Evolution is not to blame for atheism, says U.S. professor
Evolution is not to blame for attempts to remove God from the story of life, said a U.S. professor speaking at a Vatican conference.
Scientism, or the use of science beyond its proper sphere of investigating physical nature, is what has reduced the place of the divine in the world, said Robert J. Russell, founder and director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, Calif.
“If you claim evolution makes you an atheist or legitimates atheism or is the route to atheism, then you’re really moving beyond the constraints of science,” Russell said.
While people of faith are right to criticize scientism, proponents of creationism or intelligent design are wrong to attack science, he said.
He said if people want to “attack evolution they should do it in an intelligent way, not in an embarrassing way” by putting forth arguments that the scientific community addressed years ago.
Intelligent design, which accepts that life has evolved over eons but asserts that it is so complex that its development must have been guided by a supreme being or intelligent agent, or any other kind of interventionist theology “is really unethical” from a pastoral point of view, he said.
Proponents of intelligent design and creationism offer “a kind of fool’s gold” claiming they are the only ones who can keep God’s role in explaining the origins of life since “those nasty atheists have co-opted it” with the theory of evolution, he said.
“Well, they should attack the atheists. You don’t attack the victim,” which in this case has been the scientific theory of evolution, he added.
Darwin’s scientific theories have been co-opted for decades by unscrupulous people who use them to put forth and justify “absolutely horrendous social policies,” he said, such as Nazi Germany’s eugenics program.
But Russell said it is wrong to blame Darwin or his theory of evolution for their being manipulated by others.
RTWT