ABSTRACT: The aim of my project is to understand how religious, scientific and political reasons shaped and inspired the theory of ‘Origin of life and universe’ in a progressive way and to look it from a philosopher’s point of view. I also want to explore the aspect on what makes a radical idea like Darwin’s evolutionary theory which was different from the existing paradigm to be accepted amongst the scientific community.

1. 11/22/2011
PHILOSOPHY
A MELODRAMA OF POLITICS, SCIENCE AND
OF SCIENCE
PROJECT
RELIGION
Mahesh Jakhotia YIF11M_25
Project under the supervision of Prof. Dhruv Raina as a part of
‘Philosophy of Science’ course | Young India Fellowship

2. A MELODRAMA OF POLITICS, SCIENCE AND RELIGION
ABSTRACT: The aim of my project is to understand how religious, scientific and political
reasons shaped and inspired the theory of ‘Origin of life and universe’ in a progressive way
and to look it from a philosopher’s point of view. I also want to explore the aspect on what
makes a radical idea like Darwin’s evolutionary theory which was different from the existing
paradigm to be accepted amongst the scientific community.
1) POLITICAL CHANGES WHICH INFLUENCED THE DEBATE
1.1) Scopes trial: In 1920s a young teacher Jon Thomas Scopes was prosecuted for
teaching Darwinism in classrooms. The then presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan
was the person who prosecuted Scopes and this caught the attention of the world. The federal
government declared Scopes as guilty and fined him $100. This influenced the book
publishers to remove the Evolution theory from their curriculum to avoid any legal setbacks.
1.2) Russian arm superiority: In 1950s things started to change their base because of the
superiority of Russians in rocketry and arms world. Americans realized that its education was
not training the young minds and this made them to change their curriculum. Thus evolution
started appearing in the subjects once again and the support of evolution started.
1.3) Story of Huxley: Reach bred clergymen could only become scientists:
In the Oxford Evolution Debate in 1860, there were two main characters – Bishop
Wilberforce, a clergy man and a scientist. He himself delivered a scientific paper on the day
before the debate. Second character was Huxley who came from a low income family, but
also was a scientific researcher. Bishop Wilberforce never thought that science and theology
would have to part Company.
By far the most remarkable feature of the Oxford debate—as compared with the myth that
later grew around it—is that all the main protagonists left the Oxford Museum well satisfied
with their performances and convinced that they had personally carried the day
Why is there a division of religion and science? For this you need to know the story of
Huxley. Huxley came from a low income family, and at that time accepting money for
scientific research was considered undignified according to the church clergymen. And most
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3. of the well-bred people of science had their own personal wealth or derived it from other
sources.
Hence he thought the division of Religion from state would make things better. The resultant
exodus of amateurs from the higher ranks of scientific debate would permit Huxley’s coterie
of scientific careerists to assume the reins of power.
2) SCIENTIFIC REASONS
2.1) Development of Geology: Though philosophers like Herodotus, Aristotle, Lucretius,
Strabo, and Seneca believed in the theory that the phenomena of evolution they observe is
because of natural and not supernatural causes. However it remained as facts as they could
not substantiate their claims. When geology started developing fossil study was made
possible, hence the facts about evolution could not be substantiated.
Modern geology began in the 18th cent. When field studies by the French mineralogist J. E.
Guettard and others proved more fruitful than speculation. The German geologist Abraham
Gottlob Werner, in spite of the many errors of his specific doctrines and the diversion of
much of his energy into a fruitless controversy (in which he maintained that the origin of all
rocks was aqueous), performed a great service for the science by demonstrating the
chronological succession of rocks.[1]
3) RELIGIOUS REASONS
3.1) The paradox of time: In Christianity it was believed that earth was born approximately
6000 years ago. This totally contradicts with almost all the scientific theories – Darwin
theory, and The Big Bang Theory in which the universe was born 13.7 billion years ago.
Hence the Day-age creationism was re-explained by the creationist community, in which the
duration of day was changed to millions of years to satisfy the scientific statements. Their
premise was that sun was born on the 4th day of the creation, hence it is not possible to say
that duration was for 24 hours, instead it must have been for very large durations of time,
which totally supports the big bang theory.
3.2) Intelligent Design: Intelligent design merged as a progression theory of the creationists.
The IDs explain that the world is irreducibly complex composed of a single system of several
well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of
any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly
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4. complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial
function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive
modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system
that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.[2]
Even big bang theory explains that the Universe was once a small point which was extremely
hot and in dense state which eventually expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the
young Universe to cool and resulted in its present continuously expanding state. But how did
the hot and dense state comes into place initially? This is one of the most important questions
posed by creationists.
3.3) Similarity with the Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideologies: The debate between the
creationist and evolutionist can be considered as similar to Plato’s and Aristotle’s. Plato
believed that supernatural cause is the reason behind our creation. Everything already existed
in the supernatural world. Whereas Aristotle attributed the phenomena they observed to
natural and not supernatural causes.
