Between Darwin and Dostoevsky: The Syntheses of Theodosius Dobzhansky

Abstract

Theodosius Dobzhansky was one of the foremost evolutionary biologists of the twentieth century who spent a great deal of time pondering, studying, and writing about religion. A confessed Eastern Orthodox Christian, though one with an idiosyncratic take on the faith, Dobzhansky was interested in harmonising the different elements of his life—religious background, scientific knowledge, and political beliefs. Throughout his oeuvre, he made various attempts to do this, and his legacy therefore amounts to a great synthesis. His greatest scientific achievement is the fusion of genetics and natural selection, which constitutes the groundwork for modern evolutionary biology. He also worked to synthesise democratic politics with Christian ethics, and religion with science. Dobzhansky was worried that science could not provide a basis for morality, and believed that Dostoevsky definitively proved this. Accordingly, he undertook not only to make sense of his own life and beliefs, but to protect and secure science, religion, morality, and democracy as parts of a cohesive whole.