Evolution and Secular Humanism

Abstract

anti-evolutionism, it is necessary to uncover the moral meanings invested in the term Secular Humanism, and then to see how evolution is thought to be articulated with those meanings. This paper addresses those problems by recounting the history of the fundamentalist idea of Secular Humanism; by describing the substantive content of that idea; and, by explaining how evolutionary thought is believed to be articulated with Secular Humanism. Modem American fundamentalism has made the creation-evolution controversy a moral issue by linking the idea of evolution to an idea called Secular Humanism. That connection animates contemporary anti-evolutionary thought by giving fundamentalist Christians a reason to believe that evolution is somehow involved in a long list of everything they consider immoral, from abortion to Zen. To appreciate the ideological basis of contemporary anti-evolutionism, it is necessary to understand that fundamentalist Christians explain moral decay in modem America by positing an evil conspiracy named Secular Humanism. Creationist thought, as a product of fundamentalism, is then an exercise in applying that moral critique and conspiracy theory to the ontological issue of origins, by alleging that belief in evolution is part of the Secular Humanist conspiracy. The plan of this paper is to explore creationist beliefs about evolution and Secular Humanism in two parts. Part I recounts the history of