Intellectuals Who Doubt Darwin

WACO, Texas -- At one time, the debate over Darwin's theory existed as a cartoon in the modern imagination. Thanks to popular portrayals of the Scopes Trial, secularists regularly reviewed the happy image of Clarence Darrow goading William Jennings Bryan into agreeing to be examined as an expert witness on the Bible and then taking him apart on the stand. Because of the legal nature of the proceedings that made evolution such a permanent part of the tapestry of American pop culture, it is fitting that this same section of the tapestry began to unravel due to the sharp tugs of another prominent legal mind, Phillip Johnson.

The publication of his book, Darwin on Trial, now appears to have marked a new milestone in the debate over origins. Prior to Johnson's book, the critics of evolution tended to occupy marginalized sectarian positions and focused largely on contrasting Darwin's ideas with literalist readings of the Genesis account. Johnson's work was different. Here we had a doubter of Darwin willing to come out of the closet, even though his credentials were solid gold establishment in nature. He had attended the finest schools, clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, taught law as a professor at highly ranked Berkeley, and authored widely-used texts on criminal law. Just as Darrow cross-examined the Bible and Bryan's understanding of it, Johnson cross-examined Darwin and got noticed in the process. He spent much of the last decade debating the issue with various Darwinian bulldogs and holding up his end pretty well.

PHILLIP JOHNSON, AND a number of others, raised enough doubts about the dominant theory to cause a number of intellectuals to take a hard look, particularly at the gap between what can be proven and what is simply asserted to be true. Since that time, authors with more technical backgrounds, like mathematician/philosopher William Dembski and biochemist Michael Behe, have published books providing even more powerful critiques of the neo-Darwinian synthesis based on intelligent design theory. Behe's work has been particularly disturbing to evolution advocates because he seems to have proven that organic machines at the molecular level are irreducibly complex and therefore could not have been the products of natural selection because there never would have been any intermediate working mechanism to select. Now, the two team up as Dembski edits and Behe contributes to a bracing collection of controversial writings titled Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing.

Dembski displays the intellectual doggedness of the group of contributors when he uses his introductory essay to ruthlessly track down and scrutinize the footnotes offered by those who would refute Behe's case. Reference after reference claiming to have decisively defeated Behe turns out to be inadequate to the task. What passes for refutation is instead a collection of question-begging and "just-so stories." Right away, Dembski sets the tone for the book. Nothing will be uncontested. The pro-evolution community will be made to fight for every inch of intellectual real estate without relying on the aura of prestige or the lack of competent critics to bolster their case.

The best way to read the book is by beginning at the end and perusing the profiles of the contributors. There, the reader will be able to select essays from representatives of a variety of disciplines, including mathematics, philosophy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, genetics, law, and medicine. The most enjoyable in terms of sheer brio are the essays by Dembski, Behe, Frank Tipler, Cornelius Hunter, and David Berlinski. Tipler's essay on the process of getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is particularly relevant and rewarding because it deals with one of the biggest strikes against Intelligent Design. ID theorists have had a notoriously difficult time getting their work published in professional journals. Tipler, a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane, crankily and enjoyably explains why.

TOP HONORS, HOWEVER, go to David Berlinski's essay, "The Deniable Darwin," which originally appeared in Commentary. The essay is rhetorically devastating. Berlinski is particularly strong in taking apart Richard Dawkins' celebrated computer simulation of monkeys re-creating a Shakespearean sentence and thereby "proving" the ability of natural selection to generate complex information. The mathematician and logician skillfully points out that Dawkins rigged the game by including the very intelligence in his simulation he disavows as a cause of ordered biological complexity. It's clear that Berlinski hits a sore spot when one reads the letters Commentary received in response to the article. Esteemed Darwinists like Dawkins and Daniel Dennett respond with a mixture of near-hysterical outrage and ridicule. Berlinski's responses are also included. At no point does he seem the slightest bit cowed or overwhelmed by the personalities arrayed against him.

For the reader, the result is simply one of the most rewarding reading experiences available. Berlinski and his critics engage in a tremendous intellectual bloodletting, with Berlinski returning fire magnificently. In a particularly amusing segment, Berlinski, constantly accused of misperception, writes, "For reasons that are obscure to me, both [Mr. Gross] and Daniel Dennett carelessly assume that they are in a position to instruct me on a point of usage in German, my first language." Though his foes repeatedly accuse Berlinski of being a "creationist," the tag has little chance of sticking to a man arguing for little more than agnosticism on the question of origins and who disavows any religious principles aside from the possible exception of hoping to "have a good time all the time." One suspects that the portion of the book occupied by the Berlinski essay and subsequent exchanges will gain wide currency.

For far too long, the apologists for Darwin have relied on a strategy of portraying challengers as simple-minded religious zealots. The publication of Uncommon Dissent and many more books like it, will severely undermine the success of such portrayals. During the past decade, it has become far too obvious that there are such things as intellectuals who doubt Darwin and that their ranks are growing. The dull repetition of polemical charges in place of open inquiry, debate, and exchange may continue, but with fewer and fewer honest souls ready to listen.

