Today is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. In the Vancouver Sun, Douglas Todd writes of the 150-year-old conflict between religion and evolution science. Conservative Christians and Muslims say evolution clashes with their religious beliefs and must be wrong. On the other hand, Todd writes, "the majority of U.S. Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and mainline Protestants" generally agree with evolution.
Most Buddhists I know, me included, feel no conflict with evolution. Evolution seems compatible with Buddhist teaching that all life is interconnected and that all forms are always in flux. But Todd writes that in The Universe in a Single Atom, which I have not read, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote that "atheist scientists make a mistake when they argue life is purely random." Todd continues,
The Dalai Lama also says neo-Darwinists, who tend to believe in "the survival of the fittest," have trouble explaining the origins of altruism.
Even though Buddhists do not technically believe in a Creator God, they do join many Hindus, Jews and progressive Christians and Muslims in thinking that a kind of "Cosmic Mind" exists, providing the possibility of order in an otherwise chaotic universe.
I'm writing a bit in the dark because, as I said, I have not read The Universe in a Single Atom. Certainly Buddhism does not teach the universe is random. Karma, for example, is not random. However, karma is not a god, either.
Further, although I don't know if His Holiness actually wrote about a "cosmic mind," I want to address that. Through Zen I have a Taoist distrust of words. The Tao that can be talked about is not the Tao. The Buddha you meet on the road is not the Buddha. The mind, cosmic or otherwise, that can be named and conceptualized is not the Mind. Conceptualizing a "cosmic mind" is uncomfortably close to conceptualizing a Creator God, seems to me.
His Holiness's teachings on Dependent Origination make this clear. He said,
Firstly, the understanding of the principle of interdependent origination (pratityasamutpada) that is common to all Buddhist schools explains it in terms of causal dependence. 'Pratit' means 'to depend on', and 'samutpada' refers to 'origination'. This principle means that all conditioned things and events in the universe come into being only as a result of the interaction of various causes and conditions. This is significant because it precludes two possibilities. One is the possibility that things can arise from nowhere, with no causes and conditions, and the second is that things can arise on account of a transcendent designer or creator. Both these possibilities are negated.
Science studies what can be observed, measured and quantified. From a Mahayana perspective, science is about understanding the relative world of form and appearance. That it does not concern itself with the Absolute, dharmakaya, Buddha-nature, Nirvana, karma, or mind being the forerunner of things doesn't negate science any more than it would negate mathematics or medicine. Science has parameters; Buddhism deals with what is boundless. I don't see a conflict.
(Photo Credit: Library of Congress)
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It should be noted that scientists don’t teach that evolution just happens willy-nilly, either.
Here is a good link covering the major objections to evolution.
For some reason the link didn’t show. Here it is: http://skepticblog.org/2009/02/09/ten-major-flaws-of-evolution-a-refutation/
No Conflict for me either. Intelligent design and the evolutionary process go hand in hand. Imagine bothering to create what was unable to adapt, it would result in extinction without possibility of further propagation. Only limited minds seek to put limits on the capabilities of the divine.
Sukhmandir, it appears there is a conflict for those wedded to evolution theory a la Darwin do not accept “intelligent design.”
If you bring up ID in their presence, as I can attest, you will be verbally stoned.
They do not accept “bothering to create” in even the slightest manner.
Of course, I always give them pause by pointing out that intelligent design can be observed and verified by taking a look at the bio engineering that is going on in labs today.
Though this is logical, they simply pick up bigger rhetorical stones and throw them with more anger. lol
I find no conflict and am baffled by the vehement denouncement of “evolutionary theory” by so many religious adherents. Though it’s not the way I look at it, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to suppose that God chooses to “create” via evolution! I must frankly say I think that’s pretty silly, but I also say it’s not impossible. (Good old agnosticism at work again.)
I am a “bad” Buddhist in some ways. One is that I do not think that humankind is the pinnacle of existence. One brief look at what humans are capable of is enough to dis-convince me of such a notion. We may or may not be the only beings capable of achieving total awakening, but if we are, it’s sure not because of inherent goodness or even intelligence.
Maybe evolution is working on fixing this, though.
With all due respect to Greg Stone, I think he makes a false analogy between scientists engineering life in a lab and between evolution. His argument is just another version of the ancient “argument from design” that “intelligent design is based on”: just as a crafted object such as a bowl must have a maker, so people and other complex things must have a maker. But what the scientists are doing is merely trying to imitate in a short span of time a process that evolved over billions of years. They are not creators; they are imitators. Evolution is a process of the complex arising from the more simple. It seems to me that, though Darwin was no Buddhist, there is a sort of Buddhist feeling about the idea of evolution. Mr. Stone also seems to want to demonize those who do not believe in “intelligent design”, dismissing them with a “lol”. How unfortunate for him.
I had no intention of demonizing those who believe in ET.
I simply chuckled at the predictable manner in which a mention of ID in such quarters causes upset. Very emotional topic. (When one speaks of ID or creation, one must be prepared to duck.)
There was no analogy between ID and ET. I put forth the opposite.
