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False Messiah: Darwinism as the God That Failed
Ever since The Origin of Species appeared in 1859, Charles Darwin’s followers have co-opted him as the patron saint of materialism. In False Messiah, longtime Darwinist and agnostic Neil Thomas looks at how Darwinism triumphed, and he challenges the official story with an exploration richly informed by his expertise in rhetoric and cultural history. What of Darwinism’s present status? Like Marxism—that other great materialist theory of the Victorian age—Darwinism has become “the God that failed.” As Thomas shows, although Darwinism has done incalculable damage to our culture, there is hope for renewal in contemporary scientific findings that are reinvigorating the argument to design as well as in what amounted to an ingenious flanking movement against modern materialism—the spiritually charged philosophy of nature developed in the poetry of William Wordsworth.
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 21, 2025
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August 29, 2026
The Temple of Scientism – Theory and Hypothesis
While scientific discovery often has demonstrated that accepted science never is settled completely, at least one “theory” has been spared repudiation in spite of overwhelming evidence against it: Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection. Yes, it has been modified, sometimes seemingly desperately, as those who disavow any possibility of supernatural causes seek to hold onto that foundational bias, but these modifications seem tortured and, like their foundational “theory”, poorly supported by evidence. To avoid the conclusion of a Creator or design in nature, they laboriously hold onto an underlying hypothesis that they persist in raising to the level of theory in spite of countervailing evidence. This is “scientism”, not science, and it has been widely sanctioned. It is, in fact, accepted as more or less conventional wisdom and “settled” science in many quarters.
In his excellent book, “False Messiah: Darwinism as the God That Failed”, Neil Thomas takes us back to the context in which Charles Darwin formulated his hypothesis turned theory. From the very beginning Darwin’s hypothesis has been elevated widely to the status of accepted theory in spite of the conspicuous lack of evidence, and, in fact, overwhelming emerging evidence against it. Thomas explores the background in which Darwin formulated his hypothesis, from the mounting materialistic worldview of the Enlightenment, to his own grandfather’s influence, to his personal need for affirmation, to the not inconsiderable contemporary criticisms of his “theory”, to his own doubts. This is a story that is not told often. Stephen C. Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt” is another excellent source for understanding this persistent scientism. Darwin gave the materialists a gospel to validate their temple of scientism. Weak from its beginning, that gospel hypothesis seems convincingly to have failed the scientific rigor of theory, and Thomas, like Meyer, helps us understand in this fastidiously researched book.
While scientific discovery often has demonstrated that accepted science never is settled completely, at least one “theory” has been spared repudiation in spite of overwhelming evidence against it: Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection. Yes, it has been modified, sometimes seemingly desperately, as those who disavow any possibility of supernatural causes seek to hold onto that foundational bias, but these modifications seem tortured and, like their foundational “theory”, poorly supported by evidence. To avoid the conclusion of a Creator or design in nature, they laboriously hold onto an underlying hypothesis that they persist in raising to the level of theory in spite of countervailing evidence. This is “scientism”, not science, and it has been widely sanctioned. It is, in fact, accepted as more or less conventional wisdom and “settled” science in many quarters.
In his excellent book, “False Messiah: Darwinism as the God That Failed”, Neil Thomas takes us back to the context in which Charles Darwin formulated his hypothesis turned theory. From the very beginning Darwin’s hypothesis has been elevated widely to the status of accepted theory in spite of the conspicuous lack of evidence, and, in fact, overwhelming emerging evidence against it. Thomas explores the background in which Darwin formulated his hypothesis, from the mounting materialistic worldview of the Enlightenment, to his own grandfather’s influence, to his personal need for affirmation, to the not inconsiderable contemporary criticisms of his “theory”, to his own doubts. This is a story that is not told often. Stephen C. Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt” is another excellent source for understanding this persistent scientism. Darwin gave the materialists a gospel to validate their temple of scientism. Weak from its beginning, that gospel hypothesis seems convincingly to have failed the scientific rigor of theory, and Thomas, like Meyer, helps us understand in this fastidiously researched book.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review