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Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist

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Like the author of this book, I am both a Christian and an evolutionary biologist. As such, I welcome any contribution to the too-few voices calling for an end to the creationism/evolution controversy. And Roughgarden's book makes a good many valid and important points that I wish more people would notice. However, the book is undermined by its flaws.
Roughgarden's approach to the Bible seems to be "read it absolutely literally except the bits you find evidence against, and reject those bits completely." Such an inconsistent hermeneutic is hardly likely to impress many believers. It is possible to find, through sincere faith and careful scholarship, a consistent approach to Biblical interpretation that avoids both the narrow Bibliolatry of the literalists and the casual dismissal of theological liberals.
Roughgarden's presentation of evolutionary theory is strangely flawed. She does an excellent job of presenting the basic claims of evolutionary biology in her early chapters (her choice of "natural breeding" to replace the more familiar "natural selection" is a particularly excellent idea), and her critique of Intelligent Design is spot on (I only wish it were longer, there are even more problems with ID than she mentions-- but then, this is a short book so the brevity is appropriate). However she stumbles when she discusses the "problems" that social behavior creates for evolutionary biology, seeming to be entirely unaware of the substantial literature dealing with it and of principles such as inclusive fitness that address it. Roughgarden may disagree with inclusive fitness, but that's no reason to pretend that biologists are utterly at sea without even a suggestion to make. Following that, her chapter on sexual selection not merely stumbles but falls flat on its face. She presents a ridiculous straw man that has little to do with any actual sexual selection theory and concludes that evolutionary biology's approach to it is irredeemably flawed. Discussing the errors in this chapter would take a chapter in itself. In brief, she asserts that sexual selection theory requires mated pairs to be in competition while in truth their activity in producing offspring is cooperative. Indeed it is cooperative, but this has nothing to do with sexual selection-- which is over and done with by the time a mated pair exists. Sexual selection concerns the way in which organisms choose their mates: what selective forces influence how they will choose? What will be the effect of that choice on the evolution of the opposite sex? I doubt that Roughgarden actually believes that organisms exercise no choice in mating whatsoever, so her rejection of this area of theory is hard to understand. Perhaps her erroneous belief that sexual selection absolutely requires that females always be the choosy sex has something to do with it. She introduces this with a few examples of Victorian sexism from Darwin's writings, a source more than a century out of date, and then refutes them with counterexamples well known to, and well researched by, those who study sexual selection.
In fact, Roughgarden's chapter on sexual selection is so ludicrous it casts a pall over the entire rest of the book. As an evolutionary biologist myself, I can see that her earlier chapters are accurate despite this strange failure, but biologists who are skeptical of Christianity will likely react with the assumption that Roughgarden is too ill-informed to be taken seriously, while Christians skeptical of evolution may be impressed, but are being set up for a fall if they learn more later.
It is a pity that these flaws bring down what is an otherwise welcome voice crying "Peace!" We need more-- and need them to be more careful in both their theology and their science.

Joan Roughgarden, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford since 1972 and an active Christian in her Episcopal church, wrote this book, she says, to provide a succinct statement of exactly what evolutionary biology does and does not know, and how the Bible relates to that scientific knowledge. The book is short enough to read in a few sittings, has no footnotes at all, avoids bogging down in secondary literature on the subject, and is written at a level for people with limited knowledge of science. I especially appreciated her irenic spirit.

At its simplest level evolution teaches that all of life is related in one big family tree, and that species change over space and time through "natural breeding" (as opposed to artificial breeding, for example, that farmers and others do today). Because of random mutations in the genes that are passed on from the "original" to the "copies," changes occur, some of which are favorable and some of which are deleterious. These mutations are random, but whether the overall evolutionary process has any "direction" good or bad is hotly debated among evolutionary biologists, says Roughgarden. Finally, she thinks Darwin is badly wrong about universal sex roles in which aggressive males seek passive females in a competition of perpetual conflict. She believes that cooperation and interdependence (eg, an ant colony) are as important in nature as conflict.

