An evangelical assessment of the naturalistic worldview of Edward O. Wilson and implications for worldview formation

The dissertation provides an evangelical assessment of the naturalistic worldview of Edward O. Wilson. Noteworthy among the events of Wilson's life presented in chapter one is his upbringing in a conservative Christian environment. While the events profoundly influenced him, he eventually rejected the Christian faith, having found biological evolution to be a convincing basis in support of his philosophical views. A naturalistic worldview, he felt, better accorded with the way reality appeared and operated.The opening chapter also shows that Wilson's sociobiological research further confirmed his views. He has been responsible for much of the success in that academic field, and he is commonly credited as its founder. Within that discipline, which explores the biological basis of animals, the study of human behavior generates the most controversy. Yet Wilson believes the evidences show that all social creatures are subject to genetic, evolutionary pressures. A number of such sociobiological evidences and arguments are presented. His conviction that there is an exclusively biological basis for all of human behavior provides a foundation for all of his views.Chapter two shows that Wilson, based upon evolutionary and sociobiologically grounded arguments, concludes that a reductive, materialistic account of the human person provides the most credible description of human nature. Body-soul dualism is soundly rejected. Cellular events, he says, compose the mind. The position may be referred to as central-state materialism or the central-state identity theory.A naturalized theory of knowledge is a position that logically follows his anthropological view. Chapter three of the dissertation shows that Wilson is an advocate of that approach. Beliefs are the product of neural activity. Epistemology, therefore, should be replaced by psychology, the mental by the neural, and the epistemologist by the scientist. The position finds a capable proponent in Wilson, but he finds trouble providing a satisfying account (using only naturalistic notions) of 'justification'. As shown here, he must overcome the objection that a closed and irrational system can never justify belief. Wilson suggests that the reliability of the brain for forming true beliefs is already proven by its past successes. That view is strong enough, lie believes, to argue that scientists rather than epistemologists possess the means of defining objective truth. His program for the consilience of the humanities and social sciences through the natural sciences is an example of that theory at work. Richard Rorty disagrees with Wilson. The dissertation interacts with their exchanges.Chapter four reveals Wilson's moral position that derives from his anthropological and epistemological views. Since humans are material beings, bodies driven by brain activity, their behaviors as well as their beliefs have a natural basis. Moral beliefs and behaviors are no different. Beliefs that subsist in human cultures do so because they pass along to their hosts either an advantage or a disadvantage for surviving and thriving within their environments.An important implication of Wilson's naturalistic view is that humans are determined creatures rather than free ones. He concedes that a sort of determinism actually occurs, but the individual is incapable of perceiving it. Therefore, determinism poses no threat to ordinary experience.The two concluding chapters of the dissertation address some of the philosophical and theological issues that arise in the preceding discussions. Chapter five demonstrates that Wilson has a metaphysical naturalistic position that he holds (presumptuously) on the basis of his sociobiological findings. That is, though an evolutionary model effectively explains the origins of many beliefs and behaviors, metaphysical naturalism is not warranted. The dissertation argues that one can detect an apparent supernatural bias in his reasoning. Wilson, himself, admits a disdain for the evils that some religious thought has fostered in society. He dislikes, too, the scriptural accounts of a special creation that contradict evolution by natural selection. The chapter shows that it is arguably such features of religion that he allows to serve as reasons to count against God's existence and activity in human affairs. Such a conclusion, though, is flawed. Wilson does not present a reasonable case against religion. He seems only to have disallowed it, committing a significant worldview formation error.Chapter six maintains that explanations of human affairs that are predominately evolutionary or naturalistic are not incompatible with a supernatural ontology. That is, a Christian rendering of Wilson's worldview may be available. Even while an evolutionary epic for the origins and operations of belief and behavior provides a useful explanation for a significant portion of human experience and conduct, accounts of reality that are exclusively naturalistic should be rejected. Several worldview tests are consulted to show that improvements can made upon Wilson's worldview resulting in a more reasonable and descriptively powerful position. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...