Science, Religion and Humanism

Recent developments in genetics have shed light on important problems of the natural and the cultural sciences, under the egis of the natural-selection algorithm paradigm. Some of them are crucially relevant to the foundations of humanism. Among them: the plurality of human species within the Homo genus, the singularity of origin of all living humans, the inconsequentiality of human races, and the richness and resilience of human bio-diversity. The all-encompassing triumph of the mechanistic methodological point of view, best attested by the sequencing of the human genome, gives new credence to the proscription of teleology both from the natural and the social science. Equally, it has made much more difficult clinging to supernatural accounts of the natural and social worlds. It is claimed that the lack of religion in no way precludes the edification and application of a rational sensible purely humanistic ethics in all human affairs.