It’s the summer of 1860, in Oxford, England, and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has been in print for only seven months. Over five hundred people--men in somber suits and women in summer dresses--have assembled to hear the latest scientific findings at a meeting of the British Association. At the podium Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873) lays into Darwinism, the daring theory implying that humans are not divine creations, but instead evolving animals. Wilberforce achieves a crescendo when he pointedly asks, was it "through his grandmother or his grandfather that he was descended from a monkey?" (1)
Wilberforce’s shrill comments could be expected from clergy in 1860. After all, Darwin’s theory challenged some basic concepts that had been long held by Western civilization, and the Christian Church in particular, for nearly two thousand years: that life--including humans--was created by divine act, and that humans were divinely special, distinctly different from the rest of animal life. Even though the church had already backed away from a lot of clearly untenable positions--like the view that Earth is at the center of the universe--it still hadn’t managed to let go of "human specialness."
Since 1860 the same basic scientific method that has identified how to make planes fly and computers calculate has thoroughly tested the validity of evolutionary theory, and the overwhelming consensus is that, yes, Darwin was right. With nearly a century and a half of experiments and observations supporting evolution, as well as the connections between humans and other primates, you wouldn’t think that Wilberforce’s old argument--against any human connection with "monkeys"--could still be dredged up in an attempt to discredit evolution. But in summer of 2004, in Dover, Pennsylvania, a disgruntled public school board member complained that evolution shouldn’t be taught in public schools because it teaches that people "come from monkeys and chimpanzees." (2)
Neither in Oxford nor in Dover was a any flaw of evolutionary theory itself pointed out. No evidence was produced that separated humans from other primates. What connects Oxford in the summer of 1860 and Dover in the summer of 2004 is that in both times and places, evolution was misrepresented, as well as criticized by a purely emotional reaction to its implications.
To evaluate this myth--that evolution claims "we come from monkeys"--we can start by asking what evolution really says about our connection to the rest of living things. Once our place in evolving nature is revealed, we can examine the second claim, that being related to monkeys is a degradation.
Notes to Myth Six: People Come from Monkeys
1. The quote is from I. Sidgwick, "A Grandmother’s Tales," Macmillan’s Magazine 78 (1898): 433-34, as referenced in J.R. Lucas, "Wilberforce and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter," Historical Journal 22, no. 2 (1979). A fuller account of Wilberforce’s diatribe is found in W. Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955). J.R. Lucas notes that Wilberforce’s speech has been embellished and exaggerated (Lucas, "Wilberforce and Huxley"), but it’s clear that Wilberforce tried to slight evolutionists by implying that those who supported it would drag humanity into the world of monkeys.
2. See “Anti-Evolution Teachings Gain Foothold in U.S. Schools” by Anna Badkhen, in The San Francisco Chronicle, November 30, 2004, p. A-1.