Ludovico Galleni
Professor of Zoology general. University of PisaI. Clarification of terminology
Although it is a term now universally known and used by both the scientific language that the culture in general, to speak of evolution require some initial brief explanations, as it was his extensive use often leads to a confusion terminology. It should first clarify that the term 'evolution' historical birth in the natural sciences, particularly zoology and biology, and refers to a scientific theory that the various species living today as the result of a long process of transformation and diversification occurred over time. Furthermore, living beings of this derived from ancestors who lived in times past also linked by relations of descent. Life can therefore be framed in a single comprehensive report of kinship and common descent. In a strict sense, "evolution" is therefore a purely scientific term that indicates a specific theory and does not in itself if the theory itself is not included in a synthesis of thought that incorporates a vision of "philosophical" in the world.
In this sense, the term evolution has been in the past in contrast to that of 'fixism. With this last word means a scientific theory that argued that species (or groups of them) had originated independently of each other and remained unchanged over time, making it impossible, in this view, draw blood relationships between the living. The species could have originated in various ways, such as for spontaneous generation. Today, the theory can be surpassed fixed connotation, having been definitively resolved the question of their supposed immutability. As we shall see, in their mutual opposition to these two scientific theories have been affected and have also influenced the philosophical and theological discussion.
The concept of evolution is encountered, however, sometimes even in different contexts. Also in the biological field, it is common to refer to the expression "evolution of life" to indicate the study of its origin on Earth or in the cosmos, thus intending to focus on the dimension of "transformation" that the concept of evolution brings with it; In this case, it refers to the processing elements simple and complex structures in the primordial and organizational success. It is still on the "transformation" that is emphasized when one speaks of "chemical evolution", wanting with this report the synthesis of different chemical elements and their compounds occurred during the history of the cosmos. We are not facing a "kinship" as in the case of life, but the possibility of reconstructing the sequence of chemical elements according to their increasing atomic number, by nuclear fusion reactions (such as those occurring in stars, it is possible to generate chemical elements heavier than starting from lighter ones. In this context fits the notion of 'cosmic evolution' with which he indicates the long history through which the universe, starting from a state relatively simple and poorly diversified, has seen subsequently formed not only the various elementary particles and then the various chemical elements, but also aggregations of matter, much more complex and diverse (galaxies, clusters of galaxies, stars, planets, etc..), which now form its structure. In physics, the use of the concept of evolution usually denotes the presence of a temporal dimension, such as when we speak of the evolution of a dynamic system, wishing to indicate that the study of a certain system configurations that take over time based on physical laws that govern.
His connection with the concepts of transformation and time meant that the term evolution to assume over the past two centuries, a great philosophical significance, origin absent. With it, in fact, is also a philosophical view that describes the all-embracing nature as a "changing world", ie as a continuous dynamic development, inheriting so much of the content that classical thought, at least on Heraclitus traditionally associated with "becoming" as a philosophical perspective of interpretation of all reality, a certain dialectical opposition with being. In this regard, one of the most influence important modern and contemporary science on the concept "philosophy" of evolution was that the "becoming" not only means more growth or development (as compared to that of a seed plant), but also processing and opening of the story. With Bergson (1859-1941) will be reached so the idea of \u200b\u200b'creative evolution' perspective then implicitly taken up by various authors, including scientists, interested in highlighting the emergence of "new" in history, evolution , physical or biological systems. From the philosophical point of view, but also theological, the modern era's first re-read the dialectic between being and becoming in terms of a comparison between creation and evolution, then head to the search for synthesis of such nature as materialistic theist. It is the first which is the introduction of the term 'evolution', usually used in the sense of "philosophical system", while the synthesis of thought open to transcendence and the spiritual life have gradually incorporated the idea of \u200b\u200bevolution - biological and cosmic - as "modes" of God's creation, while pointing out relevant information in this regard.
A further important clarification of terminology concerns the meaning to be attributed to the word "theory". When we speak today in the scientific field of 'theory', or even "theories of evolution ', we refer to a precise and robust framework of interpretation, which are certainly possible in the investigation and clarification, but as a whole presents itself as a reliable historical reconstruction and not as a scientific hypothesis. Wanting to make a parallel, we can say that the theory of evolution is the result of searching the historical evidence as may be supported by the existence of the Roman Empire. This parallel allows us to have two thoughts: the first is that it is, at least in part, of a historical event that is investigated with the methods of historical research. In fact, if it finds the study period, especially if the fossils and the succession of floras and fauna, and also the consequences that have come down to this, that the present distribution of flora and fauna, as well as links that can be reconstructed between the various living species and fossils. The same thing happened, after all, even for the Roman Empire of which we have been able to study the findings and the consequences that have come down to this, such as the spread of the Romance languages. The second is that if there is still a chance, although very low, error, then this would depend on an error of reconstruction, but if so, this would also apply to the Roman Empire, which could perhaps be considered in future as an erroneous interpretation of the texts of the Latin writers of the findings or and remains that have come down to us. We understand, however, that this probability is so low that it can be considered void, and therefore, similarly, the historical fact of evolution is worthy of being taken seriously: it becomes part of our knowledge, of which philosophy and theology must take into account.
But the concept of scientific development, as a result of these historical research has now been virtually established, are then added together, more or less successfully, a number of meanings that exceed the empirical data and therefore must be addressed and discussed also within a philosophical perspective, including a synthesis between science and faith. In this paper we will to retrace some of its essentials, directly involved in biological evolution only, and do it from a historical approach.
