Notes on the Web -
Unit Six- Part 2
Historical
Perspective: Mythical Beliefs on Origins
Bruce
G. Stewart
General
Objectives and Study Guide
Your
objectives for these Notes on the Web and associated readings and exercises
are:
-
To
understand that creation myths are ubiquitous (a part of the belief systems
in all) cultures, past and present;
-
To
describe the rough time frame in which human evidence indicates that our
species has had the potential to ask and develop answers to questions about
origins;
-
To
identify and briefly paraphase three examples of supernatural explanations
for the origin of species;
- To list and explain six
fundamental assumptions of early Judao-Christian beliefs about species origins
and characteristics;
- To describe the philosophy
of Natural Theology and its relationship to the development of biological
knowledge;
- To summarize the application
of the scientific method by Athanasius Kircher, and explain why the results
of his investigations were consistent with the early fundamentalist beliefs
on origins;
- To know the names of
some individual natural theologians, and to state their contributions to biological
knowledge.
Related Readings:
- Notes on the Web below only. Textbook readings
and handout readings will be assigned in later parts of this unit.
Introductory
Note
A
number of excellent historical accounts of ideas on the origin of species have
been written, of which The Growth of Biological Thought by Ernst Mayr
(1982) is one of the best. You
can find this book in the Murray State College Library if you are interested
in an in-depth study. The University of Texas has listed this book as on
of the 100 books of all time that every educated person (not just university
students and biologists) should read!
The Primitive
Search for Meaning: Supernatural Explanations for the Origin of Living Things
Archaeological
evidence including symbolic rock paintings and stone sculptures indicates that
"...a fundamental transformation of human consciousness occurred toward
the close of the last great ice age, some 40,000 years ago..." (Campbell
1988, p.129). This set the stage
for the conscious search for explanation and meaning of human existence.
Since that time, historical, anthropological and archaeological evidences
demonstrate that a universal characteristic of human cultures is the presence
of some kind of creation myth which explains the origin of species.
The creator and creation story come various forms worldwide; here are
three examples. Consider the following
account of the Great Serpent legend of the Unumbal tribe of northern Kimberley,
Australia:
In the Beginning
there were only Sky and Earth: dwelling in the earth was Ungud, in the form
of a great snake; and in the sky, Wallanganda, the Milky Way.
Wallanganda threw water on the earth; Ungud made it deep.
And in the night, as Ungud and Wallanganda dreamed, life arose from
the watered earth in the forms of their dreams.
From Wallanganda's
dreaming a spiritual force went forth as images that he projected onto rocks
and into caves, where they can still be seen, painted red and white and
black. And when these had been painted, Wallanganda multiplied their
forms in the shape of living beings, which he sent forth over the land.
The paintings
are the spiritual centers of those beings. They are the Fathers; and the living beings of each kind are
Brothers. The Fathers were
painted without mouths or eyes: these were given by the great serpent Ungud,
dreaming in the earth. Wallanganda,
too, is dreaming, sending spiritual germs to the earth, and he will not
let his creatures die.
(Lommel
1962 as cited in Campbell 1988, p.141)
Creation myths of various
Plains Indians involved the Sun or the "Old Man" which may have represented
one entity. A cover of water and
the idea of a "diver" who brings up mud which is used to form the
land, is found in many creation myths in North America as well as Asia.
In the following version the successful diver is a muskrat. (In one Cherokee version the diver was a beetle.)
This is one version documented by Campbell (1988).
Originally there
was a great womb in which were conceived the progenitors of all the animals
now on earth, and among them was Old Man.
One day the womb burst, and Old Man jumped first to the ground.
That is why he calls the animals Young Brothers, and they
call him Old Man.
It
is said that in the beginning, when all was under water, Old Man and the
animals were floating on a large raft.
One day Old Man told the beaver to dive and try to bring up some
mud. The beaver was gone a
long time, but could not reach bottom.
The loon tried, and the otter, but the water was too deep.
Then the muskrat dove and was gone so long they thought he had drowned;
but he came up, nearly dead, and when they had pulled him onto the raft,
they found a bit of mud in one of his paws.
Of this, Old Man formed the earth and then the people.
The Judeo-Christian version
of creation of animal life (exclusive of humans) includes the following from
Genesis 1, verses 20-25 (KJV) (However, please realize that the majority of
Christian religions take this as metaphoric rather than literal.):
20
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth,
which the water brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged
fowl after his kind: and God saw that it
was good.
22
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill
the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after
his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind:
and it was so.
