Lessons from evolutionary biology for Christians and Atheists alike.

It's a pity that many creationists and fundamentalist type Christians dismiss evolutionary biology so readily.

It's also a pity that atheists dismiss biblical doctrine so readily too.

I enjoy listening too and reading Richard Dawkins , aptly nicknamed by Stephen Jay Gould as "Britain's most pious atheist."

I've been recently going through Dawkins first and most popular book The Selfish Gene.

By Source, Fair use, Link

My copy is the 30 year anniversary edition with an updating introduction written by Dawkins in 2006.

In it he laments how this book has always remained more popular than his later creations and, despite being first written in 1976, it has not become severely outmoded ans superseded.

He then shared his second thoughts on the original title in that it gives an inadequate description of the contents of the book. He proceeds to stress that the emphasis should be on he word Gene in the title and not on what is more commonly the word Selfish. Other titles that could have been used being:

• The Immortal Gene
• The Altruistic Vehicle

These alternate titles refer to the concepts of vehicles and replicators and the unit of selection.

Simply summarized the organism is the vehicle that carries the genes or replicator.

What I find intriguing in describing these aspects of biological evolution in this way it is not dissimilar from some biblical doctrinal concepts.

Allow me to illustrate:

• The gene is the means whereby genetic information is replicated or passed on from cell to cell and from one generation to the next. I can be therefore be considered immortal since the information survives the death of the organism. Hence alternative title 1, The Immortal Gene

• The organism is the vehicle by which the gene "gets around". The vehicle is mortal in the sense that it has a finite lifespan.

• The gene is selfish doing all in its power to see that it gets replicated and passes on its information. The organism is selfish to ensure it survives but as the vehicle also balances altruism for the benefit of the gene. For example parenting takes a lot out of the individuals, but they do it in order to replicate copies of themselves. Hence alternative title 2, The Altruistic Vehicle

It's not difficult to find a doctrinal parallel:

The organism, in this case the physical body is the vehicle that houses the immortal spirit. The spirit is the replicator in the sense that by surviving the death of the physical body it is the means whereby personality information persists into the afterlife.

That personality information will continue to persist through the change that is the resurrection also.

We do not know how many states the spirit has passed through prior to residing in the physical body acting as a temporary vehicle but one can see many personality differences even in infants raised in similar conditions.

The body and human nature are selfish but must find a balance between selfish interests and the development of the spirit. It's in discovering this balance between selfishness and altruism that a reasonable degree of spiritual growth is accomplished and that a more positively developed personality is passed on to the next phase of out eternal progression.

It is also intriguing to note that the "immortal gene" remained invisible to scientific detection for much of history but was inferred to those that were paying attention.
The "immortal spirit" remains undetected but is similarly inferred to those that are paying attention.

So I guess my question is:

Why should the creationist take such exception to evolutionary biology's vehicles and immortal replicators and why should atheists take such exception to bodies and so far undetected immortal spirits?