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In World Magazine, John West Takes on "Scientism in the Age of Obama"

DDA Cover.jpegThe great issue standing behind the evolution debate is the picture you carry around in your mind of what a human being is. A human is either a creature whose emergence on Earth reflects the purposeful guidance of a caring designer who had us specifically in mind — or, as World Magazine’s Marvin Olasky crystallizes the alternative, we are no more than an “overachieving worm,” cast up by chance through uncaring, material cosmic processes.

Published originally in 2007, John West’s book Darwin Day in America documented, in the arenas of science, law, and culture, the horrific consequences of the latter view. Since then, the book has cried out to be updated and expanded, a treatment it has now received.

Since 2007, the materialist world picture has become, as never before, ensconced in political power. The updated edition will be published tomorrow, and it includes an important additional chapter, “Scientism in the Age of Obama — and Beyond.” World has published an advance excerpt from the new chapter — and this is very timely stuff.

In the past you might have argued, incorrectly but at least plausibly, that scientific materialism was just one philosophy circulating in the culture. Yes, influential in media and academia, but no more than that. Today, though, this corrosive viewpoint with roots in Darwinian theory has major backing from the U.S. government. And that is a different matter.

It comes out in all sorts of ways. Just last week, the Obama Administration asked Congress for $30 million, out of NASA’s 2016 budget, to set to work on sending a probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Why? One big reason: Europa represents the current best hope for finding evidence of life beyond Earth.

The Washington Post article on the Europa plan cites Bill Nye, TV personality and proselytizing critic of all evolution skeptics, identified as a “scientist” (though he’s not one):

“If we were to discover some kind of microbe on Mars, or something alive in the oceans of Europa, it would change the world,” scientist Bill Nye told The Post. “It would change human history. Everyone in the world would feel differently about what it meant to be alive.”

Changing the world’s default feeling “about what it means to be alive” is, for Mr. Nye, exactly the point. That $30 million next year would be eagerly welcomed by those set on demonstrating how after all, life isn’t special. It springs into existence unbidden.

In the World Magazine excerpt, Dr. West meticulously reports on how “totalitarian science” has found its champions in the highest halls of power. By that he means an understanding of science that puts into eclipse all other ways that men and women have sought to understand the world and our place in it.

One thing I did not realize, for example, despite our coverage of the Cosmos series with Neil deGrasse Tyson, was that for President Obama’s introduction to the series that aired at the start of the first episode, it was the White House that sought out the Tyson team to get the President in the program, not the other way around. Cosmos was a 13-hour infomercial for a very twisted picture of science, its past, present, and future, with an endorsement by the President of the United States!

The influence of scientism is remarkable. Go read the excerpt from West’s book, including about how the Obama Administration’s NIH director, Francis Collins, defended the ethics of shocking experiments seeking to determine the effect of supplying higher or lower levels of oxygen to premature infants. All in the name of science!

But it would be a mistake to see the rise to power of scientism in recent years as just a phenomenon of the current White House, or the Democratic Party. True, last week when lawmakers in the House of Representatives called for the official recognition by the U.S. government of Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12, as “Darwin Day,” the 11 co-sponsors were all Democrats. But, observes John West:

In many ways, the Obama Administration’s scientism reflected the trends documented in the rest of [Darwin’s Doubt], trends that span both political parties and have become ever more pronounced during the past several years. Our culture is witnessing the rise of what could be called totalitarian science — science so totalistic in its outlook that its defenders claim the right to remake every sphere of human life, from public policy and education to ethics and religion.

In a way it would be a comfort if the issue were limited to Washington, or one political party. It’s not. It spans our entire culture, Left and Right:

The Darwinian denial of human exceptionalism can be found on both sides of the political spectrum. On the Left, there is Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, author of A Darwinian Left. Singer’s view that “the life of a newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee” was discussed in Chapter 14, as was his insistence that “Darwin’s theory undermined the foundations” of our traditional “Western way of thinking about the place of our species in the universe.” On the Right, there is John Derbyshire, who was a longtime writer for National Review until being dismissed in 2012 after authoring an article for another publication arguing that blacks are more antisocial and less intelligent than whites. Derbyshire argues that racial differences are the products of evolution. He has also written that “the broad outlook on human nature implied by Darwinian ideas contradicts the notion of human exceptionalism, without which the Abrahamic religions lose their point.” He added that “modern biologists, informed by Darwin,” know “we are merely another branch on Nature’s tree.”

West sketches the future of ethics under scientism, and it is scary:

Scientism has expanded in the area of medicine and bioethics, where the old idea of eugenics is being revived in the name of good science. In 2012 Nancy Snyderman, chief medical editor for NBC News, publicly defended eliminating handicapped babies through abortion: “I am pro-science, so I believe that this is a great way to prevent diseases.” Of course, if it is “pro-science” to support eradicating babies with genetic flaws, it must be “anti-science” to oppose it. In a 2014 Huffington Post article titled “Let’s (Cautiously) Celebrate the ‘New Eugenics,'” Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project went further, assuring readers that they had nothing to fear from efforts to improve humans through genetic engineering.

Still on the horizon are the even more radical “transhumanists,” who argue that humanity’s goal should be bioengineering a new race of supermen. According to transhumanist Nick Bostrom, “human nature” is “a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways.” “Current humanity need not be the endpoint of evolution,” proclaims Bostrom. “Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become posthuman, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have.” Bostrom is a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, an indication of how ideas that used to be on the fringe have seeped into the mainstream.

These are all points to keep in mind when Darwin defenders repeat the absurd untruth that for us, it’s all somehow about the Bible. No, it’s about the future of humanity.

I’m on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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