II. Assumption fixist to evolutionary thought: the work of Lamarck
1. Two different visions of the living adaptation. We can not speak of the evolution of living if you do not widening the field to the wider problem of biology and its birth as a science of observation of the living. It was when the first men began to look around, to observe nature and to the concrete experience of its regularity and His break came that the first biological research in science. And with it comes the first concept of "species": in fact, we realize that living things are grouped into morphologically distinguishable entity and to which you can assign a name. The characteristics that identify these entities remain unchanged over time and are transmitted to offspring through reproduction, that is, each from its own seed. This first scientific concept of species that will be used by the editors of the biblical text, particularly in the book of Genesis , but also in other texts of the Old Testament where it shows the world of the living, as they clearly refer to the descriptions nature of the science of their time and use. The painting "project" that subject is apparently fixed connotation, with a source of species that seems to derive directly from a single act of creation for each species, scientific observation in fact described the stability of species over time and from then on the scientific data Bible writer sent the theological content of the origin of creation and creatures from God Paradoxically, reading scientific fixist was to obscure the great innovation of Biblical theology, that is the sense of history. Compared to other accounts of creation relative to other extra-biblical traditions, the biblical account owned by the people of Israel contained In fact, a clear historical perspective: history of covenant, salvation and redemption. It is perhaps a forerunner example of how the paradigms of science sometimes affect the freedom and wealth of the theological message.
Even Greek philosophy and science will be compared with the theology, that is, the discourse about God in their time. The nature observation at this time the Greeks had not seen as a factor of transformation, at least with regard to the living. It arose, however, the problem is not only the description of the species, but also the description of the adaptations of living, considering the fact that species maintain their characteristics over time because of adaptations that allowed them, in a very effective way to survive and reproduce. According to the Aristotelian biology, living things were complex systems, composed of several parts interacting with each other for a particular purpose. In addition, the adapter works so well because they were wonderful fruit, like the rest of the universe, the work of a Demiurge foresight and providence, which, as argued by Plato, everything was well oriented. Next to the idea that there was derived from Empedocles, beautifully popularized by Lucretius (98 - 54 in. C.), whereby the living, still seen as compound objects, were actually derived from a random assembly of parts. About was allotted an assembly allowing it to survive and reproduce offspring had left, while others were more or less quickly extinguished.
As you can see, we are faced with two different hypotheses to explain the necessary adjustments. The first, just because it included the adaptation as a result of a rational project, had greater explanatory power than the second, on the contrary, left to chance the formation of the right combinations, and thus did not provide any rational reason that would lead one to investigate the detailed structures of animals. After all, what was the question and investigate the adaptive significance of each structure and organ if their origin was the result of various parts of the union cause? Once the assembly allowed to explain why the minimum of adaptation, the rest could also be due to chance. The Demiurge, in contrast, did nothing in vain, and then it made sense to carry out a survey to fully understand the adaptive value of the morphology and physiology of the animal. The Great Galen (129-210 AD) will be inspired by this research program and his work will be, even if the cultural charged, one of the most accomplished of natural theology (see Hankinson, 1988).
For Galen, in fact, the teleological assumption (ie the one giving an order the various living structures allow up to investigate in depth the reasons morphofunctional) was plausible only if it was the fruit of a skilful and benevolent Creator. On the other hand, if there is such a Creator, then there are no superfluous things in nature, on the contrary, if there are unnecessary things in nature, then the teleological assumption is no longer plausible, and the search for meaning morphofunctional structures of the living would lose its raison d'etre. As you can see, this form of natural theology - here understood as a simple teleology - not born in the context of Christian theology, biblical or otherwise, and has the fundamental aim is to create a sort of "metaphysical substrate" a scientific research program for dealing in a comprehensive and exhaustive description of the problem morphofunctional adaptation of the living. The theoretical construction, which will then guide the Western biological science until the appearance of the evolutionary hypothesis, then created an environment that is not exactly that of the Jewish-Christian tradition.
The encounter between the teleological perspective, already present in greek thought, and the Biblical notion of providence, will constitute a paradigm robust and easily altered. After all, the God of the Bible could well be the guarantor of the perfection of the direct and immediate adjustments, so as was the Platonic Demiurge. Nor, on the other hand, there was no evidence that the adjustments could be formed in different ways, either because the observation demonstrates its extreme precision and refined, or because the alternative hypothesis of random guy, as well as less effective at promoting scientific analysis, it was also clearly linked to a materialistic view of atheism, among other popular poetry from the work of Lucretius. With very few exceptions, such as found in s. Augustine, the analysis of the theology seemed more committed to finding a connection between the Creator and the biblical Demiurge Plato than to enhance the historical perspective of Revelation and the importance of history brought with itself. To support the need to acquire such knowledge will contribute to the initial investigation of nature carried out after the revolution of Galileo, with which emerge in all its dramatic scope of the enormous scale of the historical periods involved in the natural history.
2. The emergence of the historical and evolutionary perspective . Will Niels Steensen (1638-1686), the Danish scientist who was long active in Tuscany (better known by the Latinized name of Nicholas Steno), to sketch a first hypothesis on the evolution of the geological landscape, trying to explain why some fossil remains of marine animals were found by him out of place, that is embedded in the rock of a hill. The key point of Steno hypothesis was that the time entered in the observation of nature as the bearer of transformation and change. As pointed out by Giulio Barsanti (1979), the natural history understood as a "tale of nature" in Lamarck become "natural history", understood as a transformation in time of natural events: the idea of \u200b\u200bhistory, so deeply in this biblical theology, can begin to link up with the natural sciences.
To allow the construction of an initial program of developmental research, however, still lacks an important element: the possibility of an extension of the idea to "change the direction of the transformation of nature", which is necessary to account for the scale of beings which, since Aristotle, was one of the structures of the description of the living and that required an extra boost to become a family tree (see . Barsanti, 1992). The land at this point begins to have its age, as determined by the geological survey and the time begins to grow remarkably over the relatively small and could be calculated based on too literal an interpretation of the narratives of creation in the Holy Scripture. And, on the other hand, life had its own history: the fossil remains of animals were not confined to found in unusual places, like the teeth of a shark tracked by Steno on a hill, but also difficult due to the species of animals living at that time known: there was, therefore, extinction of species or something completely different?
