Epoch Times - Darwinian evolution functions as a kind of secular religion

April 21, 2026 - Epoch Times

00:54

Darwinian evolution functions as a kind of secular religion

Darwinian evolution functions as a secular religion, addressing the fundamental question of life's origins while serving as both scientific inquiry and philosophical worldview. Author Ruse critiques colleagues who resist dispassionate evaluation of evolution's merits solely because it operates like a faith, noting that this religious dynamic hinders objective assessment. Ultimately, the episode suggests that treating evolution as dogma rather than science prevents genuine intellectual progress and critical scrutiny of its claims. [Automatically generated summary]
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Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo

Time	Text
	He was a committed neo Darwinist.
	But he wrote an important book in which he acknowledged or really spotlighted the fact that for many of his colleagues, Darwinian evolution functions as a kind of secular religion.
	And you can see why, because it's answering one of the most fundamental questions that any worldview or religion has to answer, which is what is the thing or the entity or the process from which everything else came?
	And the neo Darwinian explanation of the origin of new forms of life is part of the answer to that really fundamental question.
	Question, which is not only a scientific question but a philosophical worldview question.
	But Ruse's critique of some of his own colleagues was that because it functions like a secular religion, sometimes there's a resistance to a more dispassionate scientific evaluation of its merits.

Time

Text

He was a committed neo Darwinist.

But he wrote an important book in which he acknowledged or really spotlighted the fact that for many of his colleagues, Darwinian evolution functions as a kind of secular religion.

And you can see why, because it's answering one of the most fundamental questions that any worldview or religion has to answer, which is what is the thing or the entity or the process from which everything else came?

And the neo Darwinian explanation of the origin of new forms of life is part of the answer to that really fundamental question.

Question, which is not only a scientific question but a philosophical worldview question.

But Ruse's critique of some of his own colleagues was that because it functions like a secular religion, sometimes there's a resistance to a more dispassionate scientific evaluation of its merits.