John G. West Political Scientist and Cultural Critic
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Kurt Vonnegut, RIP: A Thoughtful Skeptic of Darwinism

Published at Evolution News
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Scientism, Social Darwinism, and Totalitarian Science
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Noted novelist Kurt Vonnegut died on Wednesday at age 84. Although Vonnegut described himself as a secular humanist, last year on NPR he voiced his skepticism of Darwinism. Calling our human bodies “miracles of design,” he faulted scientists for “pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn’t possibly have produced such machines.” When asked whether this meant he “would favor teaching intelligent design in the classroom,” he replied:

If I were a physics teacher or a science teacher, it’d be on my mind all the time as to how the hell we really got this way. It’s a perfectly natural human thought and, okay, if you go into the science class you can’t think this?

For a transcript of his remarks and further information, see this post by Jonathan Witt from last year.

John G. West

Senior Fellow, Managing Director, and Vice President of Discovery Institute
Dr. John G. West is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of its Center for Science and Culture. He also serves as the Distinguished Scholar of American Government and Christian Civic Engagement at Cornerstone University. West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 14 books, including Endowed by Our Creator, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action. His documentary films include Fire-Maker, Revolutionary, and the award-winning Human Zoos. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.
Discovery Institute