Naturalism Fails an Empirical Test: Darwin’s “Dangerous” Idea in Retrospect

Abstract

Abstract In his theory of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin provided a plausible alternative to Christianity’s creation account of human origins. In response, the Christian botanist Asa Gray suggested that the variation that drives evolution might be generated by God. Darwin rejected Gray’s hypothesis, invoking philosophical naturalism, a hallmark scientific paradigm. Darwin’s conclusion was reached on ideological grounds rather than empirical ones. I frame the question of the source of biological variation in a way that is accessible to modern experimental science and trace historical advances in biology that have accumulated to favor Gray’s theistic view. In particular, I show that empirical evidence collected subsequent to Darwin’s time contradicts the assumption of randomness in the mutation process, and thereby undermines the basis for his invocation of naturalism in the origins of biological variation.