More than 500 people packed into Conway Hall, London on 6 June 2009 to hear Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling and a host of other leading figures from the world of science and education speak of the momentous legacy of Charles Darwin and his contribution to our understanding of the natural world and our place within it.

The conference, jointly organised by IHEU, the British Humanist Association, the European Humanist Federation and the South Place Ethical Society, heard speaker after speaker decry the denigration of evolution – the central unifying concept of all of biology – by politicians, religious leaders and others, attempting to lead the world back into another dark age of superstition and ignorance. First in to bat, introduced by BHA president Polly Toynbee, was Richard Dawkins. Using the final paragraph of Darwin’s The Origin of Species1 as his text for the day, he treated us to a masterly analysis of every sentence, showing how modern discoveries have served only to strengthen Darwin’s case – and how, for example, we can now prove that all species alive today must have had a common ancestor. Dawkins was the first, but by no means the last, to discuss the problem of intelligent design “Intelligent design: is not an explanation of anything, it is a failure to explain”. Human beings may believe they are the ultimate achievement of evolution, but the starfishes know they are. They have survived, unchanged, for millions of years.

It was appalling that 18 per cent of the British population believe that the Earth orbits the Sun once a month. To combat such ignorance, Dawkins urged us to “get out more”. Charles Susanne of the Free University of Brussels, highlighted the increasing influence of creationists in European education (sometimes with government support), the increasing restrictions on the teaching of evolution across Europe and the need for science educators – and all who care about science – to fight back.

James Williams, of the University of Sussex, spoke of the insidious propaganda of children’s books and comics displaying appalling anachronisms – such as Jesus cuddling a baby dinosaur – promoting the ideas of “Young Earth” creationism. Some of these books find their way into school libraries as donations from parents. Typically, these books mix real science with pseudoscience. He deplored the growth of theme parks purporting to explain the history of life on earth while promoting creationism. Teaching creationism to children is a form of intellectual abuse.

The creationist community (a small minority of people within the UK who nevertheless have a very large voice) use the power of the evangelical church to plant pseudo-scientific nonsense. Teaching falsehoods of this kind can leave indelible misconceptions in children’s minds that are difficult to shift in later years.

One of the main weapons of the creationists is describing evolution as “just a theory”. Williams urged us to always use the term “scientific theory” when referring to evolution, in order to avoid confusion with the popular usage of the word “theory” as synonymous with “guess”. We should also point out that the facts of evolution are as well established as any in the whole of science. No one treats gravity, for example, as “just a theory”. We must not allow woolly thinking to confuse the discoveries of science – the facts – with theories regarding how these facts came about. Williams also highlighted a campaign that should receive wide support not just in the UK but across Europe to bring back the teaching of evolution in primary schools.

Johan de Smedt, of the University of Ghent, discussed the cognitive biases, such as essentialism, teleology and the design stance, that make it difficult for us to come to terms with the reality of unguided evolution. We have evolved to seek patterns and causes in the world we inhabit and it can be quite difficult to accept that the answer to some of the biggest questions, such as the purpose of life, is that there isn’t one. There is no designer and therefore our lives have no pre-determined purpose.

Michael Schmidt-Salomon of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, Germany, showed that many of the objections to evolution stem not from science but from moral concerns. Darwin’s opponents have realised that it’s not possible to challenge evolution as a scientific explanatory model, so they concentrate on the moral argument. The Bishop of Regensburg has claimed that evolutionary theory leads to loss of belief in God which in turn leads to loss of respect for human life and a loss of all values. It is certainly true that a real understanding of the principles of evolution makes belief in a loving designer/creator impossible. Nature clearly demonstrates unintelligent design. So the choice is evolution or creation, The Origin of Species or Bible, scientific evidence or religious faith. Opponents like the bishop claim that acceptance of evolution must lead to the horrors that Germany experienced under two dictatorships. We should not try to whitewash what occurred, nor its origins in a mix of Social Darwinism, racism and eugenics. But the theoretical bases of these ideas have already been destroyed.

A scientific explanation of a phenomenon should not be confused with its justification. The Theory of Evolution does not prescribe how the world should be: it describes how it is and explains why it is. The moral argument fails because the Theory of Evolution is independent of good and evil: it does not tell us what to do. But it does have wide-reaching consequences on our world view.

150 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, religious beliefs have passed their sell-by date, but millions of people still consume “the rancid products of faith”. To offer an alternative, the Theory of Evolution must be combined with a modern Humanist philosophy. Evolutionary Humanism is not about Humanists lending their support to the teaching of evolution, but an acknowledgement of the fact that our ethics have evolved over time as human civilisation has developed. It combines scientific naturalism with a recognition that cultural evolution has led to a more humane and Humanistic society – without any need to invoke the supernatural.

Evolutionary Humanists don’t believe in holy dogma or absolute truth; they trust the principle of critical testing, to let incorrect ideas die rather than have people die for them.

Babu Gogineni brought both laughter and tears to our eyes as he described attempts to show that all of the discoveries of science can be found within Hindu mythology; and that Hinduism supports the concept of evolution. The various avatars of Lord Vishnu, such as Rama and Krishna, are actually a symbolic way of explaining evolution to the common people. The effect this is having on the teaching of science in India, with millions believing that modern science supports Hindu beliefs, has been nothing less than devastating. One university had set up an astrology department, funding it by cutting back on physics and chemistry.

The final speaker of the afternoon was Professor A. C. Grayling who held us spellbound with his update on C.P Snow’s “two cultures” lecture delivered 50 years ago in Cambridge. Less than a century before Snow’s lecture, Josiah Mason founded Mason Science College in Birmingham which later became the University of Birmingham. Mason stipulated that the college was to teach science and technology, but no humanities. T.H. Huxley was invited to give the inaugural lecture and became embroiled in an argument with Matthew Arnold, who thought that science was important but that other subjects mattered as well. Ultimately both Huxley and Arnold agreed, as did Snow, that non-scientific specialists needed to be informed about science. But there was a widening gulf between those who knew something about science and those concerned with the humanities. Those in government were mainly of the latter sort.

150 years ago, no man could consider himself educated without a reasonable understanding of science. But, as the discoveries of science have moved further from our human-scale understanding of reality, so science has become more and more esoteric and further removed from both everyday experience and simple understanding.

The last 50 years have seen a pushing forward of religious points of view. Looking back on the twentieth century we can see straws in the wind. The Islamist movement sprang up in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s and 1930s. Since 9/11, the more assertive position of one religious community is inspiring other religions to become assertive. It is not a question of numbers. Religious observance is declining. There is a disconnection between numbers and voices. Nevertheless, the general population is becoming even more distanced from the scientific outlook.

The gap between the two cultures is now wider than ever, but this is a gap that must be closed if we are ever to succeed in solving the world’s problems.

1 There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Roy W. Brown is IHEU main representative at the UN in Geneva