Since the Dawn of Time: Two Hundred Years after Darwin's Birth, Scientists Still Can't Agree on Whether Evolution and Religion Can Happily Coexist

Jones, Dan, New Statesman (1996)

It has been the year of evolution. To coincide with the anniversaries of both Darwin's birth and the publication of On the Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins published The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence for Evolution. And Jerry Coyne (an eminent evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago) wrote Why Evolution Is True. Yet, amid the ongoing celebrations, a new storm has erupted. This is not the usual battle between creationist fundamentalists and evolutionists. The latest ruckus has broken out among scientists and philosophers who accept evolutionary theory as the explanation for the emergence of life's diversity.

Where they differ is on the public communication of science and evolution. Dawkins in particular is being rebuked for doing more harm than good to the public face of science. The basic claim--spelled out by the journalist Chris Mooney and the biologist Sheril Kir-shenbaum in their book Unscientific America, published in June--is that Dawkins presents an unnecessarily divisive choice: you can accept evolution and a scientific …

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Publication information: Article title: Since the Dawn of Time: Two Hundred Years after Darwin's Birth, Scientists Still Can't Agree on Whether Evolution and Religion Can Happily Coexist. Contributors: Jones, Dan - Author. Magazine title: New Statesman (1996). Volume: 138. Issue: 4974 Publication date: November 9, 2009. Page number: 38+. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale Group.

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