Roughgarden insists that there need not be any conflict between science and religion, or that they need to be relegated to separate spheres (but see pp. 56, and 83 where she seems to qualify this). "Intelligent design," she believes, invents problems that don't exist, is hard to take seriously, and so is a "non-starter" for mainstream science. She consigns ID to "junk science" along with the many versions of "junk religion." As one might expect, Roughgarden shines when it comes to science, but less so on matters theological and Biblical. But this is still a gem of a little book for those, as she says, who need to come up to speed on the subject for a Sunday school class or school board meeting, and it is heartening for a well-placed biologist like her to publish such an unapologetic confession of Christian faith.

Joan Roughgarden's book on evolutionary science and Christian faith is nothing short of delightful. The "priest theologian" who trashed this book in his review missed the point of this work entirely. It is brief, written in a folksy, conversational tone, as though one were sitting down with a fellow parishoner who happens to be a brilliant evolutionary biologist. I was stunned by the simplicity and clarity of Roughgarden's explanation of evolutionary thought stripped of the language of scientific privilege. Excellent science writers like Richard Dawkins and John Gribben can't approach the elegance of her descrptions of the core evolutionary principles: all life is related, through natural breeding, populations tend to become like the members who breed the most, etc. These descriptions are designed to be accessible to those who are unfamiliar with the language of evolutionary biology and whose sensibilities are shaped by a biblical vocabulary. Given Roughgarden's stature as a scientist, this is a wonder indeed.

In the process Roughgarden shows the unsustainability of Stephen Jay Gould's sterile "seperate magesterium" approach and Richard Dawkins proclivity to bash relgion by taking the name of science in vain. But all of this is done with characteristic gentleness. In fact, the prevailing tone of this little volume is love. If it's true that we can only understand what we love, Roughgarden is on a path to deep understanding here at the intersection of science and faith. This book is, in the best sense of the term, an exercise in devotion: to science and to faith.

That scientists may take exception to Roughgarden's critique of her own science while theologians may disagree with her critique of her own faith tradition is to be expected given the ferment in each of these worlds these days. Roughgarden is to be thanked for wading in where angels fear to tread. It's no accident, I think, that Roughgarden was raised by Anglican missionaries. This little book betrays the effort of one who has chosen to walk the middle way, between two worlds, conversant in each for the sake of love. Her missionary parents would be proud one imagines, this being a conversation desperately in need of a little less vitriol and a lot more love. Reviewed by Ken Wilson, Senior Pastor Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor.

Joan Roughgarden, Evolution and Christian Faith (Island Press, 2006).

Joan Roughgarden is an immensely talented and creative Stanford University evolutionary biologist who, like millions of other people, is a practicing Christian. Like many scientists of all faiths, Roughgarden finds God in nature, and rejoices in the diversity, beauty, and charm of the natural world. "We can rejoice as Christians in the ethical meaning behind what evolutionary biologists are increasingly finding. I've be exhilarated by this personal realization, and I hope you will be, too." (p. 5) Roughgarden is most critical of the fundamentalist Christians who see evolution as the enemy of faith, and the "selfish-gene" biologists, who view evolutionary biology as proving the non-existence of God. "I believe scientists need more sympathy and willingness to accommodate people of faith," says Roughgarden, "to offer space for seeing a Christian vision of the world within evolutionary biology and not force people to accept a doctrine of universal selfishness as though established scientific fact." (p. 12)

Roughgarden describes evolution as saying (a) all life belongs to one huge family tree; (b) species change over generations; and (c) animal behavior is more about cooperation helping than competition and conflict. She stresses the harmony of this view with the Christian Bible, noting St. Paul's stress on the sacred significance of the material unity of all life, the absence of anything in the scriptures that denies the mutability of species, and the Christian ethic of community. She closes the book with a passage from Matthew 22: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind... That shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

