[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 21, 2011. It was republished here on November 9, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]
Abstract
A number of biologists maintain that the recent developments in evolutionary biology have profound implications for religion, morality and our self-understanding. The author focuses on the issue whether evolutionary biology has any relevance for a religious understanding of the meaning of life. First, the question about the meaning of life is clarified. Second, the argument of biologists such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and Edward O. Wilson, that evolutionary theory undermines the religious belief that there is a purpose or meaning to the existence of the universe and to human life in particular, is evaluated. The author maintains that this argument has some merit, but that it nevertheless fails both to be a purely scientific argument and to establish the intended conclusion.
Addendum (October 21, 2011): Stenmark identifies and criticizes the following argument.
(1) All individual species that come into existence through the process of evolution are random (that is, have a low probability) with respect to what evolutionary theory (or more broadly, the sciences) can predict or retrospectively explain;
(2) Therefore, the existence of human beings lacks an ultimate meaning, in particular, their existence is not the result of a divine purpose or intention.
(3) The only things that we can know anything about are the ones science can discover.
(4) The existence of Homo sapiens is planned by God only if the species’ existence is intended by God and it is likely that its emergence will take place for that reason.
(5) But all individual species that come into existence through the process of evolution are random (that is, have a low probability) with respect to what evolutionary theory (or more broadly, the sciences) can predict or retrospectively explain.
(6) Therefore, the existence of human beings lacks an ultimate meaning; in particular, their existence is not the result of God’s purposes, intentions or plans.
