In his book, “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins spent a good deal of time talking about how understanding Natural Selection and Evolution in general serves as a “consciousness raiser” lending insights and changes to worldview that end up extending to deeper understanding of fields and ideas outside of biology.

Dawkin’s primary example was that once one understands how the illusion of design can arise from such simple a process as that of natural selection, one easily begins to view cosmology and the origins of the universe in a different light as well, no longer feeling compelled to call forth a designer to explain it all.

In a beautiful and inspirational post over at Earthman’s Notebook, Hank Fox recounts how evolution raised his own consciousness not toward a deeper cosmology, but out of racism and bigotry. He details how he was born and raised fully immersed in the culture of racism. As such he was himself a racist. However, he eventually found evolution, which slowly and surely forced him out of his racist ideas. The change was natural and noncontrived, brought about solely by the paradigm-shifting worldview that natural selection gave him.

I think this serves as a wonderful example of the profound intellectual changes that can come about through simple understanding. I highly recommend you read his post.

(Hat tip to monado at Science Notes)

Recent related post dealing with racism: John Derbyshire Claims Barack Obama Will Kill Science