One of Roughgarden's aims in this short book is to develop evolutionary theory in a more detailed way than is usually done by those who address the science vs. faith issue. She identifies the central evolutionary dynamic in the phrase "natural breeding leads to an improvement of the stock" (p. 50) She uses the term "natural breeding" rather than Darwin's term "natural selection," because she wants to stress that the process of transmitting genes from one generation to the next is a product of the care of the parents as much as the competition among offspring. Roughgarden explains Fisher's Fundamental Theorem, which she interprets as expressing the basically progressive nature of evolution, as expressing a natural tendency for the improvement of populations over time. Roughgarden does mention the critiques of Fisher's theorem, which she attributes to "biologists skeptical of the idea that evolution has a direction." (p. 51) I find this attribution of philosophical "ulterior motive" to the critics to be an excess of proselytizing zeal that compromises her commitment to science. I do not know if Moran's classic 1964 paper criticizing Fisher was motivated by skepticism or not, but I am sure that Moran was correct and the subsequent efforts of brilliant population biologists in qualifying Fisher's Theorem and setting it right was not motivated by philosophical concerns surrounding the "progressive" nature of evolutionary dynamics. Roughgarden expresses the belief that the exceptions highlighted by the critics rarely occur in nature. I believe she is incorrect in this assessment because of the ubiquity of non-additive genetic interactions. Nevertheless, I would not deny that there is a progressive thrust to natural selection.

Roughgarden is duly critical of the intelligent design movement, on the grounds that intelligent design and evolution are compatible theories: both could be right, both could be wrong, or either one could be right and the other wrong. Because intelligent design does not present any evidence in favor of its theory, and because even if its critique of evolution were correct this would not increase the probability that intelligent design is correct, Roughgarden rejects intelligent design. I find this a very ingenious and attractive treatment of the intelligent design movement.

Of course, Roughgarden does not believe there is any truth to the intelligent design movement's critique of evolution whatsoever, but she presents her own laundry list of critiques of contemporary evolutionary theory, all of which are interesting and possibly valid. Her general problem (see Chapter 9) is that Darwinian evolution overemphasizes the "individual" and "competition" and underemphasizes the "community" and "cooperation." This critique does not ring true to me. I learned evolutionary theory when I was already a seasoned social scientist, and saw immediately that it provided the tools for understanding both human cooperation and competition. I do not feel that I have ever been misled into a Social Darwinist direction by the careful study of evolutionary biology at all. Of course, my work has been bitterly criticized by the "selfish gene" and "anti-multilevel-selection" school that is the object Roughgarden most serious barbs, but I do not find that evolutionary theory lends any particular support to the position of these critics. I suspect that their criticisms of me, when untrue, are a desperate and almost comical attempt to defend an indefensible biological tradition in which altruism was a dirty word.

Roughgarden also criticizes the standard depiction in evolutionary theory of females as "coy" and highly concerned with the quality of their sexual partners and males as "promiscuous" and concerned only with maximizing their total number of inseminations. Her argument is quite worth reading and she may be correct. But I think she has it mostly wrong.

For most sexually reproducing species in which anisogamy holds (i.e., the female gamete--the egg---is many orders of magnitude larger than the male gamete---the sperm) the cost of gamete production is much lower for males than females, so it is likely that the former will value the number of copulations more than the quality of each mate's gamete contribution. Moreover, in mammals, the extent of female contribution to the offspring is generally much higher than that of the male, so this asymmetry is even more pronounced than in other sexually reproducing classes. Of course, there are several species where the males care for offspring rather than females, but these are almost exclusively in fish, and less often in birds.

As a result of their greater investment in gamete production and offspring care, females look for males with high quality genes, and males attempt to pass themselves off has having high quality genes by hook or by crook. This is an inevitably competitive interaction among males for access to females, and involves a conflict of interest between males and females: the female wants the highest quality sperm, and the male (rare cases excepted) is willing to impregnate females independent of the quality of their genes. Roughgarden stresses the cooperative nature of the breeding relationship between male and female once they have mated: they then have a common interest in having their offspring live to reproductive age. However, she undervalues the conflictual character of mate choice. In addition, except is certain species, after impregnation, males do better by abandoning their mates in favor of seeking new mating opportunities rather than participating in raising offspring.

