Continuing the Fiction Campaign, this Summer I’ll be exploring the collision between orthodox science fiction and religious mythology in the context of evolution.

Two years ago, I explored the metaphorical elements of evolutionary theories in the Myths of Evolution serial, and I’m pleased to say that I recently got approval from my publisher to write a book on this theme (also called Myths of Evolution). As preparation for writing the manuscript of this new philosophy book, I have been reading a diverse collection of books and I want to synthesise some of the ideas here on Only a Game so I can discuss my thoughts with the players here before moving it forward into print. (This will put back the Souls in Science Fiction serial to Autumn or Winter, but I still hope to run this before the end of the year).

Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll be considering the relationship between religion and science, as well as looking at the most recent work by molecular biologists and contemplating the implications for evolutionary mythology. Throughout, my interest is not so much the science (although I will cover this) but the fictions implied by the science – the mythology of evolution. Despite the way this topic is usually handled, evolutionary science is never purely research alone; it is always inevitably a creation myth as well, and the way this story is told has significant implications.

I shall also be defending a highly unpopular position, namely that Intelligent Design isn’t much of a “threat” to science. If ID is taken to be religious in motivation, it fails on theological grounds and can’t be taken seriously by anyone. If it not taken in a religious context, it’s scientific content fails in perfectly normal ways that pose no more of a problem for science than any other failed hypothesis.

Furthermore, if anything in the context of evolution is a “threat” to science, it can scarcely be traditional mythology trying to muscle itself back in, but rather the metaphysical stories offered by certain evolutionists that are passed off as “science” but are anything of the kind. If metaphysical excesses like ID are contended to “threaten” science, our real concern shouldn’t be the old design paradigm trying to keep its foot in the door, but those wild and wacky beliefs already inside the house falsely claiming to have scientific authority.

The Summer of Evolutionary Mythology begins shortly!