The Just-So Story about Just-So Stories

We all view new ideas and experiences through our worldview lenses. Every time we turn around, Christians are explaining something through the lenses provided by the Bible, telling a story about God’s goodness in our lives. Every time they turn around, believers in evolution are telling stories, too: just-so stories about various features of human life. So Michael Ruse, atheist philosopher, in the NYT a while back:

I don’t deny substantive morality—you ought to return your library books on time—but I do deny objective foundations. I think morality is a collective illusion, genetic in origin, that makes us good cooperators. And I would add that being good cooperators makes each one of us individually better off in the struggle for existence…. Morality is purely emotions, although emotions of a special kind with an important adaptive function.

In other words, one day a little elephant got his stubby nose stuck in the bite of a crocodile, and while pulling backwards to get it out he stretched it—and now all elephants have long trunks!

The idea that morality isn’t really real but provides only an adaptive function is truly a convenient one, but it’s an unfalsifiable one. That doesn’t mean I believe it’s true—or that it can’t be “proven” wrong. “Unfalsifiable” in this sense means that, given Ruse’s scientific naturalism, no evidence could be adduced either to prove or disprove his supposition. It’s more than plausible that, given his evolutionary view of the world, he describes accurately how morality developed. But I find it difficult to imagine how any evidence could ever be found for such a thing: what arrangement of bones in a grave or ancient cave-wall paintings could possibly demonstrate, empirically, that morality happened to make us good cooperators?

I have seen evolutionists concoct just-so stories to explain numerous features of human behavior. But I’ve never heard them turn their attention to science itself. The assumption is that while other kinds of human activity are subject to scientific analysis, science itself is a neutral observer standing off to the side. You wouldn’t see Michael Ruse writing paragraphs like this:

I don’t deny that science is useful—it’s great to find the most efficient air-to-gasoline ratio in your carburetor—but I do deny that science is “true.” I think science is a collective illusion, genetic in origin, that allows us to make the raw materials of the world useful for human ends. And I would add that “science” is useful for more than just scientists. Science is purely pragmatics, although pragmatics of a special kind with an important adaptive function.

I was just listening to a C.S. Lewis essay or two while doing the dishes, and he reminded me of something important, something I’m not going to forget in my own discussions with non-Christians. In “The Funeral of a Great Myth” (found in this audio collection and this printed collection), Lewis actually praises materialism for telling a more sweeping and grand story about the world than almost any other great myth. He suggests Christian apologists fight grand myth with grander myth—True Myth. The true story of Creation, Fall, Redemption is the grandest story ever told.