No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters

by Ursula K. Le Guin

This language reassures me somewhat. For if a poll-taker asked me, “Do you believe in evolution?” my answer would have to be “No.” I ought to refuse to answer at all, of course, because a meaningless question has only meaningless answers. Asking me if I believe in evolution, in change, makes about as much sense as asking if I believe in Tuesdays, or artichokes. The word evolution means change, something turning into something else. It happens all the time. The problem here is our use of the word evolution to signify the theory of evolution. This shorthand causes a mental short circuit: it sets up a false parallel between a hypothesis (concerning observed fact) and a revelation (from God, as recorded in the Hebrew Bible)—which is then reinforced by our loose use of the word believe. I don’t believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution. I accept it. It isn’t a matter of faith, but of evidence. The whole undertaking of science is to deal, as well as it can, with reality. The reality of actual things and events in time is subject to doubt, to hypothesis, to proof and disproof, to acceptance and rejection—not to belief or disbelief. Belief has its proper and powerful existence in the domains of magic, religion, fear, and hope. I see no opposition between accepting the theory of evolution and believing in God. The intellectual acceptance of a scientific theory and the belief in a transcendent deity have little or no overlap: neither can support or contradict the other. They rise from...