St. Petersburg Branch of the S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2024 Oct;107:25-32. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.07.003. Epub 2024 Aug 6.
In the article, mainly based on the reference to the entries in the diary of Th. Dobzhansky, a geneticist and one of the founders of the "synthetic theory of evolution", examines how Dobzhansky tried to combine science, primarily evolutionary theory, and religion. It is argued that although Dobxzhansky was a believer during whole his life, he became a peculiar believer who revised for himself and for others the former, primarily religious answers to the "ultimate questions" of existence, and posed these questions in a new, evolutionary way. Even more, he tried to substantiate and justify religion and his belief in God through the evolutionary theory, to demonstrate that science and religion are not incompatible, and to offer his believe in the usefulness of science and religion to each other. This Dobzhansky's attempt was perceived and evaluated ambiguously by both scientists and religious figures. In addition, Dobzhansky owing to his search for these answers, made a number of world outlook and general cultural conclusions for himself and presented these conclusions in articles and books written not only for colleagues in the scientific community, but also for other people.
本文主要以遗传学家和“综合进化理论”的创始人之一 Th. Dobzhansky 的日记条目为参考,考察了 Dobzhansky 如何试图将科学,主要是进化理论与宗教结合起来。虽然 Dobzhansky 一生都是信徒,但他变成了一个奇特的信徒,为自己和他人重新审视了以前主要是宗教对存在的“终极问题”的回答,并以新的、进化的方式提出了这些问题。更甚的是,他试图通过进化理论来证明宗教和他对上帝的信仰是合理的,以表明科学和宗教并不矛盾,并向彼此展示他对科学和宗教的信仰的用处。这种 Dobzhansky 的尝试,无论是科学家还是宗教人物都对其有模糊的看法和评价。此外,由于 Dobzhansky 对这些答案的探索,他为自己做出了一些世界观和一般文化的结论,并在不仅为科学界的同事,也为其他人撰写的文章和书籍中提出了这些结论。