25
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after
their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:
and God saw that it was good.
An added and significant aspect of
the literal Christian version is the account of destruction of all except 2
(unclean beasts) or seven (clean beasts and fowl) individuals of each "kind"
of animal during the Noahic flood described also in Genesis.
The Development of Natural
Theology - The Happy Union of Science and Literal Christian Beliefs in Western
Cultures
Influence
of Christian Beliefs
Throughout
the "Middle Ages" progress in the scientific understanding of life
was almost totally lacking, as in other areas of natural science.
Scientific study of life lagged behind studies in the physical
sciences. Great physical scientists
such as Copernicus (1500's), Galileo (1600's) and Newton (1700's) had provided
the foundations of modern astronomy and physics, but progress even in the basics
of human anatomy was scant. For
all Europeans knew, fanciful monsters might even exist, since foreign continents
were little explored. There were
no great unifying theories or principles in biology as there was in physics.
The
predominant Judeo-Christian view by Europeans was that Genesis was quite literal
and included the following basic points.
- The
creation was believed to have been more or less instantaneous from nothing
(created ex nihilo)
- The
creation occurred only a few thousand years ago (e.g. the 4004 BC date of
creation claimed by Bishop James Ussher in 1620)
- All
living organisms were descendants of those that survived the great flood in
Noah's Ark
Furthermore, there were
some other important interpretations of the Bible regarding living things.
- Living things must be
perfectly constructed since they were created by a perfect creator
- Living things are immutable
(that is, unchanging) since each was said to reproduce after its own kind
- Living things could not
go extinct because theologians believed that would create destruction of the
perfect creation, something they believed would not be allowed by God.
Natural
Theology - a melding of natural science and theology
During the renaissance,
there was a great increase in the pursuit of knowledge about all areas of nature
including studies of living things. It was an honorable pursuit to study living things and was
not considered to be a theological threat.
The reason was simply based on the following assumption:
since nature was created by God, all observations and studies of nature
were expected to reveal patterns exactly consistent with the written word of
God, that is the Bible, as interpreted literally.
This was (and still is) a philosophy known as Natural
Theology.
One of my favorite examples
of early application of natural theology deals with the story of Noah's Ark
as tested scientifically by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680).
Kircher was a German Jesuit who was the first great "Creation
Scientist" (Diamond 1985). The
following are some of the main ideas used by Kircher in his attempt to reconcile
the biblical account of the great flood with known scientific data.
- Kircher assumed a literal
translation of of the Book of Genesis and attempted to show scientifically
that the account of the great flood was possible.
- He calculated the number
of animals that an ark 300 cubits (450 feet) long could hold taking into account
space for provisions (e.g. meat for the carnivores, grain and hay for the
herbivores, seeds and berries for birds, straw and bedding, passageways, rooms
for Noah and his family, etc.
- He ignored fish and other
creatures he thought could survive the flood, but listed all others that he
knew: 130 kinds of mammals, 150
birds, and 30 snakes.
- He compared the needs
of the assumed occupants of the ark with the assumed space and provisions
on the ark to determine if the account could be possible.
The
logical conclusion drawn by Kircher has been aptly described by Diamond (1985):
For its time,
the design of Kircher's ark represented a sophisticated application of the
scientific method. He began with a specified set of assumptions (the
ark's biblical dimensions, the number of crew and passengers, and their
requirements for a year's voyage). He worked out the mathematical
consequences (the necessary space and provisions), then compared these detailed
predictions with reality. For Kircher, the Genesis account of Noah's
ark was scientifically plausible.
John Ray was another individual
who exemplified natural theology. He
was an Englishman who wrote some classic natural theology writings, including
statements concerning the immutability of species.
Living things, according to John Ray in 1701, were "created by God
at first, and by Him conserved to this Day in the same State and Condition in
which they were first made." from John Ray's The Wisdom of God Manifested
in the Works of the Creation as cited by Futuyma (1982).
Natural theologians developed
a great foundation of descriptive information about living things.
Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist in the 1700's, for example,
knew of about 15,000 living things which he classified and named using a system
that is still used in basic outline today.
Nicholaus Steno, in 1669, contributed to the discovery that fossils are
the remains of formerly living things, though he thought that the occurrence
of aquatic organisms in land deposits supported the biblically account of the
flood. These individuals and many
other excellent scientists/naturalists would provide the background knowledge
from which a valid natural explanation for origin of species could emerge.
Cited or Related
Literature
(in prep)
© 2005 Bruce G. Stewart