The debate was triggered in the Europe that is experiencing the exciting (at least from a scientific perspective) moment of great geographical discoveries and Paris is a center of this debate, thanks in particular to the presence of Georges Buffon (1707 -1788). The French capital is also one of the places where it was developing the reflection of the Enlightenment, a movement within the religious culture, but then if turn from it, causing a fracture that soon it will be difficult to reconcile Christian thought. In the field of biological sciences will be more sensitive to the fracture, however, later, prepared by the idea that the long lead times and the problem of meaning in the history of nature has now added the notion of progress: the story is a move towards situations and ways of life always best. This "moving towards" could also affect the life-world in which there were then only transformations. The great natural mechanism, which had been hitherto investigated with great sagacity and success in the movement of celestial bodies, would seem to apply to life: the hierarchy of beings could be interpreted as a family tree and forms of life easier (or seemingly easier) were somehow the precursors of more complex life forms. The question raised by the observation of fossil hours could receive an answer: it was not simply the remains of extinct species, but species that were later transformed into what we see today.
Who put all these pieces together to propose the first theory on the transformation of species is Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). Active in France at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Lamarck lives the great changes that prepare, and then they will explode, the French Revolution. The idea of \u200b\u200bprogress, favored by the political and social climate in which was rising, therefore becomes a key element in building the scientific research program Lamarckian and, consequently, that of "moving towards" life, that is towards forms of "complexity" increasingly, using a word to us today. Lamarck moves within the deist perspective: the Creator is the God of Enlightenment reason, a God who sets in motion the mechanism of the universe, but then withdraws, leaving that everything independently and with no interest to what he started. We are facing a new version of Plato's Demiurge, Demiurge, but that is not only a guarantor of existing, but also the world's progress towards its future. This approach could not, when applied to the history of life, not posing the problem of the mechanisms of transformation and adaptation. It is here further underscore the importance of the work in light Lamarckian, but also of its limits. Indeed, adaptation is understood by him as the result of an interaction between the living and the environment, and this is a great new concept. The limits only apply to the mechanisms that follow this general idea, namely the use and disuse of organs and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Here will not follow the scientific debate on the hypothesis of Lamarck, but we will restrict ourselves to some considerations about its impact on philosophical and theological reflection.
Curiously, the clash is just harder to Paris and the point of departure was precisely the debate the idea of \u200b\u200bprogress. With the restoration, the idea of \u200b\u200bprogress, returns to being considered a "danger" and this is when another scientist in Paris, Georges Léopold Cuvier (1769-1832) embodies the progressive alternative to recovering the Lamarckian fixism science. He broke spirit that movement toward the mechanistic stating the progress of the living presence in the geological history of disasters that have wiped out life forms by large areas and large (catastrophic), then repopulated from other animals and other plants living in different areas. In this way, the perfect mechanism of the God of Enlightenment reason can no longer work! Obviously, not all reactions to the hypothesis of Lamarck were so heavy and dramatic. In the case of Cuvier should also be noted that the clash at the scientific and philosophical also had personal reasons of competition, both taught and worked at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and if the revolution had brought to the fore the ideas and the work of Lamarck, Napoleon and the restoration will come back strongly to the fore the ideas of Cuvier.
The first impact of the debate on theological reflection, particularly among Catholics, then they were not totally negative. The future Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman will open a required course in theology in 1835 at the English College in Rome, with some lectures on "Science and Theology", which will discuss the ideas turned. Wiseman is not an enthusiast of Lamarck, but in fact sees only one major obstacle to the reception processing by the ideas of Catholic theology, namely the risk that we can think of a source of the human species from different evolutionary branches: the unity of a given species is essential for theology. And it is remarkable that in order to explain the differences between different human populations and maintaining the uniqueness of the origins, Wiseman sketches an almost Darwinian theory! In fact, the obvious differences between different human populations could be well explained to him with the origin of random heritable variations which would then set out in the presence of favorable circumstances. "These examples [...] show that variety may not even sporadic or accidental engineers, but what is much more to our case, spread among animals. [...] So far we have seen, then, by analogy and to direct eg first that hath a perpetual inclination, in fact we could say an effort, to give birth in the nature of our species diversity often singular character [...] and second that these details may exchange for successive generations of father to son. In this manner we obtain presumptive evidence that the various families or races of men can TRAR their origin by some similar event, the birth of a random variety, which as a result of favorable circumstances, such as to cause d ' example of the isolation of the family where he began, and of subsequent marriages between individuals of that, it happened to be indelibly fixed in succedentisi generations "(Wiseman, 1841, vol. II, p. 169).
After all, it was the casual setting of inherited mutations in small isolated populations, one of the cases that the "modern synthesis" will place in the chapter on the so-called genetic drift. So, not a problem nor the transformations, random fixation of varieties, because Darwin's work will then create so much tension?
III. The confirmation of the hypothesis of evolution and its diffusion: the natural selection of Darwin and Wallace and the ensuing debate philosophical and theological
Leaving aside Darwin's biography and its goal to position-change, we will try here to understand the reasons of the difficulties seem to put his theory to theology and to his way of interpreting the biblical data.
