What is evolutionism?

Answer

The term evolutionism illustrates how debates about science, religion, and faith can often be influenced by misunderstanding and bias. Common popular belief suggests that subjects like evolution are inherently scientific, neutral, and objective, while labeling topics such as the Bible, religion, or faith as inherently irrational, biased, and subjective. In reality, it is entirely possible for an individual to approach any subject in a quasi-religious manner, and evolutionism exemplifies this scenario.

Evolutionism, as a worldview, is distinct from related terms like evolve, evolution, or evolutionary theory. While there are overlaps among these terms, evolutionism itself is not strictly scientific. Nevertheless, it is frequently assumed to be so in discussions of scientific topics.

In essence, evolutionism is a belief in the concept of evolution as an explanation for most— if not all— aspects of the universe. Put simply, while biological evolution may be a scientific theory, evolutionism is a philosophical and spiritual worldview. Consequently, evolutionism has been utilized to explain ethics, ultimate origins, and even as a foundation for morality.

It is crucial to recognize that evolution— referring to gradual, directional change over time— was a belief held long before figures like Charles Darwin. Darwin’s contribution was not the introduction of the idea of evolution, which had been contemplated— albeit without scientific backing— for centuries. Rather, Darwin proposed a plausible mechanism for biological evolution. Therefore, evolutionism is an approach that existed independently of, and long before, discussions on the scientific concepts of evolution.

Evolutionism asserts that reality permits change, and this change advances in a specific direction. Consequently, any particular action, event, or occurrence is viewed in the context of this overarching evolutionary perspective.The text has been revised for spelling and grammar:

The aids or impedes this change. “Evolving,” then, becomes the highest goal or the greatest good. This becomes the benchmark for biology, morality, ethics, and everything else. According to evolutionism, there is some inherent drive to “evolve” built into reality, and this drive is the ultimate measure of all other things.

In practice, then, evolutionism is strongly relativistic; when change is discussed, one has to know whether the changes are good or bad. Evolutionism provides no particular means to say whether a change is positive or negative. Thus, evolutionism reduces all moral judgments to statements of emotion: the evolutionist can never say that any particular act is actually wrong; all he can do is say that he does not personally like it. The implication that there is no particular value or meaning to anything also leads strongly to nihilism and despair.

Interestingly, this forced reliance on emotion makes evolutionism particularly attractive to those who reject objective worldviews such as Christianity. When there is, supposedly, no actual right and wrong, merely human opinion, then there is no particular reason not to choose a worldview that implies the freedom to accept or dismiss certain truths on the basis of emotions.

It is for this reason that some approaches to science, particularly related to origins, can be classified as evolutionism. This is not merely because those views incorporate biological evolution or Darwinian ideas. Adherence to evolutionism is not required to accept certain theories of evolution. Rather, certain philosophies are considered forms of evolutionism because they are grounded in a worldview that assumes some form of evolution to be inherent in the universe—regardless of scientific concerns.