to this day.”
This brings us to that other celebration this year: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of so-called democracy in Europe. Perhaps in 30 years’ time we will celebrate the fall of capitalism or the end of social Darwinism – the idea that the only possible form of society is one where the fittest thrive and the weakest perish. Perhaps the Jewish lobby in America will also have disappeared along with their secretly anti-semitic Christian supporters bent on witnessing Armageddon in the Holy Land. Perhaps we will celebrate 30 years of Israeli-Palestinian peace. The history of hope says ‘yes’ to this thought, the history of reason says ‘no’. It is sad to imagine that never the twain shall meet.
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