It Depends on What You Mean by "Evolution"

Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) is presumably not a huge fan of the Clintons, but nevertheless he has appropriated a wholly Clintonian political approach on the subject of evolution: pretend to issue a clarification by so carefully choosing your words that people on both sides of the argument think you agree with them.

In a New York Times Op-Ed today, imaginatively titled “What I Think About Evolution,” the senator attempts to defend raising his hand during a recent televised debate to indicate that he did not believe in it.

First, it is important to understand that Sen. Brownback is a Catholic, and not, like many of the louder voices on this issue, a Christian fundamentalist whose theology is anchored in the belief that the Bible can only be understood literally. The official Catholic position is that people “are at liberty to believe…according to how they see the evidence.” Christians, at least as far back as Justin Martyr, writing in 155 CE, have been open to at least the possibility that the timeline of Genesis did not refer to six literal twenty-four hour days. Augustine (early 5th century), one of the most influential figures in Catholic doctrine, specifically argued against a literal understanding of Genesis.

There are two things about the theory of evolution that tend to bother opponents: contradiction of the literal Biblical timeline, and the notion that we are descended from and related to apes. Brownback makes no mention of the former; his discomfort seems to stem entirely from the latter.

Most of his Op-Ed sounds like something I would have written: a passionate defense of faith as complement to science, and maintaining that “People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us.” He decries the false choice between evolution and creationism, which “does a disservice to the complexity” of the issue, and points toward a middle path, where “the process of creation – and indeed life today – is sustained by God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who…venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.” Brownback believes mankind is not some freak accident of history, and that there are disciplines outside of science to help us ponder why inorganic chemicals arranged themselves in such a fashion as to be able to contemplate their own existence.

“On the questions of the origins of the universe,” he continues, “I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves.” I find this a remarkable statement from a man who just weeks ago raised his hand on national television when asked who did not believe in evolution.

In his Op-Ed, the senator alludes to more complete remarks he made on the Senate floor in the summer of 2001, when he defended the Kansas School Board’s much-criticized position on the teaching of evolution. He argues that micro-evolution can be regarded as scientific fact, since we can directly observe it. Macro-evolution, on the other hand – “the theory that new species can evolve from existing species over time,” in the senator’s own words – is “scientific assumption” because it is “impossible to observe.” In a nutshell, Brownback will allow for minor genetic changes in a given population that become dominant, but he denies the common ancestry of life on earth.

His explanation for this is that man has a “unique and intended place in the cosmos,” an idea which seems (to him) to be threatened by the belief that modern humans evolved from apes. Ultimately, this Op-Ed doesn’t really illuminate a clear position on the issue of evolution. What it does show is another Republican who, like the President, makes a show of objectivity but isn't one to let a substantial body of evidence stand in the way of ideology.