in your estimation (and that of few others) “evolution” — by which I take it you mean evolutionary biology — is a religion does not seem to me adequate grounds for suggesting that evolutionary biology is not a science (if that is what you are saying: your mode of address is somewhat murky for me).
“Evolution” is a frustrating word because it means different things to different people. To most it is about dinosaurs and apes turning into human beings.
The standard theory is about random genetic mutation causing phenotypes, the organisms that develop as a result of genetic “programming”, creatures which either make it or don’t make it to reproduce themselves. It is about chemicals basically.
But, as you witness yourself, perceiving, thinking, feeling and acting as one whole person (although there may be different sides to us, sometimes split off), there’s much more to existence than can be reduced to chemical interactions. If we are talking about living things, we must include ourselves since we know that from the inside. So how did story-telling, or mathematics, art and music come to be, qualities that if we came from a common material source, we’d expect to see everywhere around us, as we see eyes, and hearts, and livers, and kidneys, and bones? I think you get my point. Like other animals we have emotions such as fear, anger, happiness, and sadness; we feel pleasure and pain, but there is something more than that, of which we are capable but may fail to pursue. We have free will, which means that we can decide to do good or evil, pursue solely our own ends or consider those of others to be equal. We can love, give of ourselves for the good of the other.
Life sciences do not need to limit themselves in the study of life forms. In the field of medicine, which includes psychiatry, there is a more comprehensive approach.
Evolutionary biology seems to be primarily dedicated to casting what remnants we find of the past and the discoveries we make in the study of genetics into a mould of evolutionary theory. There is no proof that hominids gave birth to a human beings, that two nonhuman gametes can result in a human life, any more than there is proof that being human confers any more respect or dignity than being any other life form, or that people with different genetic make-ups are as human as others. It is an assumption, which cannot be validated, with serious repercussions on how we live our lives. I agree, things get murky real fast, because the core belief and the superficiality of the theory are not being actively addressed.