ET says change occurs when random genetic mutations undergo natural selection. (ET is not simply change from simple to complex; it prescribes a specific path.)
ID says conscious design plays a role in change.
When one has a bio engineer modifying the genetics of a bio organism, one clearly has ID. One has a conscious, intelligent being designing genetic modifications.
ET advocates say there is only one way that change has occurred: natural selection of mutations. This is clearly incorrect as we have examples of change through ID.
Buddhism has no problem with ID, as Buddhism’s basic premise is that consciousness affects change in forms.
ET has no role for consciousness. None whatsoever.
Thus, there is contradiction between the two views. Which is why HHDL’s book was called ID, as a criticism, and why many tried to revoke his invitation to the neuro science conference.
As I noted, one must be prepared to duck.
Jon, maybe you are a good Buddhist.
Being attached to a human form was not considered to be the pinnacle by the Buddha either.
You have something in common. ***bowing***
I do not call my-self a Buddhist- however I do find great validity in the basic concepts per my observation and I think Darwin’s theories merge perfectly with the basic concepts of the inter-relationship of all beings/all things. I think Darwin too experienced a great enlightenment.
Greg — of course science doesn’t say anything about consciousness. Science builds theories around what is empirically observable, testable, measurable. Those are its parameters, just as the parameters of mathematics are quantity, space, volume, etc. Do we reject arithmetic because it doesn’t say anything about consciousness?
Mutations may or may not be random (someday someone may decide they aren’t), but the way mutation plus changes in environment cause the origin of species has an elegance to it; it is a beautiful example of cause and effect, and of he way this is because that is.
I have a big problem with ID, because it suggests a godlike being directing things. “Intelligence” and “consciousness” are not the same thing, according to Buddhist teaching.
Barbara, science does try to say things about consciousness, but so far does not do too well.
It was only in the ’90s that the discipline took off and became somewhat organized.
Science, as a whole, does need to look at c/s as that is the foundation of all science.
i.e. All science is based on observation. All observation is accomplished through conscious awareness. If anything, the problem with science has been a lack of understanding its foundations in consciousness.
One can take a narrow view of ID; or one can take a larger perspective and understand that design is the effect of consciousness interacting with forms.
In talking about karma, the Buddha does speak to the causes that lead to conditions.
At first, we may think of karma in a very narrow sense, but as we study the depth of the Buddha’s observations, we see that it also has a broader scope that takes on ontological significance.
~Greg: “One can take a narrow view of ID; or one can take a larger perspective and understand that design is the effect of consciousness interacting with forms.”
You may see that as a narrow view of ID, but that is the view most followers of it take. ID was created with the sole intention of it meaning a god-like being, being the one doing the creating, not anyone/thing on the Earth. ID was for the creation of the Earth and universe. Obviously no scientist’s actions on Earth can be compared on that scale.
So, the way you are trying to use ID is not the norm and accepted way to define it, which is possibly why you often have to duck. That said, I find your view on it much more acceptable and open-minded. I too don’t understand why religious folk feel evolution is an attack on religion or that it threatens their beliefs. So few of them don’t take an open-minded approach that could incorporate it into their beliefs.
Kendall, yes, the way I look at it is more Buddhist in that we address the nature of c/s and forms.
A recent and interesting twist is that the lead ET advocates (Dawkins and Crick) agree that an alternate view to standard ET is the idea the planet was seeded by intelligent beings.
The reason so many object so strongly to ET does not have to do with that which has been shown in evidence — rather the objection is to the extrapolation of the subject beyond the evidence in support of a materialistic world view.
The recent books by Dawkins and Dennett and a couple others, attacking religion, are a window into what those in opposition to ET see as the real agenda. I tend to agree with them on that score.
Am not sure if you are aware of the history of Social Darwinism, Social Biology, and Evolutionary Psychology but this is one area where people go off the evidence quite dramatically. This is where ET expanded comes into direct conflict with Buddhism.
One thing that I think complicates this whole argument is that people confuse ET and origins of life. ET does not speak to the origins of life per se and, therefore, does not speak to the existence or non-existence of a god or a creator.
The main problem I have with ID is its supporters’ insistence that it is science and should be taught in a science classroom setting. There is not now, nor do I believe there ever CAN be an experiment to prove or disprove the existence of god or ID. Sure you can demonstrate that certain biochemical processes don’t occur at random, but that’s because there are laws of physics and chemistry that dictate how things act at the molecular and atomic level. While one may BELIEVE (as I sometimes do) that those natural laws are an expression of god or intelligence or whatever, there is NO way to test that.
“neo-Darwinists have trouble explaining the origins of altruism”
Another example of creationists pumping the web full of lies, altruism has been well explained in the context of evolution. The evidence is there, do your research before trying to mislead anyone. Why is it >90% of online articles relating to evolution are written in this way? Could it be a marketing technique of theist corporations? Or is the majority so mislead they do it for them? “missing link” comes to mind.
David – since the offending sentence was actually written by Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun, and not anyone here, I suggest you complain to him about it. Thanks much.