Interior Dialogue

The debate is old and tired. Seems unlikely I may contribute anything new to it, but I think a more pragmatic point of view may be useful.

The debate is usually framed in terms of the internal structure, assumptions and claims of the two points of view. But I think that in order to see clearly, or in any case, clearer, one need not delve into that mire. I, for instance think that the most potent (and in the long term the only relevant) argument is the pragmatic one: how useful are the different points of view. Will I have a better life, will myself and my family fare better if I am an evolutionist, or a creationist?

It is interesting that this question does not have as simple an answer as it might seem. At first sight, evolution seems to win hands down. Here’s why this may seem to be the case. Let’s imagine two types of hospitals and pharmacies. The first type contains doctors who believe in evolution, and drugs developed by scientists who believe in evolution, and who think in evolutionary terms. The second type contains doctors who believe in creationism and drugs developed by scientists who believe in creationism, and think in creationist terms. The fact of the matter is that the second type of health care would have very little to offer, if anything.

Consequently, one may argue that life is better as an evolutionist, since without evolutionist care and drugs most of us would live far shorter and more painful lives than we currently do.

But then why is there a persistent creationist minority even in the most highly developed and educated societies? The answer is simple: belief in a Creator brings non-negligible internal reassurance to human psychology. One may use game theory, which is a mathematical theory which does not require or imply evolution or creationism, to show that as long as creationism brings non-negligible psychological benefit to people, then the equilibrium population density of creationists will be non-zero.

None of this means, of course that in the long term one or the other of the two approaches will prevail, even though it seems like in the current context of highly developed industrialized societies evolution theory has the advantage. It is not hard to imagine economic, climatic or military crises which would quite reverse the situation, bringing evolution theory from its dominant place down to a marginal minority, the way it was a century and a half ago.

But for the time being, it seems like the pragmatic, self interested thing to do is to believe in evolution, or at the very least, be willing to trust people who believe in it with one’s life. In any case, most creationists do this every day, and a good thing it is.