Science: The Poetry of Reality and Why It Deserves to be Heard

A young Charles Darwin.

            In a previous meeting in our comparative anatomy class, we were asked to watch this BBC film entitled “Creation.” The film showed a huge part of the story behind the conception of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” and the ideas on evolution it contained, placing a focus on Darwin’s personal struggles in his attempt to revolutionize ideas on the origin and diversity of life. His hesitation and repeated delay of the completion and publication of his work primarily resulted from a recognition that communicating his ideas on evolution was going to be highly controversial, challenging prevailing beliefs at the time about creation based on a literal interpretation of the account of Genesis and the immutable essence or eidos of species (an idea traced back to Plato’s philosophy of Essentialism). True enough, Darwin’s theory and the vast body of evidence he gathered to substantiate it were initially greeted not with celebration or high regard, but with contempt and ridicule, especially from people of religion who felt evolution was incompatible with a Creator.

Natural Selection at work.

Nevertheless, Darwin’s simple, yet elegant theory of evolution and its driving mechanism (natural selection), with its grand explanatory—and predictive—power, has allowed us to understand a great deal about the natural world and the massive scale of life’s diversity on the planet. Unfortunately though, to this day, proponents of creationism (especially in the United States) refuse to acknowledge the fact of evolution, arguing that students be taught the “controversy” about evolution and the “alternatives” to it, when in reality no such controversy exists, evolution having been firmly established as a scientific fact, as true a fact as gravity or heliocentrism. It is critical to recognize that this resistance is mainly rooted on the discomfort people associate with the idea that evolution is incompatible with a Creator (and in fact that is an idea advocated by some, but not all, evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins) because its truth makes it no longer necessary for us to postulate the existence of some Divine Being to explain the origin and diversity of life. Anyway, whether or not evolution fails to fit with the idea of a Creator, it is a matter which has little to do with evolution’s actual truth: the discomfort elicited by something doesn’t make it any less true.

Jane doing field work in Gombe, Tanzania.

Meanwhile, an example of a contemporary scientist who also faces similar resistance to her findings and work is a personal hero of mine: Jane Goodall. Her first studies of chimpanzees and their nature in 1960 were initially written off as those of an uneducated girl, untrained in the reductionist thinking that consumed science then. Some of her methods were unconventional for science at the time: this included her practice of naming the chimpanzees she studied rather than assigning them numbers. Similar practices that bravely admitted emotional attachment to the animal subjects under study was, and sometimes still is, not considered very “scientific.” More importantly however, her revolutionary findings on chimpanzee behavior and the insights they led to, provoked considerable controversy. These included the observation of tool use and modification in chimpanzees, which compelled us to redefine what it is to be human. Even more controversial were her observations of violence among her beloved chimps. She describes this as her first experience of the politics of science: some of her colleagues persuaded her not to publish her data, for fear that irresponsible scientists and writers would use it to justify violence in humans. Meanwhile, yet another of her important scientific contributions was evidence that we are not alone, that we are not the only animal beings with sentient minds, feelings and emotions. Many theologians, philosophers and even scientists criticize this. And it’s not surprising. Findings that challenge “human uniqueness” often elicit violent reactions from people who wish to keep man on his glorified pedestal, apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Finally, yet another way in which she faces resistance is in relation to an advocacy of hers I deeply, personally believe is important: that of the conservation of biodiversity. People who work to improve the lives of nonhuman living beings we share the planet with invariably come in for criticism from those who believe that such efforts are misplaced in a world of suffering humanity. People may, for instance, feel angry at the thought of allotting funds for the conservation of a seemingly insignificant bug, without realizing the greater implications of the effort to save it from extinction. This is why conservation is just as much about changing people’s attitudes, as it is about saving genes, species and ecosystems. And even here, she is sometimes criticized for being unrealistically optimistic about the current state of the cause.


Despite all the criticism against her however, it is incontrovertible that Jane's work has been of immeasurable value not just to science, but for us humans and the rest of life on the planet as well. Her ethological research has granted us access to insights on our own behavior and evolutionary history. Moreover, her continuing efforts for the cause of conservation has helped out not just nonhuman animal life, but countless people as well--something her projects such as TACARE (take care) and Roots and Shoots testify to. It is no wonder she has been appointed a U.N. Messenger of Peace in 2002 for her environmental and humanitarian efforts. 

Jane Goodall, Ph.D., DBE, UN Messenger of Peace

In conclusion, science provides us a unique lens through which we better understand the world around us. This deeper understanding in turn offers us profound insights we would realize only if we embrace them with open minds.