Yesterday I talked about the charge that intelligent design is not science but religion. Today I would like to look at the other part of the debate. Does Darwinian evolution function as a sort of secular religion?

Nancy Pearcey writes in her book Total Truth that “Darwinism functions as the scientific support for an overarching naturalistic worldview.” Today scientists usually assume that scientific investigation requires naturalism. But that was not always the case.

When the scientific revolution began (and for the next three hundred years), science and Christianity were considered to be compatible with one another. In fact, most scientists had some form of Christian faith, and they perceived the world of diversity and complexity through a theistic framework. Nancy Pearcey points out that Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and others sought to understand the world and use their gifts to honor God and serve humanity.

By the nineteenth century, secular trends began to change their perspective. This culminated with the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. His theory of evolution provided the needed foundation for naturalism to explain the world without God. From that point on, social commentators began to talk about the “war between science and religion.”

By the twentieth century, G.K. Chesterton was warning that Darwinian evolution and naturalism was becoming the dominant “creed” in education and the other public arenas of Western culture. He said it “began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics.” Ultimately, it “is really our established Church.”

Secular evolutionists may not have church services, but it is easy to see that naturalism and Darwinism have become the main pillars of a secular view of the world. That may explain why most debates about origins quickly become so intense. Expect more and more controversy as scientists and commentators challenge the theory of evolution.

The latest debate about science textbooks has surfaced a typical complaint about the scientific basis of intelligent design. Critics of intelligent design say that it is not science because it cannot be falsified. But nearly every critic then goes on to argue that intelligent design has been falsified. Obviously it can’t be both falsifiable and non-falsifiable at the same time. Such is the level of argumentation against intelligent design.

But there is another argument I find even more fascinating. It is that intelligent design cannot be considered science because it has religious implications. As I point out in my book, A Biblical Point of View on Intelligent Design, just because an idea has religious (or philosophical implications) shouldn’t necessarily disqualify it from scientific consideration. There are significant religious and philosophical implications for Darwinian evolution. Consider just a few of these.

Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins believes that Darwinian evolution provides the foundation for his atheism and claims that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Daniel Dennett says: “In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.”

Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer argues that we must “face the fact that we are evolved animals and that we bear the evidence of our inheritance, not only in our anatomy and our DNA, but in our behavior too.”

Each of these men draws religious or philosophical inferences from the theory of evolution. Does that disqualify evolutionary theory? Is evolution unscientific because there are religious and philosophical implications? No. Likewise, intelligent design’s possible implications should not render it unscientific.

Most of the concern expressed about Obamacare focuses on the immediate impact while ignoring the long-term effects of the law. Dr. Merrill Matthews explains in a recent column that the bigger problem will arise in a few years. Insurance actuaries call this problem a health care “death spiral.”

In the near term, many will experience “sticker shock” when they discover how much their insurance premiums will cost them. Those most affected will likely be young and health people who live in states that managed to keep health insurance premiums relatively low.

On the other hand, people with chronic illnesses or other expensive medical conditions will be joining exchanges. Many of the larger health insurers are avoiding these exchanges because they believe that just such people will be joining the exchanges and have medical conditions that will be expensive to treat. The costs might exceed the premiums they were able to collect.

Meanwhile the young and healthy are likely to avoid joining an exchange since they will be charged much more under Obamacare than they would have paid in the past. The law is designed to overcharge the young and healthy so that older and sicker people can be charged less. The latest HHS ads are an attempt to get young people to sign up.

The problem only gets worse in subsequent years. As a disproportionate number of sick people enroll in the pool, the cost of an insurance policy will rise. These premium increases will drive healthy people out of the pool looking for lower rates that match their healthy condition. As the pool get smaller and sicker, rates will go up once again. That will drive out another wave of people until the pool is very small and very sick. This is what insurance actuaries call a “death spiral.”

Put simply, the challenge at the moment is to get young and healthy people to sign up for exchanges. But the bigger challenge in the future will be to get them to stay once they find out how unaffordable Obamacare is for them.

The framers of the Constitution expected that the governors would live under the same rules and laws as the governed. They had lived in colonial times under a system where kings and the ruling elite lived differently than their subjects.

James Madison writing in Federalist paper #57 answered the objection that the form of government they had constructed might lead to an oligarchy. His argument was that the foundational principle of republican government was just the opposite. He said that lawmakers “can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.”

This historical background is important because of the decision by the Office of Personnel Management. As I have mentioned in a previous commentary, Congress passed Obamacare back in 2010 without trying to save the generous premiums provided to members of Congress and their staff. Over the last few months they complained about the added expense under Obamacare and warned about the possibility of a “brain drain.” More than a few callers to my radio show have noticed the irony of Congress worrying about a brain drain in the public sector while being oblivious to the fact that the same thing would also happen in the private sector.

The White House and the bureaucracy heard their complaints. The Office of Personnel Management ruled that the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program could continue contributing to the health care plans for members of Congress and their staff.

Some believe these premium benefits are unfair. That is why Representative Ron DeSantis calls his bill the James Madison Congressional Accountability Act. Senator David Vitter introduced a similar bill in the U.S. Senate. They believe that the governors should live under the same laws as the governed. That foundational principle is exactly what James Madison was writing about more than 200 years ago. I’m glad some members of Congress believe it should still apply today.