Closing on a note of conciliation: on the attempt to reconcile science and religion at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origins

ABSTRACT

Commentary on the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origins often omits a closing exhibit wherein three scientists speak about the nature of faith and evolutionary science. Two prior reviews of this exhibit criticize an effort to conciliate patrons and avoid controversy, a charge that is, in part, substantiated by an accompanying plaque disclaiming any inherent conflict between “scientific explorations into the material world and a spiritual search for the meaning of human existence.” Written plaques are reinforced by three scientists on continuous loop, two of whom are professed Christians whose views might be faulted for abstracting humans from the animal kingdom, granting to religious metaphysics what has been explained by evolution, and implying a purposeful teleology where none exists. Eschewing these points of criticism, this paper pursues the divide between the exhibit’s conciliation and scientific opinion. Inclusion of two prominent theistic evolutionists implicitly biases public perception, as previous authors charge. Here, criticism might rest, except for decades of evolutionary explanations of human brains and behaviors. With advances in behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary biology, there are compelling reasons to understand religion itself to be a product of evolution, as do the majority of life scientists. Unfortunately, this museum video, operating without reference to sociobiological explanation, continues, like Stephen Jay Gould, to parse religion and science into independent magesteria.

KEYWORDS:

• American Museum of Natural History
• theistic evolution
• evolution
• teleology
• bias

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Steven C. Hertler held the post of Adjunct-Assistant Professor of Psychology in the College of New Rochelle, and currently teaches classes at the College of Saint Elizabeth and Caldwell University, both located in New Jersey. Focusing on personality, evolutionary ecology, comparative psychology, and theoretical sociobiology, he has served as the sole or principal author for 18 peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as contributing to several Sage and Springer Encyclopedias. Dr. Hertler is the author of The biological backstory of coming apart: The state of White America 1960–2010 and co-author of the forthcoming The rhythm of the west: A biohistory of the modern era, AD 1600 to present.

Notes

1 The other speaker I later found was Eugenie Scott, a renowned anthropologist who has served as the National Center for Science Education’s executive director. Unlike Miller and Collins who seem to have started as atheistic scientists and grown into their faith, Scott’s pursuit of science corresponded with her relinquishment of faith. Scott therefore is a different, and much less skewed, representation of the scientific community. On the other hand, Scott, even while not believing, is perhaps extreme in her insistence of separating science from the metaphysical beliefs that it produces.

2 http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx.

3 These four can be seen in debate at the following link, which was available at the time this article was written: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1kkeSy25wE. Francis Collins has been introduced, but the reader may not be familiar with the three other persons named above. Benjamin Carson is a celebrated neurosurgeon and devout Christian, famous for separating conjoint twins. Richard Dawkins is the evolutionary biologist best known for authoring books such as The selfish gene, The god delusion, and The extended phenotype, and who recently served as the University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science. Lastly, Daniel Dennett is an atheist philosopher of cognitive science and evolution authoring such books as Darwin’s dangerous idea, Breaking the spell, and Freedom evolves.

4 http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/eo-wilson-on-ants-and-god-and-us/903761.

5 Group selection relates to the evolutionary struggle of groups to survive and reproduce in competition with one another. This parallels the more traditional view of evolution wherein it is the organism that engages in the struggle to survive and reproduce in competition with other organisms. Group selection operates in that genes, the target of evolution from the population genetics perspective, reside in groups as well as individual bodies. For a full treatment of group selection, as well as to view empirical support, view the following monograph: Woodley et al. (2017)

6 R. A. Fischer is an English biologist who mathematically combined Mendelian genetics and Darwinian Evolution into what is called the Modern Synthesis.

7 J. B. S. Haldane, also a British biologist, in addition to contributing to inclusive fitness theory and the modern synthesis, is also known for mapping and explaining genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, and color blindness.

8 My own subjective understanding of the AMNH mission, formed long ago over a series of visits which imparted subjective impressions, is one of the dispassionate presentations wherein specialized scientific knowledge is imparted to the lay patron. In contrast to my subjective ideal for AMNH, its stated mission is as follows:

To discover, interpret, and disseminate – through scientific research and education – knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.

http://www.amnh.org/about-the-museum/mission-statement/

The word, interpret, could itself be interpreted to mean many things. In keeping with my understanding of AMNH function, it would mean interpreting raw data, as is done in a peer-reviewed paper. Statistical data, for instance, are explained and then related to the larger literature. Of course, other views can be attributed to the word, but perhaps nothing that would support the distortions manifest in the AMNH video herein discussed.

9 This term comes from Gould and is best explained by him:

The text of Humani Generis focuses on the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church – a word derived not from any concept of majesty or awe but from the different notion of teaching, for magister is Latin for “teacher.” We may, I think, adopt this word and concept to express the central point of this essay and the principled resolution of supposed “conflict” or “warfare” between science and religion. No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium or domain of teaching authority – and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or “nonoverlapping magisteria”) http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html.