{"id":66975,"date":"2018-11-03T12:22:14","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T18:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=66975"},"modified":"2018-11-03T12:22:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T18:22:14","slug":"does-darwinism-entail-naturalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/11\/does-darwinism-entail-naturalism.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Darwinism entail naturalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/a>
A tidal pool on the southern coast of New South Wales, Australia. Charles Darwin proposed that life on Earth may have begun in just such a place. \u00a0 \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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From another of my manuscripts come these notes, in a fairly raw state:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why does the public care so much about Darwinism and evolution?\u00a0 Nobody \u2014 nobody who isn\u2019t a specialist, anyway \u2014 becomes very exercised over quantum mechanics, the role of chlorophyll in photosynthesis, the nature of the covalent bond, or general relativity.\u00a0 The difference, I suspect, arises because Darwinism isn\u2019t merely a theory in biology but an entire world view, one that carries profound implications, potentially at least, for our understanding of our own human nature and for our sense of our relationship to the broader universe.\u00a0 Whether they can articulate this or not, most people grasp that point intuitively.\u00a0 And they are entirely right to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

The famous American philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) picked this up in an essay entitled \u201cThe Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,\u201d in which he declared that Darwinism had given rise to a \u201cnew logic to apply to mind and morals and life.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Disputes about evolution have never confined themselves to scientific periodicals and conferences. \u00a0From the start, they involved clergymen \u2014 who were, incidentally and as a matter of sociology, also being dislodged by the professionalization of science,\u00a0during the same era, \u00a0from the role that many of them had long served as university-educated amateur \u201cnatural philosophers\u201d \u2014 and other public intellectuals. \u00a0And, today, they continue as a factor in such phenomena as the so-called \u201ctextbook wars\u201d (which can also involve seemingly distinct issues like perceived liberal bias, human sexuality, \u201cobscene\u201d literature, suspicions of racism, and the like).<\/span><\/p>\n

As one participant in those contentious disputes over textbooks has explained regarding evolution , \u201cA naturalistic definition of science<\/em> has the effect of indoctrinating students into a naturalistic worldview<\/em>.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 And the perceived indoctrination hasn\u2019t been confined to school curricula.\u00a0 As the 1975 children\u2019s book The Bears\u2019 Nature Guide<\/em>, featuring the Berenstain Bears, informs its young audience, \u201cNature . . . is all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE!\u201d[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Darwinian revolution,\u201d wrote the famous zoologist (and self-declared atheist) Ernst Mayr, \u201cwas not merely the replacement of one scientific theory by another, but rather the replacement of a worldview, in which the supernatural was accepted as a normal and relevant explanatory principle, by a new worldview in which there was no room for supernatural forces.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In the words of historian Edward Purcell, people working in subject areas far afield from biology soon came to understand that Darwinism implied \u201ca wholly naturalistic and empirically oriented world view\u201d in which theological doctrines were to be viewed as \u201cat worst totally fraudulent and at best merely symbolic of deep human aspirations.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

That such figures as the distinguished geneticist and evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky<\/a>\u00a0(1900\u20131975), a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, and the prominent contemporary cell biologist and molecular biologist Kenneth Miller<\/a>, a committed Roman Catholic, have both insisted that theism is entirely compatible with belief in evolution is often ignored by both advocates and opponents of Darwinism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> John Dewey, \u201cThe Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,\u201d in John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought<\/em> (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910), 9.\u00a0 [See original.]<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Remark cited from personal conversation with John Calvert by Nancy R. Pearcey, \u201cDarwin Meets the Berenstain Bears,\u201d in William A. Dembski, ed., Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing<\/em> (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2004), 53 (compare 312, note 1).<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain, The Bears\u2019 Nature Guide<\/em> (New York: Random House, 1975).\u00a0 [See original.]<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ernst Mayr, book review of \u201cEvolution and God,\u201d Nature<\/em> 248 (22 March 1974): 285.\u00a0 [See original.]<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Edward A Purcell, Jr., The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value<\/em> (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 8 and\/or 21.\u00a0 [See original.]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Please note that I\u2019m taking no stance in the above about biological evolution as such. \u00a0And that I\u2019m not, by any means, a young-earth creationist.<\/p>\n

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[To a considerable degree, though not entirely, these paraphrastic notes are drawn from an\u00a0essay by Nancy Pearcey titled \u201c\u201dDarwin meets the Berenstain Bears,\u201d which appeared as chapter 4 of\u00a0Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing<\/em>, edited by William Dembski.]<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 From another of my manuscripts come these notes, in a fairly raw state: \u00a0 Why does the public care so much about Darwinism and evolution?\u00a0 Nobody \u2014 nobody who isn\u2019t a specialist, anyway \u2014 becomes very exercised over quantum mechanics, the role of chlorophyll in photosynthesis, the nature of the covalent bond, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes Darwinism entail naturalism?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    From another of my manuscripts come these notes, in a fairly raw state:   Why does the public care so much about Darwinism and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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