A New Perspective on Human Evolution

Abstract

This paper reviews past Bahá’í scholarship on evolution, identifies a gap in this scholarship in light of current evolutionary biology, and uses cladistics—a modern approach to biological classification—to reconsider certain perceived tensions between current concepts in evolutionary biology and certain statements of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. A summary of taxonomy and phylogenetic tree construction is given, with special emphasis placed on cladistics, a methodology not available in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s day, and heretofore not mentioned in Bahá’í-authored publications related to evolution. This paper concludes with examples of how cladograms may aid in conceptualizing some of the evolution-related statements of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, (for example, His statement that “man is not an animal”). In using this approach, the intention of the author is not to re-interpret ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statements, nor to “prove” any particular interpretation thereof, but rather to bring modern concepts of evolutionary biology into Bahá’í discourse on evolution.