1. The premises of the theory of evolution by natural selection . To understand the causes need to move to Britain, where two new elements were discussed along with ideas of Lamarck. Charles Lyell (1797-1875), in the three volumes of his Principles of Geology (1830-33), while maintaining the distance from the ideas of evolution, however, had also challenged the ideas of Cuvier's catastrophic. In his view, the great geological changes were not due to large events, exceptional, and therefore very rare and practically not investigated by the methods of science, but they were made with the sum of small changes (erosion, sedimentation, raising, lowering ) that daily geologist observed and could be studied. It was the definition of actualism which opened a prospect also important to understand the evolutionary mechanisms it was necessary to devote to the study of transformations of daily living that could be perceived, and in this sense the work of farmers offered a vantage point. One could then study the artificial selection, but as a mechanism to deliver this level of action of nature?
A second important point is due to the work of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), who in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) envisages a dynamic theory of human populations that will be important for the development of the hypothesis of "natural selection". For Malthus, human population that could grow with virtually unlimited resources grow in a geometric progression, and then exponentially. He had in mind the population explosion of the English colonies of North America, which grow in soil rich in resources and virtually no competition (no doubt similar survey conducted on the Native Americans would give very different results!). On the contrary, despite fluctuations more or less extensive, the people of Europe remained stable since decimated by disease, war, famine. But the key point is that these dramatic situations were fundamentally linked to a substantial lack of resources, which grow only in fact second arithmetic progression: because of what would become a real "struggle for survival" ( struggle for life) who abandons hunger, disease and then death for the weakest and inept. The human condition is so much drama and indeed Malthus pointed out this situation with the clarification of the term "misery 'or state of misery, wretchedness (see Poursin and Dupuy, 1974, p. 25). It would be a terrible situation, inherent in the nature of human societies, and which regards man as just that: in front of a nature orderly and harmonious, the wretchedness the human condition was, according to the interpretation easier and more immediate, still the evidence of guilt of Adam. It was not the nature to be corrupt, but that humanity had sinned.
Darwin's theory of natural selection and then be born from these two premises: on the one hand, the current and its subsequent connection with gradualism, ie the fact that the mechanisms of evolution took place by slow accumulation of changes that originated important consequences (the great diversity of living) on \u200b\u200btime and on the other, the importance bestowed a mechanism to investigate the competition of resources and the selection of the fittest, that somehow could be controlled by studying the work of farmers struggling with artificial selection. The time was therefore ripe for the formulation of a new theory, to the point that natural selection will be proposed independently by two authors: Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913).
2. The debate following the Darwinian theory: scientific perspectives, philosophical and theological . Leaving aside here the historical aspects, we only care to stress that there was an automatic transition from the theory of natural selection to an atheistic view of nature. Wallace was not in fact a materialist, although it is difficult to define a believer in last years of his life he will in fact, a smoky theosophy, to the point of seeing a world of ghosts and spirits interact with the action of natural selection. He will defend anyway, even if in a superficial way (his theological knowledge was, as we have said, poor and bizarre), the acceptability of the theory of a natural theology of Christian inspiration: after all, natural selection could also be included harmony in the universe. In a written response to the objections of the Duke of Argylls, he places the natural selection in a clear and simple set of laws that show the balance and order of nature (see Wallace, 1891). However, it just quickly summarize the main mechanisms, we see that the transformation theory of natural selection placed in the living reality of the problems that could not be solved simply, and in fact will put an end to any attempt to "natural theology," here understood as an attempt to prove the existence of God wanting naively based on the observation of the functions and morphology of the living (for the meaning of the word). But on the other hand, criticism of these forms of apology will open the season, in our opinion much more fruitful, a more mature "theology of nature."
The mechanisms of natural selection are summarized by Julian Huxley (1887-1975) as outlined in three points and two deductions, the latter derived from the first. The first observation is that, in any case, children are an increasing number of parents and the second is that the number of individuals of a species from generation to generation, remains almost constant. These two facts lead to an initial deduction, derivation of Malthusian clearly: there must be a struggle for survival, since only a limited number of surviving children. But how to deliver a level of natural events as Malthus described for the human species? We arrive here at the third observation, that individuals of a species vary appreciably from one another, and that this variability is inherited. It follows then the second deduction: if individuals vary appreciably, the environment and any external factor, however, will choose from one generation to those individuals with features that better ensure the survival and reproduction in those particular circumstances. This choice of certain individuals over others is the "natural selection". After all, it is only to bring the most general level of the nature of what was deducted from the daily activities of farmers.
But here is where serious problems arise, and enduring, which is not so much the origin of man as natural selection itself, and that can not be solved simply, as Wallace tries to do, with a generic reference to the harmony of nature. The selection, in fact, could act on a pre-existing variability that was formed with its own mechanisms, but who was not connected by a cause-effect relationship with the various factors that had to act on it. This point was clearly developed by the metaphor of the architect with Darwin: natural selection can be likened to an architect who has to build a house using the stones formed due to a landslide. It can be said that the rocks were formed at random? No, of course: they were formed for specific reasons related to the forces of erosion who acted on the rock from which it precipitated, which suffered from shock and then falling to the ground by their chemical composition. But they are not linked by a cause-effect relationship with the architect will make use of them. The chain of causes is thus interrupted and introduces an element of randomness. The other key aspect is that nature also seems to use violent methods, local farmers, and at those same mechanisms that Malthus defined by the term misery: the "wretchedness" of human nature, therefore, extended to all creation. Not surprisingly, therefore, the onset of new difficulties, although there were those who tried to address them immediately and seriously.