Roughgarden directs her criticism of mating behavior to what is known as "sexual selection" theory, which attempts to account for that fact that males of a species are often highly decorated (Darwin's peacock' tail) by a theory of "runaway selection" of the following form (elaborated upon analytically by Fisher): females come to prefer males with decoration for no fitness-relevant reason, but once this preference exists, it is better to mate with a colorful male because the male offspring will be more colorful and hence have enhanced mating chances, even if the cost of decoration to males is fitness reducing. I have done a fairly thorough study of this phenomenon and as far as I can tell, it does not exist, either in a plausible theory or in empirical observation. Moreover, most population biologists do not believe in runaway sexual selection at all, but rather believe that male decoration is a costly signal of possessing high quality genes. Thus, I do not thing there is much to Roughgarden's critique of sexual selection that we do not already know.

I should add that the general public finds runaway sexual selection extremely attractive, and there are numerous authors who have asserted that humans have this or that characteristic (e.g., musicality and intelligence for males, big breasts and wide hips for females) because of sexual selection. There is little support for such notions in the serious professional literature, and Roughgarden is rightly exasperated with such arguments.

I should also add that the fact that in many species the "coy" female and the "promiscuous" male stereotype is fairly accurate does not mean that it holds for all species. It certainly does not. There has been some attempt to claim that it holds in humans, and to use this difference between human masculinity and femininity to account for the sex differences in human society (especially the fact that women prefer rich and powerful men and men prefer young and nubile women). I do not find this argument at all persuasive. The problem is that there is an equally plausible explanation in terms of patriarchal culture and the remnants thereof. There may of course be differential innate predisposition in men and women concerning nurturance, family values, and the like, but observed difference are most likely do to acculturation and male/female status differences rather than genes. I would not be surprised if it turns out that most male-female behavioral differences in human society are highly attenuated or eliminated in the context of a gender-neutral culture. However, if differences remain, I suspect they will be in conformance with the relative investment in gamete theory which, although of doubtful relevance in today's world, was of prime importance in our evolutionary history.

I think the most valuable aspect of this book is Roughgarden's demonstration, through a sort of low-tech biblical exegesis, that a belief in the teachings of Jesus, as laid out in the New Testament, is not in conflict with evolutionary theory. She throws in for good measure (though limited relevance) that homosexuality, bisexuality, trans/ambiguous gender, and other aspects of modern life that liberate us from gender stereotypes are neither modern, nor prohibited by the Bible, nor absent from the non-human animal world. All that for only $15.00. Pretty hard to beat.

This is a badly needed book. An eminent biologist and ecologist at Stanford relates her Christian faith to Darwinian evolution. She carefully examines the "Intelligent Design" movement, concluding that it is not science and hurts Christianity. On the other hand, she also describes aspects of evolutionary theory that remain inadequate and others that are probably wrong. She does not pretend to be a theologian - just an active Episcopal parishioner whose parents were missionaries. She speaks to other Christians in the pews, helping them to see how the Bible is not antagonistic to evolutionary theory, but in fact supports it in many ways. She also tries to stop the name-calling between certain proponents of science and of Christianity. Hers is a breath of fresh air for those confused about whether religion and science need to be walled off in separate camps. Along the way she gives a clear explanation of what exactly evolutionary biology does and does not claim and a compelling statement of personal faith.

Overall, I found this book to be good. Her perspective on the biology, geology, and unsolved parts of evolution are excellent. It is fairly familiar as an overview of what evolution is and the general state of the thought. The theology is a bit off at points though it is generally clearer than most academics who attempt to reconcile their discipline with the Bible and the Christian faith in someway. Suppose that's going to depend on your denomination as it informs your theology and what you consider literal and figurative. I am informed by a Reformed Presbyterian perspective, which has significant pockets where evolution can be accomodated to the text of Genesis with not problem. I personally don't take a literal six-days and not necessarily even the old age (YOM) instead of day in sequential order as the author does. I am more inclined to think of Genesis of a framework with parallels between days 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6. Plus, I find her fair and broad as she quotes John MacArthur to the Pope and a variety of theological perspectives (not in much depth and mainly in how they relate their scientific views).

