The father of evolutionary theory

Charles Darwin was not an atheist. He became an agnostic, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as ‘a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.’ Darwin therefore did not deny God, only that knowledge of God was a human impossibility.

A progressive theological view is that Darwin always left open the possibility of divine providence, which is the idea of God creating the laws of, rather than the products of, nature, which human beings can study and comprehend. Today it bears the name of Intelligent Design, a kind of theological evolutionism.

What appeared to move Darwin’s thinking along was the role of pain in nature. He wrote: ‘There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designed the Ichneumonidae (a wasp) with the express intention of their feeding within the bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.’

The death of Darwin’s beloved 10 year old daughter Annie, likely of tuberculosis, traumatized him to the point of disbelief, for why should a innocent child be made to suffer so much? Ill himself, with what we suspect was Chagas disease picked up in South America, Darwin came to terms with the pain of animals only later in his life.

So what was the role of pain in nature? One of the first South Africans to study the question from a Darwinian point of view was Eugene Marais. Known more for his poetry, Marais was an amateur scientist who wrote prodigiously on evolutionary questions.

Marais was in many things, what we today would refer to as a Renaissance man, a naturalist, poet, writer, journalist, lawyer, well-rounded in the glory of his talent. To think of him simply as a poet, accomplished as he was, is to do his repertoire of ability a disservice.

In his study of the ethology of the white ant, Marais wrote (Soul of the White Ant, 2002, p.85) that ‘one knows that pain in general is a warning signal to living creatures. If pain were to disappear from this earth, life would soon cease. Without pain, organic matter cannot exist. Everywhere in nature pain acts as a defense’.

Except of course in the case of birth, Marais hastens to add. Writing in the language of Darwin, Marais asks ‘what purpose had natural selection when she allowed this amazing exception to the general rule? Birth pain is clearly not protective; indeed, it is the very opposite.’

Marais suggested that the pain of birth bonds the mother to the child: ‘where pain is negligible, mother love and care are feeble’, from the termite to the whale. ‘During a period of ten years’ observation, I found no single exception to this rule’ Marais claims.

I doubt whether Marais was able to study the behaviour of whales. He had studied termites but much of it was unsystematic. Although he did not use the methods of science, he certainly observed in some detail and over a long time the behaviour of Chacma baboons in their natural habitat.

There is also no evidence I know of where mothers who gave birth by caesarian section are any less caring or loving with their children. Indeed, many mothers would be offended by the suggestion. Marais in fact ran an experiment with a variety of buck to arrive at his conclusion.

Marais observed among a herd of 50 that those who gave birth under anaesthesia refused to accept their lamb, compared to those who had pain who typically did. He believed that both the physiological and psychological pain of birth was essential to motherly love.

Since Marais’ time, research tells a different story. Pain prompts and accelerates childbirth that, among human beings and other upright-walking bipedal species, is particular difficult. The pain of human child birth is caused by two conflicting evolutionary needs.

In Human Birth (1987) Wendy Trevathan observes that ‘bipedalism requires that the legs be close enough together so that the person can walk without a waddle’ but this makes the pelvis opening small. Intelligence comes with big brains and crania and therefore the tight fit and painfall passage to birth.

Pain therefore has survival functions. That is why the machinery is kept in the gene pool by natural selection. We have learnt with modern medicine to dull the pain and to extend life, to a point. These will have their own evolutionary consequences too.