“Natural selection . . . has lifted life from primeval simplicity to the dizzy heights of complexity, beauty and apparent design that dazzle us today.” (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion [Mariner Books, 2008], 99)
Commenting on this very passage, the atheist writer Curtis White says “Even if we were to take Dawkins’s enthusiasm seriously, shouldn’t we at least ask, what do you mean by ‘lifted’? Is it that you think it’s better to be human than a primordially simple trilobite or dinosaur? Why? Why is “complexity” a good thing? You say, ‘Evolution is not just true, it’s beautiful,’ but what do you mean by ‘beauty’?” (Curtis White, The Science Delusion: Asking the Big Questions in a Culture of Easy Answers [Brooklyn and London: Melville Books, 2014], 17.)
I’m reminded of a remark from Albert Einstein, himself a scientist of some repute: “Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.”
To put it another way, science can tell us how things came to be, how things work, and how to do things, but it can’t tell us what things to do or whether those things are good or beautiful.
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