Evolutionary Biology of Charles Darwin and its support to Atheism

On the ocassion of 150th anniversary of a great genius Charles Darwin, I think is good tribute shall be to study his influence on human thoughts up to this time and later periods. He proved to be the pioneer of a new branch of science called evolutionary biology. His contributions in the field may be summarized as -


1. Continuance of Evolution of Species
This has two repercussions - non-constancy of species and evolution being a gradual process without any break and suddenness. The first point states that no species on earth remains in the same state for ever but, according to the second point, keep on evolving gradually towards perfection without any discontinuity. Thus, evolution is an ever-going process working on each species on the earth and no change in a species takes place suddenly.


2. Branching during Evolution
This implies that all life forms descended from a single source and as the evolution of that source took place under different circumstances, new species came into being. This branching is the cause of present large number of species on earth and this number shall go on increasing continuously. However, some species for being misfit in their environment become extinct over a period of time. Thus, birth of new and extinction of existing species is a continuous process.
Before this theory was propounded by Darwin in 1859, Aristotle's notion of linear evolution was endorsed by many later naturalists, which assumed that all species took birth and went on improving themselves to become more and more suitable to their respective environments.


3. Natural Selection at the Core of Evolution
Since a species may evolve into different forms of life due to different environments, the nature selected only fit for survival and dismissing the misfits. This also implies that there exist no super-natural cause behind new species coming into being - in direct contrast to theist assumptions of a creator's existence and all forms of life being His creations. Thus, Darwin provided a foundation stone for atheism, which explains all natural phenomena scientifically and strikes theology at its root.


Natural derivations of these concepts of theory of evolution strike at the very root of general thinking of humanity to alter it to be more scientific rather than being faith-based. Some such points are worth mentioning here.


a. There is No Super-natural Power
Darwin's evolution theory explains every development of life materialistically and stresses that no super-natural power is involved in the process. This enabled humanity in explaining every natural phenomenon scientifically and thus provide strength to scientific culture of the world. This also discards theological descriptions of creation and life.


b. Refutation of Typology
Species on earth may be classified in to different types, but every individual in a type is unique and different from all others in the type. Thus, there are dissimilarities in similarities of life forms. The individual's uniqueness is due his/her level of evolution which is different for each individual. Due to this, every population keep on changing naturally to being better adapted to natural environment. This notion helps in linking history to society to scientific thinking.


c. Teleology is Invalid
According to Darwin's evolution theory, changes in nature are not directed towards any targeted results but are due to ever-ongoing evolutionary process of natural selection. This strikes at concept of fate of humanity which states that everything has a pre-determined future state and changes take place towards achieve that state.


d. Randomness is Universal
Darwin's theory states that things undergo production variations randomly and then out of these better-adapted things are selected for survival as a process of natural selection. This notion has been vigorously opposed by many scientists viz. John Herschel, Albert Einstein, etc. but still survives due to its unique explanation of individual's distinctiveness in populations of a species.


Thus, Atheism finds the most scientific support from Charles Darwin through his theory of evolution which is the only surviving valid theory of explaining natural changes taking place all around.