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The Ideology of Scientism (part 2)    We left off talking about E.O. Wilson. Wilson started sociobiology and then it transmogrified into evolutionary psychology.             Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain psychological traits in terms of direct relation to evolutionary needs. Wilson didn’t just invent evolutionary psychology out of the air, there were other thinkers involved. From 1963 to 1974 William Hamilton, George Williams, Robert Trivers, John Maynard Smith pioneered in the sort of understanding we find in evolutionary psychology. [1] Wilson galvanized this trend with his work Sociobiology: the New Synthesis which has been said to mark the epoch. [2] In speaking of the spread of evolutionary psychology Wright says “a new world view is dawning.” [3] He uses the phrase world view literally. He says it’s a body of theory and fact, much like quantum theory, or molecular biology, but un...

The Ideology of Scientism (part 1)               Colin Blakemore (Neuroscience, Oxford) writes an article entitled, "Science is Just One Gene Away from Defeating Religion." He sees religion and science as opponents in a chess match. One wonders, is it only a chess match and not a war that engage science and religion? Thus advances in science are automatically viewed as detraction from religion. He intimates this when he says that the discoveries of Watson and Crick were a defeat for religion because previously life was a mystery that implied spiritual magic. [1]   He wants to see religion as some long ago thing that science is beating. He says, “Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was certainly a vital move in that chess game - if not checkmate. In an interview for God and the Scientists, to be broadcast tonight in Channel 4's series on Christianity, Richard Dawkins declares: ‘Darwin removed the...