My parents were religious in a rather quiet way. We had nothing like
family prayers, but they attended church every Sunday morning and when
we were old enough my brother and I went with them. The church was a
nonconformist protestant one, a Congregational Church, as it is called
in England, with a substantial building on Abington Avenue. As we did
not own an automobile, we often walked to church, though sometimes we
made part of the journey by bus. My mother greatly admired the clergyman
because of his upright character. For a time my father was secretary of
the church (that is, he did the church's financial paperwork), but I did
not get the feeling that either of them was especially devout. Certainly
they were not overly narrow in their outlook on life. My father sometimes
played tennis on Sunday afternoons, but my mother warned me not to mention
this to other members of the congregation since some almost certainly
would not have approved of such sinful conduct.
I accepted all this, as children do, as part of our
way of life. At exactly which point I lost my early religious faith I
am not clear, but I suspect I was then about twelve years old. It was
almost certainly before the actual onset of puberty. Nor can I recall
exactly what led me to this radical change of viewpoint. I remember
telling my mother that I no longer wished to go to church, and she was
visibly upset by this. I imagine that my growing interest in science and
the rather lowly intellectual level of the preacher and his congregation
motivated me, though I doubt if it would have made much difference if I
had known of other more sophisticated Christian beliefs. Whatever the
reason, from then on I was a skeptic, an agnostic with a strong
inclination toward atheism.
This did not save me from attending Christian services
at school, especially at the boarding school I went to later, where a
compulsory service was held every morning and two on Sundays. For the
first year there, until my voice broke, I sang in the choir. I would
listen to the sermons but with detachment and even with some amusement
if they were not too boring. Fortunately, as they were addressed to
schoolboys, they were often short, though all too frequently based on
moral exhortation.
I have no doubt, as will emerge later, that this loss
of faith in Christian religion and my growing attachment to science
have played a dominant part in my scientific career not so much on a
day-to-day basis but in the choice of what I have considered interesting
and important. I realized early on that it is detailed scientific
knowledge which makes certain religious beliefs untenable. A knowledge
of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible
for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part
of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if some of the
Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted
automatically? A belief, at the time it was formulated, may not only
have appealed to the imagination but also fit well with all that was
than known. It can nevertheless be made to appear ridiculous because
of facts uncovered later by science. What could be more foolish than
to base one's entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible
at that time, now appear to be quite erroneous? And what would be
more important then to find our true place in the universe by removing
one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs? Yet it is
clear that some mysteries have still to be explained scientifically.
While these remain unexplained, they can serve as an easy refuge for
religious superstition. It seemed to me of the first importance to
identify these unexplained areas of knowledge and to work toward
their scientific understanding whether such explanations would turn
out to confirm existing beliefs or to refute them.
Из книги Френсиса Крика What Mad Pursuit
Even a cursory look at the world of living things
shows its immense variety. Though we find many different animals in
zoos, they are only a tiny fraction of the animals of similar size and
type. J.B.S. Haldane was once asked what the study of biology could
tell one about the Almighty. "I'm really not sure," said Haldane,
"except that He must be inordinately fond of beetles." There are thought
to be at least 300,000 species of beetles. By contrast there are only
about 10,000 species of birds. We must also take into account all the
different types of plants, to say nothing of microorganisms such as
yeasts and bacteria. In addition, there are all the extinct species,
of which the dinosaurs are the most dramatic example, numbering in
all perhaps as many as thousand times all those alive today.
The second property of almost all living things is
their complexity, and in particular, their highly organised complexity.
This so impressed our forebears that they considered it inconceivable
that such intricate and well-organized mechanisms would have arisen
without a designer. Had I been living 150 years ago I feel sure I would
have been compelled to agree with this Argument from Design. Its most
thorough and eloquent protagonist was the Reverend William Paley whose
book, Natural theology -- or Evidence of the Existences and Attributes
of the Deity collected from the Appearances of nature, was published in
1802. Imagine, he said, that crossing a heath one found on the ground a
watch in good working condition. Its design and its behaviour could
only be explained by invoking a maker. In the same way, he argued,
the intricate design of living organisms forces us to recognize that
they too must have had a Designer.
This compelling argument was shattered by Charles
Darwin, who believed that the appearance of design is due to the process
of natural selection. This idea was put forward both by Darwin and by
Alfred Wallace, essentially independently. Their two papers were read
before the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858, but did not immediately
produce much reaction. In fact, the president of the society, in his
annual review, remarked that the year that had passed had not been
marked by any striking discoveries. Darwin wrote up a "short" version
of his ideas (he had planned a much longer work) as The Origin of
species. When this was published in 1859, it immediately ran through
several reprintings and did indeed produce a sensation. As well it
might, because it is plain today that it outlined the essential
feature of the "Secret of Life". It needed only the discovery of
genetics, originally made by Gregor Mendel in the 1860s, and, in
this century, of the molecular basis of genetics, for the secret to
stand before us in all its naked glory. It is all the more astonishing
that today the majority of human beings are not aware of all this.
Of those who are aware of it, many feel (with Ronald Reagan) that
there must be a catch in it somewhere. A surprising number of highly
educated people are indifferent to these discoveries, and in western
society a rather vocal minority are actively hostile to evolutionary
ideas.
Из книги Френсиса Крика What Mad Pursuit
|