ABSTRACT
We have established scientifically some disquieting facts: (1) human beings have evolved from nonhuman life forms, meaning that (2) at one time we did not exist, and that (3) according to paleontological and astronomical evidence, at some time in the future we shall cease to exist. Furthermore, from a scientific standpoint, there is no discernible reason that we had to evolve in the first place, and there is no guarantee that we shall continue to evolve successfully; more hominid species have become extinct than have survived. The price of such knowledge has been the gnawing question of whether human existence has genuine meaning if it was constructed with cranes rather than supported by skyhooks, as Daniel Dennett says.]
The problem of meaning is easily resolved for those who embrace a preconstructed system of meaning such as religion. 2 However, religion cannot help us find meaning in any honest sense unless it can assimilate the truth about where human beings have come from, and the only real knowledge we have about where we came from we have acquired through science. Yet the journey from ignorance to knowledge about our origins has deposited us at a point that Philip Kitcher calls "painful enlightenment," a sometimes-experienced result of scientific inquiry in which "people acquire beliefs that have an impact on their values" and experience a loss of "psychological comfort" (Kitcher 1998, 52-53): The normal course of scientific inquiry may make our community better off in either (or both) of two ways. First, one of the items valued may be knowledge of some aspect of nature, and a new discovery may deliver that knowledge. Second, inquiry can expand the available strategies, making it possible for the community to pursue goals that previously seemed beyond reach or to proceed with greater efficiency and thus attain far more than it would otherwise have done ....
