Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
a narrative vision akin to the one that turns up in
2001
and “The Sixth
Finger,” a vision of history as gradually rising toward scientific purity. Super-
ficially, one might suppose that this evolutionary vision is the very opposite
of myth since Durkheim asserts it as scientific truth, but by his own admis-
sion, science cannot reveal the plan of history that seems to be presupposed
in this utterance. What evidence have we that would suggest that human
history is tending by some innate dynamic toward the abolition of myth? In
principle, Durkheim ought to have thought the opposite, but he was caught
in the very mythic web he so brilliantly illuminated. He was trapped by the
“ought” of evolutionary myth in appealing to the comprehensive factual “is”
of evolutionary gradualism.
This is the marvel of evolutionism. Even as it sets science against myth,
the historical vision needed to sustain this faith is itself mythical. This is
because, as René Girard has explained it, to “expel religion is, as always,
a religious gesture,” insofar as such acts themselves always presuppose an
alternative grounding for human existence.
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omance
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Some will doubtless regard this thesis as radical. I will insist that it is not
a claim capable of undermining the integrity of evolutionary theory; but I
admit that it is one that is certain to trouble it. To argue that the scientific
identity has some stake in the believability of evolutionary science will cer-
tainly raise questions about the objectivity of what scientists say about it.
One way out of this problem would be to turn the tables and contend that
I am the one who lacks objectivity, perhaps by supposing that I write as
an advocate for an alternative religious perspective or that I lack sufficient
respect for science. But if we are to speculate about motives, we should do so
on all sides. We all have motives, and so I am not claiming that the public
purveyors of evolutionary thought are generally more likely than any others
to distort matters. The problem with motives is that they operate upon us
differently in different circumstances, and this is all I am saying about the
culture of modern science. Motives capable of distorting inquiry and argu-
ment are always afoot, and it is precisely for this reason that scientists enforce
methodological guidelines. In advancing the claim that evolutionism wears
the mask of evolutionary science, I am concerned with scientific discourses
that are not regulated by these norms and which take much of their inspira-
tion from the never-ending struggle of scientists to find their place in the
world. My subject is not science in what G. Thomas Goodnight has called
