Ditching Darwin

A growing lineup of the “faithful” are questioning Darwinism. In “Evolutionary Mechanisms: Darwinian Biology’s Grant Narrative of Triumph and the Subversion of Religion,” Robert Shedinger explained his disenchantment with Darwin. He had “fully accepted the idea that Charles Darwin had essentially solved the problem of the origin of species.” However, because of his science background, he had been asked to teach a course on Science and Religion. Consequently, he began to bone-up on Darwinism but was surprised about the great degree of skepticism coming from Darwinists. He explains:

·       I was shocked when I began to recognize just how ambiguous and tentative so much of this literature is. It is littered with caveats, inconsistencies, unsupported assumptions, grand claims backed by a dearth of empirical evidence… (Terrell Clemons, Salvo Magazine, Spring 2020, 8-9)

Shedinger was also surprised at the evolution establishment’s glib and non-evidential dismissal of ID. This led him to wonder about their militant dogmatism. To explain this, he offers three possibilities to explain their dogmatism:

·       Serves the guild interests of the biological establishment.

·       Subjugates the disciplines of religion and theology, requiring them and other branches of knowledge to adjust accordingly, thus shoring up the naturalist paradigm in the academy and beyond.

·       Provides a litmus test for intellectual acceptability. Espouse the narrative and you pass. Dissent at your own risk…ensuring philosophical naturalism in all things by providing a backup safeguard against any would-be rogue nonconformist. (9)

Consequently, evolution is wielded as a God-substitute as some evolutionists, like atheist Michael Ruse, have admitted:

·       Evolution came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity…an ideology, a secular religion--a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality…Evolution is a religion.

Erasmus Darwin, Charles’ brother, admitted that he had found his brother’s theory so satisfying that the facts didn’t matter to him:

·       In fact, the a priori reasoning [for evolution] is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won’t fit in, why so much the worse for the facts. (The Journey, Os Guinness, 154)

Erasmus admitted the evolution suited him. Philosopher Thomas Nagel admitted that he didn’t want there to be a God. Therefore, even though he had written against evolution and in favor of ID, he was still holding out for a better naturalistic theory. However, this was enough to damn him by the establishment.