An author who has a fundamental role in this debate is St. George Mivart (1827-1900), zoologist source Anglican to Catholicism that will land with a path similar to that of John Henry Newman. He will accept the historical fact of evolution, even if you do not declare satisfied with what were then considered his alleged mechanisms (thus arousing the suspicions of the more orthodox Darwinists such as Thomas Huxley) and will look at the same time to investigate more Wallace founded what might be the relationship between theology and natural selection. In 1871, Mivart published a book, On the Genesis of Species , Whose main part is devoted to critical acceptance of natural selection. He puts out the limits in relation to the event explaining the historical evolution of the living and considers, therefore, that natural selection should be assisted by other mechanisms, science-based. But the last chapter of his book, he discusses the serious theological implications of the mechanisms of natural selection. Despite being a zoologist, his knowledge of the debate were far more extensive than those of Wallace, as can be noted by its major authors of the cultural references to English like Baden Powell and John Henry Newman, the latter also leading the discussion elicited by Darwinism.
Mivart first distinguishes the different meanings of the term "creation" by saying that when it means the absolute origin of something from nothing, it is a supernatural act, completely outside the field of natural sciences. There is also a secondary meaning, that refers to the power that God gives to the matter and the nature of evolution (as you can see we are now within an evolutionary perspective). Within this second meaning, it is clear that the evolutionary mechanisms challenge the theology, as manifested in particular ways to create, albeit through secondary causes. Mivart is therefore right when the problem of the metaphysical significance of natural selection and this would be enough to stress the importance of his work.
As we have seen, understood as the evolution of living things change over time, processing could still be brought about by a project, was still theologically acceptable, just as not a problem to introduce the concept of chance and, with it, the interruption of an orderly chain of causes. After all, what could more easily put into question the watchmaker God of natural theology from the classical era (the metaphor of the watchmaker God was already present in De Natura Deorum Cicero) or the god of Enlightenment reason. The case, including in terms scientific and philosophical, not a problem for theological reflection: interpreted as the presence of random mechanisms are not easily or immediately related to precise deterministic laws, it seemed, in previous debates, even more objectionable to the free action of God and the presence of Providence who sent the story freely. The historicity of evolutionary phenomena, closely related to the uncertainty of the corresponding mechanisms, could well be attributed to the action of a God who stands out as the God of history: "What the eyes of the unbelieving work seems appropriate, in the eyes of the believer is a sign of Providence that acts freely and without no restrictions need to do to the nature of the steps needed to reach the man "(Galleni, 1992, p. 104).
It is interesting to note in this regard that the meeting with the laws of the Christian philosophy of science and Greek philosophy had already taken the risk of leading to a vision of nature in which the events were governed by such strict conditions and necessary - and so obliging that even God could alter the final - to suggest to the Archbishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier in 1277 to order, along with other allegations of Latin, the proposition that there is the case, but all things that happen, happen necessity ('quod nihil fit in casu, sed omnia de need eveniunt' P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroism latin au XIII siècle and , Louvain 1908, vol. II, p. 183, n . 102). In fact, in Christian thought there was never an identification of the laws of nature with the idea of \u200b\u200babsolute determinism: a view of that kind, as God would have been "compelled" within the laws of nature discovered by science (see Galleni, 1992, pp. 172-173). The problem of randomness of the evolutionary mechanisms, then, was in fact solved without much difficulty, although this would require a new and deeper theological reflection sometimes difficult to reconcile with a certain intellectual laziness, addressed more easily defend that to discuss and integrate.
If the previous view was feasible, what was rather difficult to solve - and still remains - covered the problem of natural selection as an event often violent and at the bearer of suffering and pain. This was, in fact, the most dramatic moment. That "miserable state" that Malthus confined to the human condition seemed to in fact extend to all of nature: the contrast between the goodness of creation and the biblical suffering, pain and death that characterize it instead from its inception, became difficult to conciliation. Mivart tried a solution retracing some arguments to Leibniz in his Theodicy (1710), dealt with the problem of evil in the world. With great lucidity emphasized that, from a scientific perspective, natural selection was just one of the mechanisms and determine the evolution, but the overall plan of God is still so far from our understanding, that what seems to us drama can have an explanation at the bottom of the global vision possessed by the Creator. It was an interesting attempt to explain, but that still left unsatisfied.
IV. Confirmations and innovations of the twentieth century
picking up the thread of scientific debate, we see that the end of the nineteenth century brings with it a very open and lively debate on the explanatory ability of natural selection. In fact, were not at all clear that the mechanisms oversaw the rise of the variability and inheritance, since the experimental approach was still appropriate. That approach, at least for the inheritance of variation, had already been ingeniously suggested by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) immediately after the release of volume on Darwin The Origin of Species (1859), but Paradoxically, his work remained virtually unknown.
1. The reductionist approach, the modern synthesis, and molecular biology . Mendel was able to apply to the investigation of the mechanisms of heredity a mathematical approach based on statistical regularities emerging to handle large numbers and had been able to do thanks to a sharp reduction methodology. He had in fact investigated the mechanisms of hereditary characters very much in evidence and qualitative (green or yellow, smooth or rough, white or red) in an experimental system that allowed to operate a large number of intersections, and in a controlled manner such that it could have the investigator on the certainty accuracy of the crossings was planning (ie the pollen of a particular plant fertilize the egg of another). Moreover, he could follow a large number of intersections and extend the experiments over time. In this way, Mendel established the presence of statistical regularities in the inheritance of characters, failing to understand that each individual had two "decisive" for the same character, one from the father and a mother. These determinants do not merge, but each retain their individuality in the gametes and then migrate in a stochastic, so that new gametes, we have only one character.
