Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

Gray, Asa
he had long accepted Lyell’s geology (see Lyell, Charles;
uniformitarianism) and accommodated his interpretation
of the biblical book of Genesis accordingly. He was experiencing
difficulty in explaining many facts of botany, in particular
the similarity of plant genera in North America and
eastern Asia. It looked to him as though these plants had not
been separately created but were the descendants of a common
flora that had been pushed southward by glaciation (see
ice ages).
Gray’s scientific reputation grew from his insistence
upon facts over speculation, and this is what brought him
to the attention of Charles Darwin. When Darwin wanted
a botanist in whom to confide about his slowly developing
evolutionary theory, he turned to Gray, even though on the
other side of the Atlantic, as well as to botanist Sir Joseph
Hooker (see Hooker, Joseph Dalton). Reading Darwin’s
manuscript of the Origin of Species convinced Gray that
transmutation of species had occurred and would solve the
botanical mysteries he had been studying. Gray announced
this conclusion at a scientific meeting in January 1859, before
the appearance of Darwin’s book. Once the Origin of Species
had appeared later that year, Gray was in the perfect position
to defend it.
In defending Darwinian evolution, Gray came in public
conflict with his Harvard colleague, Louis Agassiz (see Agassiz,
Louis), particularly during a public debate in 1859. This
debate was very different from what one might expect to see
today: Agassiz, the Unitarian who rejected biblical reliability,
attacked Darwinian evolutionary science, while Gray,
the Christian who believed in the inspiration of the Bible,
defended it. They had many points of conflict, not the least
of which was one of the major issues on the minds of people
that year: the impending possibility of War Between the
States. Agassiz believed that different races were separately
created by God, and that God intended some of them (whom
he considered inferior) to be dominated by others. Gray
believed that all races of humankind had a common origin,
and that each individual had equal worth.
Darwin appreciated Gray’s support, even though Darwin’s
agnosticism differed profoundly from Gray’s Christianity.
Darwin told Gray that he had never intended to write
atheistically; but he could not see the world, as Gray did, to
be the creation of a beneficent God. There was, Darwin said,
too much misery in the world. Darwin was willing to admit
that the general laws of nature may have a divine origin, but
he could not see evidence of design in the particulars. These
admissions on Darwin’s part are nearly all that historians
have of his religious doubts, as Darwin resisted public debate
even about evolutionary science, not to mention religion.
Gray accepted evolutionary science, albeit in a form different
from what scientists understand today, but resisted
what he considered a fanciful extension of evolutionary science
into the kind of social Darwinism that was being promoted
by writers such as Spencer (see Spencer, Herbert).
Even while accepting Darwinian evolution, however,
Gray still admired Paley’s natural theology. This was the
one point at which Gray differed from Darwin: Gray believed
that the evolutionary process has a purpose or direction, a
concept subsequently called teleology. Gray believed that God
guided the evolutionary process in directions that would suit
God’s ultimate purposes. This occurred, he believed, because
God created the heritable variation within populations upon
which natural selection depended. Since the science of genetics
was unknown prior to Mendel (see Mendel, Gregor;
Mendelian genetics), there was no proof against this concept.
By adding teleology to evolution, Gray thought that he
had reconciled Paley’s Natural Theology with Darwin’s evolution.
Even though Darwin knew that this reconciliation was
unlikely, he was pleased at the attempt; he reprinted three of
Gray’s essays at his (Darwin’s) own expense, with “Natural
Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology” printed
at the top. The concept of teleology is rejected by scientists
today, as there is no known physical or chemical mechanism
for it; it is a religious concept.
Adding teleology to Darwinian evolution was the same
accommodation that the other Christian evolutionists of the
late 19th century made, and which allowed them to accept
a form of evolutionary science. These included geologists
George Frederick Wright and James Dwight Dana. Wright,
a minister and geologist, later on the faculty of Oberlin College,
worked with Gray on some of Gray’s last publications
about science and religion. Wright insisted that while God
was the primary cause of the existence of everything, Darwinian
science adequately explained the secondary causes.
Wright even saw parallels between evolutionary science and
some traditional Calvinist doctrines such as original sin.
Dana was a geologist, later at Yale, whose around-the-world
journey while he was young transformed his outlook as much
as the Beagle voyage had influenced Darwin. This was almost
the same time that Dana had a religious conversion experience.
He, like Gray, had his view of an orderly, created world
shaken by reading Darwin’s Origin of Species. He resisted it
at first, but in later works admitted that the history of the
Earth had occurred by means of evolution. He pointed out,
as do many Christian writers today, that Genesis 1 phrases
such as “let the Earth bring forth” allowed, even encouraged,
a belief in secondary causes such as evolution. Gray
and others believed that God’s world was designed to make
itself, design was seen not in the organisms themselves but in
the overall system of natural laws that had produced them.
They believed that the “image of God” referred to in Genesis
1 was not the physical body of humans but the spirit; and
that an animal origin of humankind was no more demeaning
than what Genesis 1 said: that humans were made of dirt.
A number of famous late-19th-century preachers, such as A.
H. Strong and Henry Ward Beecher, actually praised Darwinian
evolution in part because it removed some of the difficulties
that had been faced by the old style Natural Theology. It
had previously been difficult to explain why a world created
by a good God would contain so much apparent evil; now
these ministers, and religious scientists, could claim that these
evils such as the death of the less fit were a necessary part of
God’s evolutionary system of creation. In this, they followed
the lead of Asa Gray.