Hunter Baker is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University and contributes to the Reform Club.

"Your baby daughter is heaven waiting for you, "

If, by "heaven", you mean "your house", then you are correct! Sorry, Bellflower - I wasn't very clear on my original post, but please know that my little girl is very much alive! she was recently diagnosed with a type of sclerosis, though, which was what my original post was referring to and the origin of my anger.

See your email for more detail.

I sorry if I thought your daughter died when I first read your post. Now that I read it again it might be she is alive with this disease still. Forgive me please. If she is alive yet, which I cannot really tell by your post, please be a dad who can show her the true love she needs that can flow only from the LORD. A father's goal is to lead his family into goodness and eternal life. A Father can only be like a rock of security if he is standing on the Rock of Jesus Christ. You will demonstrate love and be of great comfort to a love one who is sick when you know the LORD. I know, as many loved ones have died in the last 10 years and the LORD was there to help and comfort. If she is alive with this disease the LORD may heal her yet as I have been healed several times in my life and though I am seriously in poor health I believe that the LORD will heal me at any moment but I love him no matter what because I know him and he is worthy. This time on earth is incredibly short and eternity is is after all forever. Let the LORD shape you and your family for heaven. Trust him as he knows everything and has it all worked out. It is us who is responsible for the wickedness and evil of this world not the LORD who is perfect and gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. You are in a good position to know what the LORD sacrificed for you a sinner when he gave his pure, spotless son to die a horrible death for us. Start being thankful for your daughter and the love you have for her. Thankfulness has the ability to cure a heart of bitterness. Begin to look at what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving and have a happy one filled with true love. Smile from your heart as it will shine on all those that you love. Live can be far, far from easy but very painful. Through it all God understands and loves us and he knows what he is doing.

As for Gods hand, there is no scientific evidence one way or another. Science can neither prove, or disprove God. You have to believe in Him on faith.

The purpose of science is to understand how things work without God's influence, or from a dfferent point of view, to understand how God has set nature in motion. When something is not understood, one can take the position that its due to God's influence, or that someday science will explain it.

God and science are, by definition, exclusive of each other. This does not make science "sinful". God commanded us to take dominion over the earth, which would include understanding how earth works.

A scientist does not have to be an atheist nor does a Christian have to reject science, as long as they understand the purpose of science.

I personally think that God is powerful enough to have created Evolution itself. A grand invention.

You seem to understand the purpose of science.

I'm one of those rare individuals who is neither a Creationist, nor a strict Darwinian, nor an Intelligent Design proponent. But from my contrary perspective, these positions are not all equal in value.

Creationism is not even a scientific argument, and therefore discardable ipso facto. Even if it really happened exactly like that, only an irrational person would assert its relevance to scientific endeavor (null priors and all that).

Intelligent Design is dominated by pseudo-mathematical asshats like Dembski, who invent new math that can be trivially demonstrated to be inconsistent with the mathematics that everyone else uses by any decent mathematician in the field. If ID wants people to listen, they need credible authorities. As for the people who trot out Dembski and Behe as authorities, it brings to mind the old saw "Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him?"

Strict Darwinian speciation is probably incorrect as a system model in practice, even though there is nothing theoretically wrong with the idea in the abstract -- it is mathematically sound. System models such as genomic automata would work on sufficiently faster time scales that it would dominate the speciation process.

And then there are the idiots who think that there can only be either Evolution or Creationism/ID -- a false dichotomy that ignores an astronomical palette of other possibilities. Proving evolution to be incorrect does not even remotely prove Creationism/ID to have validity.

Most people have such a ridiculously narrow conception of the space that their opinions on the matter are worthless. Which isn't unusual, look at the global warming issue...

". . . I personally think that God is powerful enough to have created Evolution itself. A grand invention."

And you're not the only one narby. Have you ever heard of the great Jesuit theologian and anthropologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)? As a professional anthropologist de Chardin achieved fame with the discovery of Peking Man, one of the Homo Habilis specimens, and as a Jesuit theologian he wrote extensively about what he referred to as "Noogenesis" or the creation of a psychic sphere, which he named the "Noosphere" and described it as existing "above the Biosphere" or above the plane of material existence. De Chardin saw evolution as part of God's plan, not anything that ran contrary to it, because it enabled primitive man to cross the "threshhold of reflection" and to create something entirely spiritual or, as he put it, "a new planetary envelope formed entirely by human thought." For de Chardin, this process continued and he believed that the ongoing mutations in humankind were designed to make possible man's acceptance of "SomeOne at the summit" of existence, i.e. God, and that the target of evolution was teleologically-oriented towards this "Omega point" when the realization of the divine being would complete the process of evolution. And he saw all of this as compatible with the Bible, Christianity (as a Jesuit he was an ordained Catholic priest), and their teachings.