The basis of these results there was a reductionist approach: Each visible character was related to a genetic trait from a linear relationship and the body was the sum of characters that were inherited with simple rules, the laws of Mendel in fact. Paradoxically, it was precisely the clarity Mendelian reductionist approach that will allow us to share the experimental and theoretical work on natural selection. In fact, developing the mathematical-statistical approach it was possible to model the behavior of genes over time and define the reasons that kept the balance in their frequencies. In addition, they could establish the factors that, dumping the frequencies of genes from a position of equilibrium, allowing evolution. The modeling opened other perspectives: the reductionist approach pioneered by Mendel building allowed to think that once you understand the mechanisms of evolution of genes over time, it could also include all the richness of the transformation of the living. A population of living could be reduced down to the simple sum of its genes and modeled as a cloud of genes and alleles (different molecular forms of the same gene) that acted in time forces such as selection, mutation, etc.. You could then use the same techniques of statistical mechanics that were used to model the behavior of a gas cloud.
emerges here is a different concept of "chance" that overlaps and alongside that Darwinian. While, as we have seen, "Darwinian event" was linked to the disconnection between the rise of variation and natural selection would act on it, in the case of genetic research is related to stochastic mechanisms of heredity, so you can not know exactly how a given population will evolve, but we can try to model a system indicating the probability that certain combinations of alleles are formed and are then inherited.
But the fruitfulness of Mendel is not only due to the introduction of modeling. The fact that genes behave like the chromosomes soon made to think that the physical structure that served as support to the genes themselves would be set up, in fact, the chromosomes. The birth of cytology and karyology (study of cell reproduction and duplication of their nuclei) and studies on so-called Drosophila group (named after the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster that turned out to be the ideal animal for these surveys) allowed to verify that genes were arranged in linear sequence on chromosomes and the nature of mutations: those having a definite physical support, such support could change in various ways and the corresponding change affect the action of gene on the phenotype, and then be inherited. In addition, the change had nothing to do with cause and effect that the selection had to act on it: mutations that appeared after exposure of animals to ultraviolet radiation, for example, why not make them more resistant to the rays themselves. This important part of the Darwinian theory thus seemed confirmed. This leads to the so-called "modern synthesis", which organizes around the two central nuclei of Mendelian inheritance and natural selection all the achievements of biology in the first half of the twentieth century (see Huxley, 1942).
The discoveries of modern molecular biology seem to confirm the facilities of the modern synthesis. The genes are in fact made a sequence of nitrogenous bases that, in triplets, coding for the corresponding amino acids and therefore for the corresponding proteins. The double helix of DNA to be opened allowing the "reading" the code for the gene duplication and may allow the transmission of genetic information from cell to cell and therefore its heritability. In addition, a change in the sequence of bases leads to mutation. Finally, information can be transmitted from DNA to proteins, but can not travel in the opposite direction. Molecular biology confirms the directionality of the mutation is not hereditary and the mechanism by which selection can act. It also seems reductionist approach also confirmed by the emergence summary: a gene, a protein. Once known genes of an organism, its proteins are also known and therefore enjoy all the information needed to build the biological identity: what is true for the bacterium is also true for the elephant, except that the elephant just need some more protein ...
The two meanings of "case" mentioned above, the Darwinian disconnect between cause and effect (and breaks the causal chain) and Mendelian stochastic fluctuation, are recovered in full from molecular biology and authoritatively that, in various way, allowed to experience the structure of the gene. From these two concepts case moves to the known theory expressed by Jacques Monod Chance and they need (1970), a lucid example of the evolution of interpretation based on a precise grid philosophical just from a philosophical perspective, however, it becomes problematic, the author claims to have advanced the only interpretation of "scientifically possible." Abstract universal conclusions starting from the scientific description of molecular biology always requires, in fact, an interpretative grid, which should be spelled correctly, and that can no longer depend only on the experimental sciences, having to inevitably resort to more all-encompassing philosophical reflections, reflections that Monod comes directly from his existentialist and atheistic perspective. In this case should be made clear that it is a philosophical conclusion, explaining and discussing the various steps, which does Monod. The extrapolation of Monod in the theological context are also very superficial, because they intend to enter into a discussion without the use of appropriate methodological tools. It may be interesting to note that its position coincides exactly with what the Archbishop Tempier intended to defend! In reading Monod, the case is, however, more radical and comprehensive as the ultimate answer, while that of Tempier that the case was intended to strip the nature of the attributes of absolute necessity that belonged only to God
2. The biology of the complexity and global vision . We now need to highlight what are the approaches, but also the problems related to the setting of what is commonly known as "modern synthesis" of Darwinian evolution. First it must be remembered that we are dealing with a reductionist approach: it isolates a single issue, it investigates the most convenient way possible and then try to get a global view of the living by adding the results of the investigations carried on in isolation parts. This is obviously a particular methodological approach, as such, has the primary contact person 's epistemology, not theology. You can note in passing that the three figures who revolutionized biology of the nineteenth century, Darwin, Wallace and Mendel, the first was an agnostic who arrived towards the end of life clearly atheistic positions, the second was always more open positions from the religious point of view (even if confused and that led him to embrace the theosophy) and the third, Mendel, for all we know, was a saint Monaco. On the other hand, the method used by these researchers was extremely important because it allowed the creation of the various disciplines that make up the contemporary biology, physiology cytology, morphology. Today, however, this approach shows its limits. To better understand the problem, you need to retrieve the discussion related to the current situation of the evolutionary mechanisms, when these are reviewed in view of the complexity and the global approach.
The study of complexity has indeed shown, even in physics, the difficulty associated with a purely Galilean reduction based on mathematics and mathematization of natural phenomena. Complex systems are indeed sensitive to initial conditions and their behavior can not be predicted on a time scale of medium-long, the unpredictability of the system is also linked to the number of objects that interact and their relationships. The apparent difficulty of biology, to be explained with considerable difficulties for the scientific paradigm Galilean and therefore defined as "weak science", was thankfully overturned: biology, it now becomes "strong science" because the nearest recognized the complexity of reality, to present itself as a science-guided approach dictated by the new method complexity. A perspective of this kind should lead to the conclusion that the living (being articles consisting of a large number of parties and a high number of relationships between the parties) should be highly unpredictable and highly "unstable". However, if this could be easily demonstrated by applying a reductionist approach to living with a "global" approach the result would be very different, because we soon arrive to recognize that the parts interact to stabilize the system. The complexity applied to the living results in the emergence of unexpected properties, based on the simple components, and these properties tend to maintain a stable system.