Either way, I think this is a valuable contribution to this dialogue. She's not as hard on atheistic scientists and their dogma as is warranted. I didn't notice a reference to your garden variety clowns like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, for example, or any criticism of their vitriol and needless antagonism of everything and anything Christian. The lack of a willingness to take the atheist scientists to task is why I gave this book four stars instead of five. It's always easy to rip on the Fundamentalists. But if you're going to take a stand like this you need to rip "the professionals" as well. By casting this discussion into black and white, they're as much a part of the problem as anybody.

For those who want to accept that evolution is a fact that doesn't render Christianity untenable, this will be enjoyable and thoughtful. For people who view science as all there is to know, and the rest as mere speculation, this will not be an enjoyable book. Perhaps you can endlessly rehash 19th century materialistic philosophies, the Scopes Monkey Trial, and Intelligent Design in your own mind as the rest of us continue to think.

I found the book to be short, clear and very readable, with an engaging style and touch of humor. The book adds to the growing, international constructive dialogue between evolutionary biologists and people of faith in the Christian tradition. It is written from the position of a scientist in the "pews" and is not a theological treatise. It is concerned mostly with telling how basic evolutionary fact and theory are not inherently hostile to Christian belief. It draws extensively on the biblical text, and can be thought of as continuing a tradition of "metaphorical theology" where biblical passages are located to supply metaphors for contemporary theological writings. Roughgarden avoids envisioning a deistic god who merely sets the world up and lets it go unattended from there on. She suggests that God is immanently present in nature and guides evolution at the "natural breeding" (or natural selection) stage of the evolutionary process, as described in biblical passages pertaining to how God molded the livestock of the farmer Jacob in Genesis 30. She also introduces the concept of randomness in mutation by citing the mustard-seed parable of Matthew 13. She is justifiably critical of intelligent design, as much for theological reasons as for scientific ones. It is interesting to read Roughgarden's book as revealing what the issues are that biologists wish to have addressed in the dialogue. A theologian might wish to have had other issues discussed as well, including the problem of suffering in nature and God's relation to it, but that is for the future. For now, this book is a helpful new offering from a biological standpoint to the ongoing constructive dialogue between evolutionary biology and Christian theology.

Unlike Christopher Tissone, I found Dr. Roughgarden's work to be unpretentious and celebratory. As a Christian who has emerged from fundamentalist circles, I understand the vicious tactics employed by some individuals who proclaim to be endowed with the love of Christ. Nowhere is that vicious element more bombastically spewed than in the discourse over science and its relationship to religion. On the other hand, I have encountered a number of academics who are equally determined in their efforts to sponge any evidence of religion from the public domain. "Evolution and Christian Faith" is not intended to elaborate on the full spectrum of Christian apologetics. It doesn't have to do so to achieve the goal of its author--namely, to proclaim her love of God in light of her powerful understanding of science. Dr. Roughgarden is far more than a chalk-board "scientist" after the ilk of Dawkins and others. She understands fully the concept of scientific inquiry and laboratory research. I challenge you to place her scientific credentials side by side with any of the pseudo-scientists like Dawkins whose conclusions are based on overarching premises.

I think that Dr. Roughgarden takes the "assumptions of fundamentalists" quite seriously. Unlike most scientists, she actually addresses them. She does not profess to be the next St. Thomas Aquinas spinning an entirely new dynamic of theology out of the ash heap of our current media-driven history. Rather, she starts with what she knows, and knows VERY well--the nature of science and the fingerprint of the God she loves that is so evident within it. Unlike Dawkins, she does not claim that God can be contained by a convoluted, circular system of closed assumptions. She invites the reader to share the liberty afforded by her faith and her strong scientific knowledge. Dr. Roughgarden's greatest premise is an unbroken chain of occupied by all of God's creation. The elements of time and change infused within evolution in no way dispense with the Divine imprint. Rather, they exemplify the magnanimity of the creative process even further than a literalist can comprehend.

