Don't make Darwin Day an official celebration of science

PUBLISHER:

redshirt

Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: January 24, 2013 January 24, 2013; Hits: 2979 2979

Darwin’s theory of natural selection cannot qualify as science. It’s a teaching in a system of belief known as physicalism. Basic to physicalism is the claim that only matter and physical agents can cause change in the physical universe--it denies reality to mental capabilities such as consciousness and free will. There is no scientific evidence for this claim. As merely one teaching within this system of belief, Darwin’s theory of natural selection is certainly not “a worthy symbol on which to celebrate the achievements of reason, science, and the advancement of human knowledge” as Rush Holt (NJ) wrote in the resolution H. RES. 41 he introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives.... Given the failure of science to recognize the spurious logic of darwinism, and its compliance in the scaling down of the human spirit to what an origin story based on physicalism is capable of, I suggest we choose instead to use the human spirit as our touchstone for what an adequate account of evolution must be like.

For all those reasons and more it would be an extremely serious error of judgment to make February 12 an official day of celebration of Darwinism as tribute to the majesty of science. More...