Although naturalism might work with purely observable phenomena, it does not work with origins science and evolutionary biology, which are essentially historical sciences. The historicity of evolutionary biology is explained by Ernst Mayr in his article in the July 2000 issue of Scientific American. Mayr is touted by Scientific American as “one of the towering figures in the history of evolutionary biology.” Mayr explains it this way:
…Darwin introduced historicity into science. Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science—the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.
The book by Dr. Jonathan Wells, entitled Icons of Evolution, shows that this ‘historical narrative,’ that has been and is being presented to our children as the only factually viable theory, is actually based on misrepresentations of the facts. Instead of being driven by the evidence, the “historical narrative” is driven by the Naturalistic
world view that all phenomena result only from the laws of chemistry and physics. This is applied materialistic philosophy, dressed up as science to protect it from criticism by a competing world view—i.e., that life may be a product of design.
One reason naturalism should not drive a historical science is that historical sciences are necessarily susceptible to subjective accounts. This is because the focus is on past events which can not be tested by direct observation as in the case of physics and chemistry. When the account is driven by the philosophy of Naturalism rather than by the evidence, the “history” necessarily conforms itself to the philosophy and thereby loses all objectivity and credibility.
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