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Evolution leaves God with nothing to do

By Richard Dawkins

BEPORE 1859 It would havr scemed natura! to agrce with the Rev. William Pa*. Wy. in "Naiural TheoloRy," tłut the aeation of life was God*s greatest work. Bsprdally < vanity might add) haman life. Tbday we'd amend the statemenc Ewłwtonb the imlyme¹* greatest wwk.Evołu-tkm is the creatar of life. and lift is arguabty the most surprbing and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated. Evołutkm, toguote a T-shirt sent me by an anon ymous well-wtsher, is the greatest show on earth, the only gamę in town..

Indced. evolution is probably the greatest show in the cntire universe. Most scłentists' hunch is that there ore independently evolvcd life forms dotted Around planetary isiands throughout the universe-though sadly too thinly scattered to encounter one another. And if there is life ełsewhere. it is something stronger than a hunch to say that it will tura out to be Darwinian life. The argument in fa-vor of alien life’s exi Sting at all is weaker than the argument that—if it eiists at all—it will be

Darwinian life. But it is also possible that we reallv are alone in the universe. in which case Earth. with its greatest show, is the most re* markable planet in the universe.

What is so special about life? It nem vio-Utes the bws of physics. Nothuig does uf any thing (fid. physicists woułd jast ha«e to formu-late new laws—it‘s happened often enough in the history of science). But althongh life nevcr vi* ototes the laws of physics. it pushes them into un* espected aeenues that staggcr the imagination. If we didnT know about Bfe we wouidnt beheve it was possible—except. of coursc, that there’d then be nobody around to do the disbelieving!

The laws of physics, before Darwinian evo* lution bursts out from their midst, can make rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars, whirl-pools and waves, whirlpool-shaped gaUries and Ught that travełs as waves while behaving Uke particie*. It is an intcresting. fascinating and, in many ways, deeply mysterious uni verse. But now, enter We. Look. through the eyes of a physidst, at a bounding kangaroo. a swooping bat, a leaping dolphin, a soaring

Coast Redwood. There never was a rock that bounded Uke a kangaroo, nem a pebbie that crawłed Uke a beetle seeking a matę. nem a sand grain that swam Uke a water flea. Not once do any of these creaturcs disobey one)ot or tittie of the law* of physics. Par from violat -ing the laws of thennodynamics (as is often ig-norantly aDeged) they aie relentlessly driven by them. Par from riolatlng the laws of mo-tion. anlmals exploit them to their advantage as they walk, run, dodge and Jlnk, leap and fly, pounce on prey or spring to safety.

Never once are the lam of physics vio* lated, yet life emerges into uncharted terri-tory. And how is the trick done? The answer is a process that. although variable in its won-drous detali, is sufficiently uniform to de$erve one single name: Darwinian evolution. the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded Information. We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this b the process that has generated Ufe on our own planet. And my bet. as I sald, b that the same process b in operation wherem life may be fbund, anywherc in the unhrerse.

What if the greatest show on earth b not the greatest show in the universe? What if there are Ufe forms on other planets that have evolved so far beyond our level of inteUigence and creatirity that we shouid regard them as gods, were we ever so fortunate (or unfortu* nate?) as to meet them? Would they indeed be gods? Woułdn’t we be tempted to faU on our knees and worehip them, as a medieval peas-ant might if suddenly confronted with soch mirades as a Boeing 747. a mobile telephone or Google Earth? But. bowem god-Uke the aliens might seem. they would not be gods.

and for one my important reason. They did not create the unwerec. It created them, just as it created us. Making the unńerse is the ooe thing no intelligence, however superhuman. coułd do, because an intdligence is compłea-statisticaUy improbable—and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees. from simpler beginnings: from a lifeiess unhrerse—the mira-de-free zonę that b physics.

Tb midwife such emergenrt b the singubr achievement of Darwinian eyotution. It stans wid) primeeal simphat*and fastm.by stoma pbcabie degrees, the emergence of compteuty >eminidyUnutl«scompient>-mTainlyupt.. our human bud of coofMty and my proba-biyway beyond. There mey be worids on wfcśch superhuman Ufe thrim. superimman to a leral that our imaginanow cannot grasp. Bur super-human does not mean supenurural Darwinian etolutkmb the only process we knowthatbuło-mateły capabfc of grnerating anything as com* plicated as crvative inteUigences. Once it has done so.ofcoune.thoseinteUigences can create other cocrpłes things* works of art and musie, advanced technoiogy, computers, the Internet and who knows what in the futurę? Darwinian eeolution may not be the onły such generathre process in the unhrerse. There may be other “cranes" (Daniel Dennetfs term, which he op-poses to "skyhooks") that we have not yet db-comed or imagined. But. however wonderful and howem difletent from Darwinian ewlu-tśon those putMhe cranes may be. they cannot be magie They wflJshare with Darwinian eeolu-oon the fadkty to raise up compłenty. as an cmergent property, out of simpfidty, while nem riolating natural law.

Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say b that it bms him with nothing to do. and no aduevrmrats that might attract our

praise. our worehip or our frnr Eroiution b Gorfs redundancy notkę, hb ptnk slip. But we have to go further. A compiei creative intefli-grace with nothing to do b not just redundant A dhdnt designer b all but nded out by the consid-eratlon that he must be at least as comptez as tbe entities he was wheełed out to espłain. God b not dead. He was nem aUve in the firet place.

Now. there b a certain dass of sophisti* cated modem theologian who wiU say sonie* thing like this: “Good heavens, of course we are not so nahre or simpUstk as to care whetber God eństs. Ezhtcnce b such a 19th* century preoccupation! It doesat mit ter whetber God eństs in a scienbfk sense. What mattersb whetber heemsts for youor for me. If God b real for you. who caret whetber science has madę him redundant? Such arro gance! Such ełitism."

WeU, ifthattwhat floats your canoe, youU be paddling it upamy loneły creek.The main stream bełief of the world‘s peoples b my elear. They bełieve in God, and that means they bebeve he erists in objectire reality. just as sureły as the Rock of Gibraltar erists. If so-phisticated theologiins or post modern rela-thrists think they are rescuing God from tbe re* dundancy scrapheap by downplaying the im-portance of exbtence. they shouid think again. Tell the congregatkm of a church or mosque that eabtence b too rulgar an at-tribute to fasten onto their God. and they will brand you an athetst. TheyU be right

Mr. Da*iiiv> a the author of *7V Sefósżr Gem,' ~Vx Ancnto^s Tak.' "The God Mu $bn* His latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth." ut7/ be publshed by Frrt Press S-pt 22.