Here's a link for you if you haven't heard of him:

Teilhard de Chardin

So to anyone who wants to claim that the Theory of Evolution negates God, the Bible, and Christianity the truth is it may only negate your interpretation of God, the Bible, and Chrisitanity. There have been noted religious thinkers in the Christian tradition who have disagreed. And to insist that others who disagree with you are bound to wickedness and damnation is to deny their religiosity and the legitimacy of their form of worship.

Moral Absolutes ping ... (Another interesting book about the lack of real evidence for evolution, and how the Darwinists lie and cheat, is "Forbidden Archeology - the Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael Cremo.)

Ah yes, Forbidden Archaeology. Published by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Uses creationist-quality quote mining techniques to argue the opposite of Christian creationism: That anatomically modern humans have existed for hundreds of millions of years!

I find it ironic that you're impressed by that book.

It's good that you believe in moral absolutes, though. So do I. But you're dead wrong if you think that evolution somehow negates the concept of an objective morality. (Well, if you merely believe in an absolute morality, I guess it wouldn't necessarily be objective. It could be the arbitrary whim of an Absolute Authority Figure of some kind. In that case we'd have to obey it to avoid the AAF's wrath, but it wouldn't exactly command our passionate support, would it?)

You should also read this review of Hidden Archaeology. Here's the conclusion, which I hope you take to heart:

Andrée Rosenfeld again: "What is curious is that an essentially religious organisation feels the need to justify themselves by recourse to science - but their discourse is scientistic, not scientific." In this, they are no different from any other creationists. Try to think ourselves into the mindset of a religious fundamentalist: "I believe in my sacred texts. I am aware that science does not support their veracity. My belief is not wrong - that is axiomatic - therefore science must be. I must look into this science business, to find out where it went wrong."
The fundamentalist convinces him/her/itself as supposed holes in the scientific fabric turn up, and wow! this can be used to convince others too! It's a kind of top-down learning experience; what is missing is what students get as they learn their science bottom-up: context. That, really, is why it is so difficult to actually open a dialogue with the creationist: why it is that scientists debating with creationists are effective mainly when they are pointing out their opponents' ignorance, stupidity or outright lies. Their opponent - let alone the audience - simply has no conception of context.
A book like this, simply because it is superficially scholarly and not outright trash like all the Christian creationist works I have read, might indeed make a useful deconstructionist exercise for an archaeology or palaeoanthropology class. So it's not without value. You could do worse, to, than place it in front of a Gishite with the admonition "Look here: these guys show that human physical and cultural evolution doesn't work. Therefore it follows that the Hindu scriptures are true, doesn't it?".

One of the ocservations Darwin made was that the fossil record should be replete with evidence of transitional species, a record which simply does not exist.

In his defense, Darwin did not have the advantage of an understanding of DNA which we now possess. Those who persist in defense of this position are lately relying on "puntuated eqilibrium" to explain the movement from one form to another. Not very good scholarship.

"One of the ocservations Darwin made was that the fossil record should be replete with evidence of transitional species, a record which simply does not exist. . . ."

Bull___t! This has been discussed on so many other Crevo threads that it doesn't bear repeating because Creationists will pull up some web page from one of their own sites replete with the word "evolutionists" that establishes, in their minds, scientific proof that transitional species have never been found.

Archaeopteryx is the best example, and don't give me any reference that uses the word "evolutionist" that speaks to the contrary.

Your review stands on the shaky foundation of assuming that any religious believer - or "fundamentalist" - is, by very definition, ignorant, biased, and wrong.

Therefore just a review is by my lights, standing on a foundation which is biased, ignorant, and wrong.

IOW, according to the standard accepted scientic viewpoint, only atheists are worth listening to, or only those who already march lockstep with what the other like minded scientists have agreed upon as the accepted "truth".

I have read the book - have you? Are you saying that a book critiquing Darwin's theories is useless if written by someone of any particular religious views? The book in question barely mentioned the author's religious viewpoint. It was essentially a critique of the various specimens used to support evolution.

If you haven't read the book, you really don't have much to say about it that's worth listening to.

One of the ocservations Darwin made was that the fossil record should be replete with evidence of transitional species, a record which simply does not exist.

Nonsense. He said exactly the opposite, and explained it in detail. He took a whole chapter to discuss this:
The Origin of Species, Chapter 9 - On the Imperfection of the Geological Record.

"Now that I read it again it might be she is alive with this disease still. Forgive me please. If she is alive yet, which I cannot really tell by your post,"

Umm..trust me, she is doing fine. I just tucked her into her crib nite-nite. I'm more concerned with ending her seizures and any long-term effects of this crappy situation. Know that she gets as much love as I can give her! Hopefully, science will provide a cure soon - they've only recently isolated the genes that cause the condition.

One of the ocservations Darwin made was that the fossil record should be replete with evidence of transitional species, a record which simply does not exist.

You haven't read it. He titled a whole chapter "On the Limitations of the Geologic Record." His conclusion is that we have crudely the geologic record we would expect given his model of evolution and the reigning model of geology. IOW, you are flat misstating what he actually had to say on the subject.

And I bet the rest of your supposed information is of a piece. Care to state the mechansim of evolution for us?

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