“We can say that the ‘raw material’ behind the evolution of life on earth
was the continual variation of individuals within the same species, plus the
large number of progeny, which meant that only a fraction of them survived,
the actual ‘mechanism,’ or driving force, behind evolution was thus the natural
selection in the struggle for survival. This selection ensured that the strongest,
or the ‘fittest,’ survived.”
“It seems as logical as a math sum. How was The Origin of Species
received?”
“It was the cause of bitter controversies. The Church protested
vehemently and the scientific world was sharply divided. That was not really
so surprising. Darwin had, after all, distanced God a good way from the act of
creation, although there were admittedly some who claimed it was surely
greater to have created something with its own innate evolutionary potential
than simply to create a fixed entity.”
Suddenly Sophie jumped up from her chair.
“Look out there!” she cried.
She pointed out of the window. Down by the lake a man and a woman
were walking hand in hand. They were completely naked.
“That’s Adam and Eve,” said Alberto. “They were gradually forced to
throw in their lot with Little Red Rid-inghood and Alice in Wonderland. That’s
why they have turned up here.”
Sophie went to the window to watch them, but they soon disappeared
among the trees.
“Because Darwin believed that mankind was descended from animals?”
“In 1871 Darwin published The Descent of Man, in which he drew
attention to the great similarities between humans and animals, advancing the
theory that men and anthropoid apes must at one time have evolved from the
same progenitor. By this time the first fossil skulls of an extinct type of man
had been found, first in the Rock of Gibraltar and some years later in
Neanderthal in Germany. Strangely enough, there were fewer protests in
T871 than in 1859, when Darwin published The Origin of Species. But man’s
descent from animals had been implicit in the first book as well. And as I said,
when Darwin died in 1882, he was buried with all the ceremony due to a
pioneer of science.”
”So in the end he found honor and dignity?”
“Eventually, yes. But not before he had been described as the most
dangerous man in England.”
“Holy Moses!”
“ ‘Let us hope it is not true,’ wrote an upper-class lady, ‘but if it is, let us
hope it will not be generally known.’ A distinguished scientist expressed a
similar thought: ‘An embarrassing discovery, and the less said about it the
better.’ “
“That was almost proof that man is related to the ostrich!”
“Good point. But that’s easy enough for us to say now. People were
suddenly obliged to revise their whole approach to the Book of Genesis. The
young writer John Ruskin put it like this: ‘If only the geologists would leave me
alone. After each Bible verse I hear the blows of their hammers.’ “
“And the blows of the hammers were his doubts about the word of God?”
“That was presumably what he meant. Because it was more than the
literal interpretation of the story of creation that toppled. The essence of