I was sitting on the subway the other day, idly flipping through the pages of the latest New Yorker, when I came across an article so surprising that it almost caused me to miss my stop. In the article, titled "The Accidental Creationist," Robert Wright points out that one of the main scientific heroes in the creationist movement these days is none other than Stephen Jay Gould, the eminent Harvard paleontologist. It's not that Gould himself espouses creationism. He has in fact been one of its most vociferously vocal opponents. Nonetheless, says Wright, Gould has unwittingly aided the creationists by advancing a distinctive view of natural selection.
Over the past several decades, Gould has repeatedly called into question what scientists call the "directionality" of evolution: that natural selection is inclined to build more complex and intelligent animals over time. Unlike many other major scientists, Gould insists that the progress made by evolution over the eons has been accidental. He claims that the random evolution of life forms does not seek complexity. In other words, if you replayed evolution on this planet, the chances of getting any species as smart as humans-a species smart enough to reflect on itself-are extremely small. Gould writes, "We are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions." To insist otherwise, he concludes, is an arrogant delusion.
The consequence of Gould's point of view, according to Wright, has been to make natural selection seem like such a blind and aimless process that the odds of intelligent life developing are spectacularly low-about the same as the odds of God creating all species in a few days. By the basic criterion of scientific judgment-that the most plausible story wins-Wright fears it's roughly a tie. This irony has not been lost on the creationists, who have used the newly leveled playing field to great advantage, in Kansas and elsewhere.
The problem with Gould's position, in Wright's view, is that he ignores the impact of what scientists call the positive feedback feature of natural selection-the tendency of evolution to reward developments that generate more and more species, or elevate complexity, or invent new technologies. Given the presence of positive feedback and enough time, Wright says, it was likely that evolution would eventually develop at least one highly-evolved, intelligent species.
You and I are part of that species-perhaps here on this earth, as Gould says, by the luck of the draw. But there's a huge difference between saying it took great luck for us to be the evolutionary winners and saying it took great luck for there to be a winner at all. As Wright points out, this is the type of distinction off which lotteries, casinos, and bingo parlors make their money. The particular odds of you and me being here may indeed be spectacularly poor. But the general odds of some intelligent species being here are actually rather good, given the dynamics of the evolutionary process.
In other words, when a particular species is stressed by some threat in its environment-a persistent predator, for example, or a shortage of its preferred food-the species has a choice: adapt or die. And Wright's point is that evolution works in a way that continually enables and rewards adaptation. It's not a freak accident that challenge serves as a catalyst for innovation; that's in fact the nature of things. If Wright is correct, and I think he mostly is, then evolutionary biology can serve as a helpful metaphor for understanding human life as well.
When faced with the vicissitudes and challenges of life, we as human beings also have a choice. Some individuals prove themselves resilient and resourceful in the face of hardship and despair, while others do not. Plunged by chance or circumstance into the dark night of their souls, some people simply give up and succumb, while others find a way to cope and move on.
It's not easy to pin down what makes the difference. In the lives of most people, the decisive element seems not to be relative levels of talent or education or affluence. Some young people lose their way even with the tireless support of parents who love them. Others find a path to follow in spite of parents who passively abandon them or actively abuse them. Sometimes great talent leads to great accomplishment; other times it leads to great destructiveness. Occasionally both can happen.
Frederick and Steven Barthelme, for example, are brothers who were born into what they considered to be an exceptional family. Both Frederick and Steven are celebrated and successful fiction writers; both teach at the University of Southern Mississippi. Their recent book titled Double Down, however, tells what it's like to lose more than $300,000 over a few years gambling at the riverboat casinos and be indicted for cheating as well. Much of the money they lost was inherited, and their losses also included the death of their parents and essentially the end of their family.
Rosemary Bray, on the other hand, grew up in the poverty of Chicago's South Side. In her memoir, courageously titled Unafraid of the Dark, she describes lying awake at night, hearing the sounds of her father shouting at and beating her mother. Somewhere Rosemary's mother found the courage and the vision to get their family on welfare and keep the kids in school. Rosemary herself eventually went to Yale, then became a writer for publications such as Essence, Glamour, The New York Times, and The Village Voice, as well as an editor of the New York Times Book Review. Today, Rosemary is a Unitarian Universalist minister.
