The question of how life began has fascinated and divided humanity for centuries. At the heart of this debate is the Creation/Evolution Controversy—a cultural and scientific clash that continues to shape education, politics, and worldviews, especially in the West. It is not just a question of biology, but a reflection of how different civilizations understand life, power, and our place in the universe. This controversy also resonates deeply with the themes explored in Dominion and Dharma by Vivek Singhal, which challenges the modern world’s obsession with control and offers a deeper, more harmonious vision of existence.
Let’s start with the basics. The Creation/Evolution Controversy is, simply put, a debate between two big ideas:
• Creationism says that a divine power, such as God, created life as described in religious texts. In the West, this often means a literal interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Genesis—God creating the world in six days, with humans as the pinnacle of creation.
• Evolution, championed by scientists like Charles Darwin, says that life developed gradually over millions of years through a natural process called natural selection—the idea that species change over time, and the “fittest” individuals survive to pass on their traits.
This debate exploded into public view during the Scopes Trial of 1925, a legal battle in Tennessee where a schoolteacher named John Scopes was accused of breaking the law by teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in a public school. The trial became a national spectacle, symbolizing the clash between religious fundamentalism and scientific modernism. It wasn’t just about biology—it was about who controls the story of life: is it the church, the state, or the scientist?
The Western obsession with such binary debates—either God or science, either faith or reason—reflects what Vivek Singhal, in Dominion and Dharma, calls the civilizational mindset of control. In the West, there is often a tendency to frame the world in terms of dominion: conquer nature, win the battle, prove the truth, and discard the “losers.” The creation/evolution debate fits neatly into this frame: a courtroom drama to decide the one true story of life.
But the Dharma perspective, rooted in ancient Indian thought, offers a much more fluid and holistic view. In Dharma, creation and evolution are not seen as opposites. Life is understood as a cosmic play (Lila)—a dance of birth, death, and rebirth, guided by the deeper forces of karma, consciousness, and interconnectedness. Hindu texts like the Rig Veda speak of the universe arising from a primordial oneness, evolving in cycles of creation (Srishti), preservation (Sthiti), and dissolution (Samhara). Evolution, in this view, is not a cold, random process of survival, but a sacred unfolding of potential, where even destruction is part of the cycle.
This contrast becomes clearer when we look at the lives and ideas of Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins, two of the most famous voices in the evolution debate.
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was a curious British naturalist who transformed our understanding of life. In his groundbreaking book On the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin proposed that all species evolve over time through natural selection—the idea that individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and pass those traits on. His work was revolutionary because it challenged the literal truth of the Bible’s creation story and suggested that life was not a fixed, perfect design but an ongoing, ever-changing process.
Darwin himself was cautious about the implications of his ideas, but later thinkers like Richard Dawkins (1941– ) took a much bolder stance. Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), argued that the real unit of evolution is not the individual or the species, but the gene—the fundamental building block of heredity. He claimed that we, as living beings, are simply survival machines for our genes, driven by the blind forces of replication and competition. In his later work The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins openly attacked religion, arguing that belief in God is not just wrong, but dangerous.
Dawkins’ work reflects a key aspect of the Dominion worldview: the idea that there is no higher purpose—no God, no cosmic order, just a ruthless, competitive struggle for survival. While this can be a powerful scientific explanation, it also flattens the meaning of life to a purely material level, ignoring the richness of consciousness, creativity, love, and the search for truth that have defined human cultures for millennia.
This is where the Dharma perspective offers a crucial alternative. In the Dharma tradition, as Vivek Singhal explains, life is not a battle to dominate—it is an opportunity to awaken. Evolution is not just about genes fighting for survival; it is about the unfolding of consciousness in ever more complex forms. Humans are not just vehicles for selfish genes; we are also souls on a journey, participating in the cosmic dance of creation and destruction. The universe is not a cold, empty accident—it is filled with meaning, interconnection, and sacredness.
This is why the Creation/Evolution debate, so fierce in the West, looks different from the perspective of Dharma. The West often frames the debate as either/or—either God created everything in six days, or life is a meaningless accident. But Dharma suggests a both/and view: evolution is real, but it unfolds within a deeper cosmic order. Science and spirituality are not enemies—they are two lenses on the same truth.
In the end, the Scopes Trial, Darwin, and Dawkins all represent a Western struggle to reconcile faith and reason, God and science. But the Dharma vision—which Singhal calls us to embrace—moves beyond this struggle. It invites us to see life not as a fight for dominance, but as a dance of consciousness, creativity, and compassion. It reminds us that our true task is not to dominate nature or each other, but to align with the deeper flow of life—to find our place in the great unfolding of the cosmos.
In the age of AI, biotechnology, and existential challenges, this message is more urgent than ever. The Creation/Evolution debate is not just about biology—it is about how we see ourselves, how we teach our children, and how we imagine the future of our species. Will we continue to fight over who is “right,” or will we learn to dance together in the great cosmic rhythm of life?