4) KARL POPPER’S VIEW ON DARWINISM
Philosopher of science Karl R. Popper set out the concept of falsifiability as a way to
distinguish science and pseudoscience: Testable theories are scientific, but those that are
untestable are not. However, inUnended Quest, Popper declared "I have come to the
conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but
a metaphysical research programme, a possible framework for testable scientific theories.”
Only a few years later, Popper wrote, "I have in the past described the theory as "almost
tautological"… I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research
programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of
the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation".
His conclusion, later in the article is "The theory of natural selection may be so formulated
that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not
strictly universally true."[3]
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5. 5) HOW COME DARWIN’S RADICAL IDEA WAS ACCEPTED EVEN THOUGH IT
WAS WAY AHEAD OF TIME?
Sometimes it so happens that when a scientist comes up with a theory it is not accepted, but
after a few years when some other scientist comes up with the same theory a few years later it
is accepted by the scientific community?
To understand this scenario we need to look at a few things:
a. The theory might have been way ahead of time.
b. The scientist might have not used the right vocabulary to explain the concepts.
c. The scientist might have presented his research to wrong scientific communities.
But if we see Einstein’s relativity theory or Darwin’s evolution theory, it was accepted by
people, even though it was different from the existing paradigms. For a work to get
acknowledged a few facts need to be checked.
a. Was the scientist in good terms with all his peers? Was he ready to listen to the
arguments given by his counter-scientists?
b. Was the proposed theory his first one or later one? Because if it is his second or third
theory then he has already developed a credibility for himself in his first two theories.
c. Was the theory presented in front of right optimistic scientific communities? If the
well-known communities accept his arguments then rest of the other communities
have to accept his theory as it has already been consented by the main ones.
Darwin was able to satisfy all the three factors. Evolution theory was not his first theory.
Moreover he was very much open to criticism from counter scientists and was never known
to have a cold war with any other scientist.
Charles Darwin would be remembered today, even if he had never published his work on
evolution, for his geology. His geological work ranged from physical geology, on volcanoes,
coral reefs and the upheaval and subsidence to land; to paleontology, collecting fossils during
his time on the Beagle voyage and studying fossil barnacles in his home in Downe, Kent. His
own work on geology contributed greatly to his views of life on earth, but he was equally
adept at understanding the work of others and how it related to his ideas. As a young man
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6. Darwin was passionate about geology, dreaming of becoming a big name in the field. In
1859, just months before the publication of On The Origin of Species, Darwin won the
Wollaston Medal, the highest honour of the Geological Society of London ‘for his numerous
contributions to Geological Science’, marking him out as one of the great Victorian
geologists.[4]
6) CONCLUSION: Getting to a conclusion for such a debatable and contesting topic is a
realistically impossible goal. The conflict between Creationism and Evolutionism exist even
today in large numbers. Science has explained many theories. In big bang theory scientists
discovered the origin of life by explaining that universe expanded from a small ball of high
energy and temperature. The expansion happened because of the decrease in temperature.
The most basic question to be asked is why did the universe divide into subatomic and atomic
particles when the temperature decreased? Who assigned this property to objects? Why is it
that hot things always have to expand? There must have been a creator who has assigned the
properties in such a way so that the universe starts building up indirectly.
7) APPENDIX
Evolution theory is made up of five main principles.
 First, to be in a position to procreate, organisms have constantly to fight for survival.
 Second, on occasion random hereditary variations arise.
 Third, every so often, one of these slight variations will confer on its bearer an
important
 Advantage in the fight for survival.
 Fourth, this individual and its descend-ants will procreate more than those organisms
lacking the useful acquisition.
 Fifth, eventually enough of these changes will accumulate in order for a new species
to emerge.
Big Bang Theory - Evidence for the Theory
What are the major evidences which support the Big Bang theory?
 First of all, we are reasonably certain that the universe had a beginning.
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7.  Second, galaxies appear to be moving away from us at speeds proportional to their
distance. This is called "Hubble's Law," named after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) who
discovered this phenomenon in 1929. This observation supports the expansion of the
universe and suggests that the universe was once compacted.
 Third, if the universe was initially very, very hot as the Big Bang suggests, we should
be able to find some remnant of this heat. In 1965, Radio astronomers Arno Penzias
and Robert Wilson discovered a 2.725 degree Kelvin (-454.765 degree Fahrenheit, -
270.425 degree Celsius) Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) which
pervades the observable universe. This is thought to be the remnant which scientists
were looking for. Penzias and Wilson shared in the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for
their discovery.
 Finally, the abundance of the "light elements" Hydrogen and Helium found in the
observable universe are thought to support the Big Bang model of origins.
8) REFERENCES
[1]: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0858359.html
[2]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy#cite_note-0
[4]: http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darwin200/pages/index.php?page_id=c3
[5]: The Golem by Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch
[6]: Philosophy of Science – A very short introduction by Samir Okasha.
[7]: Fabulous science: Fact and fiction in the history of scientific discovery by John Waller
[8]: The Black Swan Theory : The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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