This is particularly interesting when you consider that the end of the reductionist program was enacted in biology from that very branch that seemed to have consecrated the success, that molecular biology. In fact, in the living cell complex (eukaryotic) a large amount of DNA escaped simple scheme "one gene, a protein "because it had structural functions. This could be explained only by considering the DNA within the complex structure in which it was moving, that is, the cell nucleus, and functions that had to do, namely to maintain the stability of the organism. This allows us to introduce the most important innovation in the evolutionary mechanisms, connected with the most interesting feature emerged in recent years, that of a theoretical pluralism is no longer avoidable. We will try to summarize briefly the main theories that participate in this pluralistic vision, then discussing the different impact in the relationship between science and theology.
V. Today's debate: the pluralism of the evolutionary mechanisms
from epistemological point of view, the problem of pluralism of evolutionary theories is presented in a fairly interesting. In fact, those who are not here briefly describe the theories that will take the place over time, but theories must somehow coexist. The better view is that the so-called epistemological triangle of evolution (see Galleni, 1998, 2001), whose vertices are represented by the three theories that we call: gene-centered theory or bumps, or self-centered organization theory and biosphere-organization theory or connections. In this triangle, the area represents a set of points at different distances from the top, meaning that the three theories they are never pure, and it is virtually impossible for a real event can be explained fully and satisfactorily by one of them. Any interpretation of a fact of evolution is part of the triangle, in a point at different distances from the top represent how much of a theory is "used" in the interpretation of the event. But it is also equally clear that each author will be placed in the triangle according to its philosophical position. This representation has the great advantage of allowing, in principle, a discussion of the three different theories of "state pure, although in the operation of the concrete work of the biologist, both theoretically and experimentally, the three theories coexist, thanks to the use of the triangle.
gene-centric theory is closest to the setting and the Darwinian modern synthesis. What matters is the gene that changes and is inherited according to mechanisms of its own, creating the raw substrate on which the factor acts officer constituted by natural selection. The exponent is now more representative of this first theory is Richard Dawkins, whose philosophical positions are those of a militant atheism. What must be stressed is that, undoubtedly, the gene-centric theory recovers much of classical Darwinism, in particular the inability to use naive apologetics based on a chain of causes aimed at mechanistic sense. Its use in key philosophical therefore eliminates the watchmaker god or the enlightenment of reason (see Dawkins, 1988), but this makes it plausible to atheism, as Dawkins would like: removing the idea of \u200b\u200bdesign, however, makes problematic the notion of a provident and benevolent creator.
theory body-centered or self-organization does not refer, in the formation of ordered structures that characterize the morphology of the living, natural selection as a factor of order, but rather the ability to create ordered structures present in the same hierarchical level objects that interact with each other. Between various geometric structures that characterize many of the almost perfect morphologies of the living (think of the precise organization of spiral phyllotaxis foliar spiral shell or flat) are the result of organization of phenomena related to relationships that are to be established between molecules or cells, as well as, moreover, the geometric perfection of a snowflake or a crystal are related to the relationships that develop between the atoms. Linked to this issue there is that, importantly, the emergence of property. In fact, many simulations related to relations between objects (the most simple as the game of life of Conway, to the sophisticated simulation systems of Kauffman NK) seem to show, even with all the limitations of simulations, in particular situations of different structures can emerge, and sometimes stabilize, from objects that interact with rules simple. The order seems to emerge for self-organization, without ordering the action of natural selection. But this is still a geometrical order. In our opinion, despite some overtly purposeful interpretations that emerge from the philosophical thought of St. Kauffman (1995) - under which the man would be the obvious result of the mechanisms by which the Universe self-organizes - the argument from design that natural selection excludes from the Western cultural tradition, there can return to the theory of self-organization. If anything, it is interesting to note that a decidedly non-reductionist philosophy, leading to conclusions which, starting from the observation of nature, is diametrically opposed to those of Jacques Monod.
Rich prospects for constructive interaction with the theology is, however, the theory biosphere. This theory, which includes Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) among its founders, is the most important attempt to develop a comprehensive approach to evolution. Viewed from the perspective of complexity, the 'together' has properties that can not be understood by studying the individual parts separately, and this determines the crisis in the reductionist program. A reductionist approach was to suggest the evolution of the methods of investigation that might somehow address the global evolution itself, allowing you to control the emergence of new features that simply population biology was not able to put in evidence. Crucial from this point of view, is the approach on a large scale. It is recalled that Teilhard, who first investigated the evolution at a continental level and then, with the Geobiology, extends the interpretation to the entire biosphere. In 'interpretation of the trees Teilhardian evolution, the emergence of characters that evolve in parallel, become the test of the fruitfulness of the method. Going to study evolution at the level of the Biosphere, understood as a single entity that develops complex, are highlighted channels and beyond parallels rather reductionist investigation. And this is not without relevance to a discussion of theology.
The theory of the comprehensive reading also has a more modern, that of James Lovelock and the so-called 'Gaia hypothesis' (see Lovelock, 1991). Beyond the superficial interpretations that have been given, the Gaia hypothesis is a precise scientific hypothesis which states that, Whereas things at a global level and then at the entire biosphere, living and non living things are connected by relations of type negative feedback, which results in maintaining the stability of parameters linked to the survival of the biosphere itself. Somehow, then, is the Biosphere that, worldwide, maintains an active parameters that allow the survival of life. Faced with these factors, external to the Biosphere, which are constantly changing, it interacts keeping constant its basic parameters, such as air temperature, the salinity of the seas, the concentration of oxygen and carbon dioxide to: life, therefore evolve to survive.
