Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley and Joseph Hooker were brilliant people. They recognized something that no one else in the history of humanity had seen or understood before them. They realized that when they studied the complex forms of life that existed, there was only one method of those forms getting where they got that made any sense. That method was natural selection. It comes to us most frequently as “survival of the fittest,” as if it were a tooth against tooth and claw against claw fight for survival. There is some of that, but natural evolution is more than that. What it says is that if there is any certain physical attribute or behavior that is going to lead to a greater chance of survival, the creature that contains that attribute will be selected over those who do not have that attribute. That creature will then pass this “improved” attribute on to its genetic offspring. It is more a matter that those who adapt to a certain environment will survive; while those who do not adapt to a certain environment will die. From simple forms of life, more adaptable complex forms are naturally selected.
These gentlemen were well aware of the implications of their theory and belief. They knew that there was absolutely no evidence of divine intervention in the lives of humans, birds, bees, grasshoppers, insects, fish, amphibians, parasites, flowers or anything else that they studied. What they found were lots of blind alleys. Creatures developed in bizarre ways that could not advance any further. Organs were formed in stupid ways. Human eyes have rods and cones that face backwards, with their nerves coming out in front, in the way of the light they are supposed to sense. There are millions of vestigial organs and strange structures which could only make sense if they had at one time been useful and then lost their use, as other organs and environments changed. If there was an interfering and designing God, he, she or it had certainly gone about its job in a blundering way. It made no sense to ascribe this evolution to a designing creator. The only kind of creator for complex life that made any sense was one that didn’t care in any way. It simply accepted what worked at the time, and rejected that which did not work at that time in that environment. All of life developed according to the Laws of Chance, once begun.
Now, these men were aware that this meant there was no divine intervention in life, and were also aware that this extended to everything else that they knew. This meant that they did not believe in a personal god. They did not believe that there was any god who was designing life, interfering with the actions of life, or planning life toward a certain goal. They did not believe that they could send requests to any god and have them answered. They were comfortable with the concept of a creator having started the universe and everything that they knew. It had to start somewhere by some force or something. They were aware that they didn’t know what that force was, and would never know. They chose not to argue the point, except for Huxley. Huxley had running published battles with other scientists and priests, heatedly defending their theory against creationists and divinists. The remainder chose to remain silent and continue their scientific studies without becoming mired in angry controversy. They were Agnostic Deists who chose not to seek labels for themselves and chose to not argue about their beliefs.
Now these astute scientists and naturalists were well aware that there were times when certain species became overwhelmingly dominant in a certain area. They found that entirely natural. If there were certain developments by any organism that made it easier for that organism to survive in that environment, it became completely dominant to the detriment of all other similar species in that area. Since this situation always corrected itself when other species made other adaptations, or the environment changed, they found that there was always, eventually, return to a milieu of lovely balance. As far as they were concerned, this was exactly the way everything was going to stay until the end of time. Even though they were a part of the exploration and exploitation of all the inhabitable areas of the world, they didn’t see that as a problem. They were indeed miraculously astute. They also, as most all of us do, did not see beyond their immediate world. They didn’t look into the future. They didn’t see Easter Island.
Easter Island is well documented. There is this Pacific Island that is isolated, and developed a stable population. They used the resources of that island for sustenance and political, religious and mythological purposes. The population flourished. When they ran out of wood and other resources on the island, they turned to the sea. As the sea became less fishable, their population declined. Now it has a sparse population with meager resources. Transcribe this focal lesson to a bigger lesson. There has been an explosion of the human population and colonization since the origin of speech. With the onset of written language 5500 years ago, all knowledge becomes transmissible. We are no longer isolated. Each of us has access to the knowledge of the ages. We can learn from the brightest and most capable no matter where they live or what language they use. The result is that there are no barriers to humans in overcoming all other species in all other localities at all times. The result is that we find technical means to exploit all areas of the globe and interfere in life in all other areas of the globe. What’s the result?
Just call our earth a big Easter Island. We are poisoning our streams, polluting our rivers, contaminating our oceans, depleting our ground water resources, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, melting our polar caps, leaching out our fertile soil, depleting our ozone layer, developing resistant organisms, and threatening to use monster atomic bombs that will poison all the atmosphere, soil and water of all nations. We are running amuck. Darwin didn’t see this coming. None of us did. But we sure are here. We have run out of space, folks. There are no more reasonable worlds to conquer. We love to explore space. We love to reach out into space. But first we have to take care of our home. This is the only home we have, friends. We better take care of it or the unfeeling, uncaring God of Chance will wipe us out, and turn to another planet in some other galaxy that has a life form more compassionate and loving.