Science of Discworld III

letter he wrote in 1857, and he says “ what a jump it is from a well-marked variety, produced by a natural cause, to a species produced by the separate act of the Hand of God ”.
    ‘That’s the author of The Origin ? Sounds more like the author of The Ology .’
    ‘It was a big thing he was going to do, sir. It worried him.’
    ‘I’ve read The Ology ,’ said Ridcully. ‘Well, some of it. Makes a lot of sense.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I mean, if we hadn’t watched the world all happen from Day One, we’d have thought—’
    ‘I know what you mean, sir. I think that’s why The Ology was so popular.’
    ‘Darwin – I mean our Darwin – thought that no god would make so many kinds of barnacle. It’s so wasteful. A perfect being wouldn’t do it, he thought. But the other Darwins, the religious ones, said that was the whole point. They said that just as mankind had to strive for perfection, so must the whole animal kingdom. Plants, too. Survival of the Worthiest, they called it. Things weren’t made perfect, but had an inbuilt, er, striving to achieve perfection, as if part of the Plan was inside them. They could evolve. In fact, that was a good thing. It meant they were getting better.’
    ‘Seems logical,’ said Ridcully. ‘By god logic, at least.’
    ‘And there’s the whole thing about the Garden of Eden and the end of the world,’ said Ponder.
    ‘I must’ve missed that chapter,’ said Ridcully.
    ‘Well, sir, it’s your basic myth of a golden age at the start of the world and terrible destruction at the end of it, but codified in some very interesting language. Darwin suggested that the early chroniclers had got things mixed up. Like trolls, you know? They think the past is ahead of them because they can see it? The terrible destruction was in fact the birth of the world—’
    ‘Oh, you mean the red hot rocks, planets smacking together, that sort of thing?’
    ‘Exactly. And the end of the world, well, as experienced, would be the assembly of perfect creatures and plants in a perfect garden, belonging to the god.’
    ‘To get congratulated, and so on? Prizes handed out, marks awarded?’
    ‘Could be, sir.’
    ‘Like an everlasting picnic?’
    ‘He didn’t put it like that, but I suppose so.’
    ‘What about the perfect wasps?’ said Ridcully. ‘You always get them, you know. And ants.’
    Ponder had been ready for this.
    ‘There was a lot of debate about that sort of thing,’ he said.
    ‘And it concluded how?’ said the Archchancellor.
    ‘It was decided that it was the kind of subject on which there could be a lot of debate, and that earthly considerations would not apply.’
    ‘Hah! And Darwin got all this past the priests?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Most of them, anyway,’ said Ponder.
    ‘But he was turning their whole world upside down!’
    ‘Um, that was happening anyway, sir. But this way, the god didn’t drop out of the bottom. People were poking around and proving that the world really was very old, that seabeds had become mountain tops, that all kinds of strange animals had lived a long, long time ago. Lots of people already accepted the idea of evolution. The idea of natural selection, as Darwin called it, of life just evolving itself, was hovering in the air. It was a big threat. But Theology of Species said there was a Plan. A huge, divine Plan, unfolding across millions of years! It even included the planet itself! All that turmoil and volcanoes and drowning lands, that was a world evolving, you see? A world that would end up with topsoil, and the right kind of atmosphere, and minerals that were easily accessible, and seas full of fish—’
    ‘A world for humans, in other words.’
    ‘Got it in one, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘Humans. The top of the tree. A creature that knew what it was, that gave things names, that had a concept of epiphany. That Darwin later wrote another book, called The Ascent of Man . Oddly enough, our Darwin is going to write a similar book called The Descent of Man —’
    ‘Ah, I can see a bad choice of words right there,’ said Ridcully.
    ‘Quite,’ said Ponder. ‘The Ology Darwin was considered daring but … acceptable. And there was so much evidence that this was a planet made for humans. The religion changed quite a lot, but so did the technomancy. The god was still in charge.’
    ‘All very neat,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘So … what about the dinosaurs?’
    ‘Sorry, sir?’
    ‘Mr Stibbons, you know what I’m talking