VI. Philosophical and theological reflection
As we mentioned, the breakdown of the phenomenon in three different evolutionary theories facilitates the discussion of the relationship between evolution and theology.
The gene-centric perspective that is closer to Darwinism. In fact, natural selection does not just stop a chain of causality in a mechanistic way that refers to a design, but delivers a level of all creation - through its central idea of \u200b\u200bthe struggle for survival - the suffering, pain and death. From this point of view, it becomes more difficult to understand the biblical statement that reaffirms insistence that God saw the goodness of creation. The problem, I still remember, not so much the apparent absence of teleology or the presence of random mechanisms and uncertain, but the fact that these mechanisms are often carriers of suffering as in the case of sickle cell anemia, for example, where sophisticated mechanisms adaptation are positive for the species, but have a very high human cost because they bring with them the death of innocent lives (see Galleni, 1995). The Creator of the universe of Darwin is a Creator who has offered no account of individual creatures and is indifferent to their suffering. It follows very well the correct setting that St. George Mivart had given, stressing the importance of value "metaphysics" of Darwinian theory. Natural philosophy that emerges is that, so well represented by Monod, of a life that evolves randomly, with no project, and that man comes up only because they face the experience of solitude, a lonely man who has to deal with the desperate, existential indifference of the universe. The body-centered theory, as we have seen little help from this point of view, although the interpretation of Kauffman, finalistic introduces elements in the movement toward complexity, since it complements and does not replace the gene-centric theory, does not solve the problems of dramatic nature of evolutionary mechanisms.
appears quite different in this sense, the perspective of the biosphere or connections. This interpretation does not eliminate the underlying problem, but try to solve it, in part following the prospect of Mivart, within a global vision, as is the method used by the global scientific point of view. The biosphere theory leads to important philosophical reflections. In addition to confirming, as a general feature of life, just as understanding the evolution of irreversible transformation over time, adds that evolution as a "moving towards". The evolutionary mechanisms, but in part related to random mechanisms, show in global perspective, a directionality experimentally detectable by the presence of pipes and parallels, which identify a movement toward complexity and consciousness.
Somehow it reinstates a need, therefore, that a finality in respect of being a thinking, even if the path leading to humans is far from being deterministic. Indeed, in addition to earlier ideas of evolution as the transformation and how to move towards the biosphere theory suggests that the third characteristic of freedom. The mechanisms of uncertainty, and sometimes dramatic, are the sign of processes that can not be strictly deterministic, because a certain close, would have made impossible the creation of a free creature, and his free actions. Nor, on the other hand, the Creator is involved in setting to remove the causes of physical evil, because God's intervention in the workings of nature still requires, according to this perspective, the constraints on freedom. God will intervene, but only after the appearance of being thinking and therefore of the Noosphere, an alliance freely accepted by itself through the creation and free thinking creature. The Noosphere becomes the instrument by which the entire biosphere covenant with the Creator. The planning of creation is thus demonstrated by the deterministic unfolding of a program, but rather exactly the opposite, that is the fact that the emergence of thought is not deterministic. The value of creation and freedom. The mechanisms "groping", sometimes dramatic, if we see them in a perspective that in some way related to a kind of Leibnizian theodicy, are at the bottom of the mechanisms that maximize freedom. And perhaps this is the goodness of creation: the emergence of the creature and free thinking.
in relations with theology, the most likely evolutionary perspective also implies a certain "reading" of the content associated with original sin (cf. Gaudium et Spes , 13), especially on the its connections with the natural world. At times, this doctrine may have been seen as a "way out" to carry out God from the evils of creation in an orderly and harmonious universe already created an organized directly by the Creator's providence, evil can only enter as an error of rational creature, that is, with his sin. The problem of evil, after all, was always seen in some contrast with the goodness of the laws of nature. If, before Darwin, the "state of misery" of the human condition were determined again by human sin, once that status is extended to all creation, the developmental perspective as would be the direction and path of an order go now built. The notions of order and harmony do not therefore belong to the past, but refer to something that should be achieved in the future. As noted by Karl Schmitz Moormann (1995), the ' Verius id quod prius the classical tradition is replaced, in an evolutionary, a id quod Verius posterius . The consequences for theology are not negligible, although it should be remembered that the biblical revelation differs both from classical thought (truth and order are only the beginning) from which the modern idealist historicism (the truth and meaning are only at the end), but rather to support the simultaneous mediation of a Creator-Word, is the principle that the end of time. In any case, a God who creates a changing world, which is characterized by the emergence of new properties fit well with the historical perspective of biblical revelation. A God that plays to the bottom of the card of freedom of the creature, until you agree to be crucified by it, is the God of history, covenant and redemption, is the God of creation which, in the familiar expression Teilhard de Chardin, is moving towards the Omega point. The developmental perspective also accords well with the concept of covenant: God wants to interact with the world only through its alliance with the free creature, with a view to build a land and a history of looking to the future.
Finally, apart from the now final acceptance of the scientific outlook of development, the theology is confronted with a knowledge of God's plan of creation, according to the lesson of Galileo, also stems from the scientific study of the book of nature. The value of a theology that is sensitive to this instance of a theology that looks to the future, which helps to understand those "proposed covenant" that God continually offers to man, because they are adapting to new and unpredictable, as intrinsic to the creation in which we are called to live. And, on the other hand, only accepting the covenant with the Creator, the Noosphere can continue on its way safeguarding the integrity of the Biosphere, which is tied to a symbiotic relationship (see Galleni, 2001).
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