Faculty recognizes the evolution of thought over a century and a half has done nothing to calm the academic fervor over Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Tech will host more of the debate next week.
Virginia Tech’s faculty is preparing to recognize the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s seminal work, “On the Origin of Species,” in a Nov. 4 conference.
First published in November 1859, Darwin’s book is considered one of the formative works in the field of evolutionary biology. Darwin’s writing was crafted centrally around Darwin’s travels to the Galapagos Islands, located off the west coast of South America.
Ron Lewis, associate professor of animal and poultry science and chair of the organizing committee, first developed the idea for the conference in 2006.
“If you think of these great scientists, many put them on a pedestal,” Lewis said. “I think I could sit down with Darwin and have a beer with him.”
Lewis became worried when in discussions with graduate students he saw a decline in focus on Darwin’s work.
“It wasn’t being read anymore,” Lewis said. “It wasn’t seen to be relevant. I knew we had to do something about this.”
The conference was born, forming a committee across four schools around Tech. The conference will feature a variety of speakers coming in from as far as Germany, France and Canada over the course of the day.
“It’s really neat. The people who are giving the papers are really well known,” said Eileen Crist, associate professor of Science and Technology in Society and member of the conference’s organizing committee. “We’re exceptionally lucky to have these people here.”
Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar in the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, will make a keynote presentation during the morning entitled “Darwin and the Galapagos: What Darwin Would Have Liked to Have Known.”
Sulloway’s interest was piqued when he raised $30,000 as an undergraduate to make a film based on Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle.
“Darwin had more influence on my career than anyone else,” Sulloway said. “I owe him a lot. I should be paying him dividends.”
While there is much excitement for the conference, Darwin’s work remains one of the most contentious topics in American society.
A 2009 study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed that while 87 percent of scientists from the American Association for the Advancement of Science believed humans and other living things have evolved as a result of natural processes, only 32 percent of the general public accepted that same statement.
“The big issue here is essentially the perception among many religious Americans that evolutionary biology supplants the need for God in the universe,” said David Masci, senior research fellow of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “When scientific theory runs into religious beliefs, (for many people) the religious beliefs trump the scientific view.”
Mike Ellerbrock, an ordained Catholic deacon and a professor of agriculture and applied economics at Tech, has found common ground between his religious beliefs and scientific study.
“Mainstream religion, our scholarly religions, believe there is a lot of common ground between science and theology,” Ellerbrock said.
Ellerbrock, who has studied the Bible for more than 20 years, said it was important to recognize the challenge in looking at the topic of evolution from a religious angle.
“It’s a challenging topic because it creates fear to consider human origins, how did we come about,” Ellerbrock said.
“It’s always been important to people to understand not only whether there is a God, but what kind of God,” Ellerbrock said. “The image of God is important to any believer.”
Ellerbrock noted toward the end of his book, Darwin said his findings were consistent with the work of a creator.
“To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual,” Darwin wrote.
Sulloway noted the challenges Darwin had in presenting his ideas to the religious community.
“Evolution was a very heretical doctrine in the 1830s, like supporting the existence of UFOs, even worse than that,” Sulloway said.
Ellerbrock noted the timing of the writing of the Bible presented certain scientific limitations.
“You’re asking something from the Bible that it wasn’t meant to convey. It was written thousands of years before modern science,” Ellerbrock said. “Give the writers a break.”
Ellerbrock said that the lack of hard evidence of creation did not mean the Bible was lacking as a spiritual guide.
“The Bible will not mislead us on what we need to know to get to heaven,” Ellerbrock said.
Many of the scientists stressed the agreement within their ranks on the issue of evolution.
“The evidence is unambiguous, that’s simply how the world works,” Lewis said.
Ellerbrock said that Darwin’s work has been able to remain relevant, even in modern times.
“Darwin’s contribution was pioneering,” Ellerbrock said. “His basic outline stands strong,”
However, Sulloway added there was more research to be done on some of the specific mechanisms of evolution.
“We’re going to be learning about evolution for centuries,” Sulloway said. “We’ll never stop investigating this material.”
The conference will take place Nov. 4, at the Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center. Registration is from 7-8 a.m., and the event will continue through the day.