Religion Masquerades as Science in Forbes Magazine

Michael Ruse has a piece in Forbes magazine about the recent hype over the Darwinius masillae fossil. I’m not sure what a business magazine finds interesting about the 47-million-year-old primate fossil, but I’m sure it isn’t interested in promoting the religion that underwrites the theory of evolution. Like most evolutionists Ruse doesn’t hide his theological convictions. I once debated Ruse but it was hardly a debate. I explained that evolutionists mandate naturalism for religious reasons such as the problem of evil, and Ruse argued that evolution is mandated for religious reasons such as the problem of evil. Such convictions provide evolutionists with a metaphysical certainty that evolution is true. As Ruse writes:

Thanks to the Origin and to the huge amount of research done in the subsequent century and a half, we have massive evidence–from paleontology, biogeography, anatomy, embryology and every other branch of biology–putting the fact that organisms evolved well beyond reasonable doubt. This is as certain as that the Earth goes around the sun or that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen. Other than the aforementioned biblical literalists, no one doubts this fact. Nor should they.

Evolution is a fact, and is well beyond reasonable doubt? It may sound like science but it is not—this is religion in disguise. This level of certainty comes from metaphysics, not measurements. From a scientific perspective the evidence presents a plethora of problems for evolution. But from a religious perspective the evidence is conclusive. Consider the evidence from biogeography. Elsewhere Ruse has written that:

Given an all-wise God just why is it that different forms appear in similar climates, whereas the same forms appear in different climates? It is all pointless without evolution.

Here we have the strength of the argument, and the mandate for evolution. It really doesn’t matter if evolution struggles with the evidence. It must be true. You can read the rest of the biogeography story here. Religion drives science and it matters.