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Charles Darwin

My Lords, like other noble Lords I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for this very timely debate. No one can read the Origin of Species without being struck first and foremost by the massive integrity and honesty of Darwin. He always admits where he does not think that the evidence is yet totally compelling, particularly the finding of fossils of intermediates. He says that he wants to face the strongest case against his own theory. He is no polemicist simply trying to win an argument for its own sake. He is always modest and courteous. But he had this deep and justified conviction that the evidence that he had accumulated over the years provided a basis for a theory of a vast explanatory power. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was quite right to emphasise that it was a theory. It has been modified since then and no doubt it will be modified in the future. Nevertheless, it is a theory of vast explanatory power that has shaped the outlook on life of everyone here in the Chamber this afternoon. Darwin was not alone in believing in evolution or natural selection but, as the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, explained so well and so rightly, what he brought to it in a way that no one else did was his painstaking, persevering observation—not just in the Galapagos, as we know, but mainly in this country. There was year after year of very careful and accurate observation that provided a sound scientific basis for his theory. Above all, I want to celebrate Darwin as a wonderful model of good scientific method. I have been privileged in recent years to work with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. As a result, I have worked with some of the leading life scientists in the country. I have come to have huge respect for people working on the cutting edge of science who show the same truthful, honest, persevering approach to the work as Darwin. Einstein once referred to the miracle—his word—that the universe was intelligible. To inject a theological note into the debate at this stage, this intelligibility of the universe, which is not invented by us but it is discovered and explored by us, has its basis in the fact that there is an ultimate intelligibility behind it—what the great religions of the world call the divine wisdom, the divine word or divine rationality in and through all things. It is that approach reflected in trying to grasp the truth of things that I want to celebrate in Darwin and elsewhere. Another aspect of his integrity is that he never claimed more for science than science could yield. As has already been quoted, only three years before his death he said that it was quite absurd that you could not be what he termed an ardent theist and at the same time be an evolutionist. It is true that he gradually lost his faith: it was gradually undermined by his experience of suffering in life, particularly the death of his most beloved daughter. He probably did die an agnostic. Historians of science note how very quickly the theory of evolution was accepted by the Christian public in Britain in the 19th century. At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford in 1860, the preacher was Frederick Temple, later to become Archbishop of Canterbury. He said that God created over a long period of time through secondary processes and through natural causes. Darwin himself was buried in Westminster Abbey to the great pleasure of the Church. Among the committee raising money for his monument were the two archbishops and the Bishop of London. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, quoted that famous story about the debate between Wilberforce and a previous Bishop of Oxford. I have to say with some sadness that that story was put out by Huxley some 40 years after the event and that actually nobody quite heard what went on. A great deal of research has gone into that meeting and what has been discovered reveals something rather different from that wonderful story. It is a pity that some of the best stories are not true, but we are in the business of truth this afternoon so I have to say that. I had the pleasure on the actual anniversary of Darwin's birth to debate with the latter-day Huxley in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and a very good occasion it was. I had to say to him then, as I have had to say to him so many times before, "My dear Richard, there are so many good arguments against religion. Don't keep dragging science into it", but some people seem to remain unconvinced. Richard Dawkins and I have worked together, as we all need to do in order to get proper science taught in schools, particularly in the area of creation. It is worrying how many people in our society are still sceptical about the theory of evolution. Theos, which recently conducted a survey on this, found that 25 per cent of the population actively disbelieve the theory of evolution and a further 25 per cent are sceptical of it. There is clearly a massive amount of educational work to be done. Some of this hostility to the theory of evolution comes from people who read their Scriptures in a rather literal way, whether they are Muslims or Christians or perhaps even Jews. This has to be faced in a patient and persevering way, trying to put forward the best scientific evidence. Of course, if some of the fair number of young people who take this point of view raise questions in class, those questions must be addressed. When Professor Bob Reese, who was the education officer for the Royal Society, said that of course evolution must be taught in schools, but if pupils raise a question from a creationist point of view it must be answered, he spoke for every single teacher in the country. I leave it at that. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, drew attention to the fact that you cannot derive an ethical viewpoint from your scientific work, which was echoed by others; the basis of your ethics must be derived from elsewhere. However, it is interesting that we are in a different position on ethics from Darwin and his contemporaries in one respect. We now know that co-operation plays a significant role in the evolution of species. Nature is not just red in tooth and claw but also involves co-operating within a particular organism and between organisms. Sometimes reciprocal altruism, as with bees and flowers, is part of the process of evolution. Even apart from that, however, we need to derive the basis of our ethical, as well as religious, view from elsewhere. Finally, I celebrate Darwin as a wonderful model of good scientific method. Like other noble Lords, I hope that we will continue to produce scientists with the same characteristics that he showed, and that science with those characteristics will be taught to the children in our schools.