Physical anthropologist and evangelical Christian James Kidder has commented on former YEC James MacMillan's ongoing series of posts at Panda's Thumb detailing how YECs intellectually wave away the evidence for evolution. Kidder's comment is worth noting, as it mirrors the deeply flawed thinking of the evolution denialists in our community who seem to think that science is intrinsically anti-theistic:
Scientific research does not and cannot convey truth. It is just science, no more and no less. As someone recently wrote in the comments on this post:When I do math and I don’t pray or think about God, it’s not atheistic math, it’s just math. When I drive and am not thinking about God, it’s not secular driving, it’s just driving. And when I go into the lab and I’m thinking about the lab experiment and not theological issues, its not agnostic science, it’s just science. Adding an adjective implies some sort of intentional avoidance of theism or purposeful distance from theism, when the real truth of the matter is that nobody is avoiding anything, they are just focused on their jobs/hobbies/whatever.
Amen. Ham and like-minded creationists are adding an ontological layer onto the practice of evolutionary biology that does not exist. If you simply study the fossil record and modern genomics, the evidence for evolution is enormous. Calling it a “secular religion” won’t make that go away.
Whether this sentiment is expressed with the crude slogan 'the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God', or the slick sophistry of the person who asserts that that "there is a philosophical layer embedded in popular evolution writing...the philosophy of naturalism" [1] it still betrays a complete misunderstanding of scientific epistemology. Science is the search for natural causes for natural phenomena. That's all. As Kidder says, demonising evolution as a 'secular religion', or inventing imaginary philosophical layers in science writing in order to unleash wave after wave of faux-philosophical ramblings in order to wave away evolution won't make the fact of common descent and large-scale evolutionary change go away.
Reference
1. Perry A "The creation versus evolution debate" The Testimony (2014) 84:69-72