I do not see Dr. Roughgarden being demeaning or dismissive of those, like Dawkins, who ernestly seek to superimpose a fundamentalist worldview on the lens of scientific inquiry. But she gives her opinion, and it is quite an informed opinion, I might add. Speaking as a Christian, and simply as a Christian who has the polarization of faith and religion in a very personal arena, I found Dr. Roughgarden's book to be a refreshing alternative to the dry and unloving responses of those who fail to capture the essence of her thesis. Every book represents its author's lens. If you disagree with the way the world looks when applying that lens to your own worldview, you are certainly free to choose another lens to your liking. I, for one, as a lay Christian who is absolutely frustrated with pedantic arrogance, find Dr. Roughgarden's lens a celebration of the full spectrum of God's power. Far from being a book that reinforces a dry belief that God is not involved in His creation, she celebrates the fact that we are all joined in every atom of our being to a universe filled with His wonders!

This was an impressive book. Dr. Roughgarden has a thorough knowledge of biology and applies Biblical texts in an innovative and intriguing manner. Unfortunately his approach has a bit of the idiot savant to it, as he hits on new theological ideas, yet misunderstands major theological approaches.

I was blown away by the first two-thirds of this book. Dr. Roughgarden gives the basics of evolution in a way easily understandable by those who know nothing of biology. He is obviously an excellent teacher and makes evolution a joy to understand. Rather than taking the more common approach of looking first at the science, and then at the religion, Dr. Roughgarden integrates the two, looking at different areas of this controversy from all angles simultaneously. Evolution and Christian Faith is therefore one of those books making it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled Christian and a spiritually fulfilled evolutionist.

I particularly enjoyed Dr. Roughgarden's use of Biblical analogy to explain basic evolutionary principles, such as Jesus' discussion of those who do not bear fruit being cut off being basic similar to natural selection. Likewise he uses Jesus' words and Biblical texts to prove that a literal interpretation of Genesis and the Bible is contrary to Jesus' teaching. This is a novel approach that I have not seen documented before. Dr. Roughgarden then proceeds to completely demolish the hypothesis Intelligent Design as bad science and worse theology.

However, it is here that he begins to make some basic theological errors, as his training truly is in biology, and not theology. While he accepts the possibility of the miraculous, and rightly discounts the value of the miraculous within species formation, he misinterprets or ignores basic scriptural interpretations of the miraculous as sign. More significant are Dr. Roughgarden's errors in the chapter on sex. It seems like his arguments on homosexuality are directed at the classic scriptural arguments of those like Rush Limbaugh, rather than the underpinnings of most theologians. In the process Roughgarden seems to bend over backwards to apologize for his textual positions, drastically distorting the original meaning, or at least ignoring the most obvious interpretations of the Greek.

While these are significant flaws in the last third of the book, I would still recommend this text for every personal library. Dr. Roughgarden's ideas are truly innovative and a tremendous advance for understanding evolution from the Christian perspective. He even has some intriguing critiques of evolution, suggesting that a larger focus on cooperation rather than competition would improve the theory and give a better fit for the evidence. With this book it is now no longer only an argument of if evolution is true or false, or even how our theology can be revamped with knowledge of evolution. Here we now simply accept evolution as fact, and then look to understand our scriptures from that perspective. Evolution has become theologically normative.

Many who don't find their own particular brand of theology or scriptural exegesis reflected as prominently in this book as they would like will rush to criticize it for not being what they would have written.

Nevertheless, this slim, focused book is well worth reading: for anyone with an interest in either Christianity or biological science.

It is a working life-scientist's thoughtful, careful consideration of how the core principles of evolutionary biology and the core truths of Christian faith can not only coexist in the same mind and heart, but actually complement and enrich one another.

It's not to be missed.