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.