Some species adapt, others die. Some people, when faced with a devastating childhood, or debilitating illness, or tragic loss, or powerful temptation, or numbing disappointment, find the strength and courage to steadfastly take the next step forward. Others in similar circumstances stumble and fall, having neither the strength to endure nor the courage to continue. They often curse themselves, sometimes they curse the people around them, usually they curse god as well. And invariably something inside of them dies, at least for a time, maybe forever.
What's the difference? Let's return for a moment to the process of natural selection. Evolution works-we don't know how or why, only that it does-to enable species to adapt, and to reward them when they do. This is what scientists mean by directionality, which over time has led inexorably to species becoming more complex and intelligent. Faced with a challenge, some species find a way to meet it. Over time and in general, that's what happens.
Natural selection also gave rise to a dynamic which we at the human level call altruism-the sense of moving forward not alone but together. Again, over time and in general, life has evolved in such a way that schools of fish and herds of antelope and families of humans are better off in the long run if they live cooperatively. This is built into life at its most basic level: more organisms will survive more easily and flourish more readily if they do so not alone, but in concert with other organisms.
In other words, life is both directional-it enables and favors adaptation and growth-and communal. At the human level, all other things being equal, people who approach life this way tend to flourish; people who do not tend to wither away. Extending the same metaphor into the religious domain, perhaps the reason the Jewish tradition has survived and even flourished, despite many attempts to eradicate it, is precisely because it too understands life as both directional and communal.
The story of Hanukkah is a good example. In the fourth century BCE, Alexander the Great invaded the Middle East and at-tempted to impose Greek civilization on the Jews. Some Jews, intrigued by the culture of the Greeks, gladly assimilated themselves into Greek life. Not all did so, however, especially after the Greeks began to wor-ship their own gods in the temple at Jerusalem. Over time, an army of Jews known as the Maccabees began to fight back. Finally, in the year 165, they reclaimed the temple in Jerusalem for Jewish faith and practice. According to legend, the victorious Jews rekindled the eternal flame in the temple, but they had only one flask of oil, enough for one day. Even so, the flame burned for eight days, until more oil could be found. This miracle became the basis for the eight-day Hanukkah celebration.
This would not be the only time the Jewish faith was put to the test, of course. Indeed, as Thomas Cahill proclaims in his book The Gifts of the Jews, the experiences of these desert nomads changed the way everyone thinks and feels. Daunted by the perils of a world in which many gods reigned, the Jews proclaimed that god is one. This belief, which we call monotheism, gave humanity a sense that the universe is coherent and unified. The Jews also declared that time moves not aimlessly in circles as was the prevailing opinion, which meant that nothing really matters because everything lasts only for one brief cycle of time. Rather, they proclaimed, history is lasting and the consequences of human decisions endure. Which is why God speaks within each human heart as a still, small voice of conscience and compassion: conscience to remind us that life has a purpose, compassion to remind us that life is communal. Cahill concludes, "The Jews gave us the Outside and the Inside-our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact-new, adventure, surprise; unique, person, vocation; time, history, future; freedom, progress, spirit; faith, hope, justice-are the gifts of the Jews.
The poet Charles Reznikoff puts it this way in his poem "Hanukkah."
Penniless, penniless I have come with less and still less to this place of my need and the lack of this hour.
That was a comforting word the prophet spoke: not by might nor by power but My spirit, said the Lord; comforting, indeed, for those who have neither might nor power- for a blade of grass, for a reed.
The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light-in a little cruse-lasted as long as they say;
but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit.
Two things are certain. The first is that each of us will sometime come to our place of need and the hour of our lack. We may be young like Rosemary or mature like the Barthelme brothers. It may be a physical affliction or a grief in the heart. But it will come. Each of us will also see people among and around us in the hour of their need, people who have neither might nor power, who are fragile as a reed and as vulnerable to being trampled as a blade of grass. Will we adapt and endure, or give up and succumb? That's the choice we must make; that's the nature of things.
But the second certain thing is this: there is a comforting word to nourish flickering spirits. The spirit of all life moves inexorably to nourish those who are weak and heavy laden, to give us courage and help us find a way through. That too is the nature of things. We were made to survive, to endure, and to flourish. But not each of us alone: all of us together. And not just you and me: all God's children. In a curious and wonderful way, that's what it means to be human. Let that miracle nourish our flickering spirits. Copyright AllSouls 1999.