Date: 25 October 2002
Subject: Darwin

The British television channel BBC2 is currently running a series of ten programs on ?great Britons? with the invitation to viewers to vote for the one they believe the greatest. The ten include an engineer (Brunel) two scientists (Newton and Darwin), and Shakespeare, Nelson, Cromwell, Elizabeth 1, Diana Spencer, Churchill and John Lennon.

The program for today was on Darwin, and raised a number of issues. Darwin?s advocate was the rightly respected journalist and BBC Political correspondent Andrew Marr, but the program seemed to have made no effort to consult any historians of science, and so contained inaccuracies and misleading aspects.

Several statements made were plain wrong. Firstly, Marr claimed that when Darwin was on the Beagle in the 1830's it was generally still believed that the world had been created in 4004 BC in six days. Actually, geologists (many of whom were Christians) had known for some years that it was very old, and leading evangelicals like Chalmers, Miller, Sumner, Carus, etc had generally accepted this conclusion.

Secondly, Marr stated that Darwin wrote a joint paper with Wallace in 1858, which he did not. Friends of Darwin presented Wallace?s paper together with Darwin?s earlier ones at the Linnaean society, but there was no joint paper written.

Thirdly, Marr claimed that the 1925 Tennessee laws forbad teaching evolution and insisted on the Bible instead. In fact they banned teaching only human evolution, which was often associated with an aggressive materialism and was seen as devaluing human life - and the case against Scopes was a put-up-job by his friends to challenge this law.

The timelines in the programme were obscure and garbled. Darwin's daughter Annie was shown aged about 8-10 watching him at work before he wrote the first sketch of his theory - but she was born in 1841 and he wrote the first sketch and the essay in 1842 and 1844.

The programme was also misleading. To increase Darwin's apparent genius, Marr omitted mention of his mentors and teachers (Grant, Henslow, Sedgwick etc). The old myths about the famous 1960 Oxford debate were regurgitated - poor bishop Samuel Wilberforce being portrayed as merely a ranting clerical buffoon rather than someone who was a competent amateur naturalist and worked closely as a co-Vice-President with Huxley in the Zoological Society in the early 1860's. Marr's Darwin was unique (though Wallace arrived at the same idea), fearless in pursuit of the truth (though he concealed the theory for 20 years), and above all an enlightened modern liberal. The "true" metaphysical conclusions from Darwinisn evolution, Marr assured us, were not the "wicked misinterpretation of his work" by communists and Nazis, but our brotherhood with animals, the importance of environment and "working with nature", and a general enlightened liberalism. Quite what "wicked" means if we are nothing more than accidental by-products of death and sex in blind nature (as he seems to think) was not explained.

Admittedly the series is mostly entertainment (coupled with the current obsession for viewer voting), and the commentator was a rightly respected and talented journalist with many interests. Nevertheless, it is deplorable for the BBC to send out apparently historical programs which unfortunately bring a new meaning to the term marred.

Charles Darwin was undoubtedly a good family man and a respected scientist, but had he never lived it seems highly likely that Wallace or someone else would have put forward a similar theory. He lacked the individualistic genius of (say) Kepler, or even Newton. But did his theory imply, as Marr claimed, an all-embracing fundamental change in the way in which we view ourselves? Surely it does so only if linked to a materialistic world-view, which is not part of the theory as a scientific model? If Marr really were right, there would be no design or intention behind the universe and we would be nothing but the accidental products of blind forces based on sex and death. Not only would this be a gloomy and morality-less reality, but the word ?great? itself would cease to mean anything. How could there be ?greatness? if reality itself were without meaning or purpose? In fact, though, whether or not scientific aspects of the Darwinian (or neo-Darwinian) theory are true, it cannot turn a scientific model into a system of metaphysics/religion.

As well as flaws in the ?history?, the series raises some more fundamental points about values in British society today. Who can know how greatness appears in the eyes of God ? the ?greatest? may turn out to be someone quite unknown. But humanly speaking, John Wesley was the architect of an evangelical revival which fed into Anglicanism and non-conformity as well as Methodism. Leading high church figures in the 19thC (eg Newman and Samuel Wilberforce) owed much to evangelicalism ? so much of active modern church life (in Britain and throughout the world) owes Wesley a debt. In my own view Wesley was one of the greatest theologians ever, with enlightened views on ministry of women, nature of church, use of small groups &c &c. On another level, it is commonly held that Methodist influences defused the possibility of violent revolution in favour of social reform in Britain, and the emerging Labour party certainly owed more to non-conformity than to Marxism. Even on a social level ? never mind spiritual ? to exclude Wesley from the top ten and include those given above is a sad reflection on Britain today. Currently front-runner in the voting is Princess Diana ? a charming and apparently compassionate if very rich lady, who may have touched many in her lifetime but is unlikely to have affected the fabric of society or left any lasting social legacy let alone a spiritual one. The whole process may not tell us much about who was the greatest Briton, but it does tell us much about our society and its values. It is good to see two scientists included, but omitting Wesley, William Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and all other spiritual and social giants is an indictment of those who made the choice.