Posted on 11/23/2004 9:53:55 PM PST by nickcarraway
Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
Edited by William A. Dembski
(ISI Books, 366 pages, $28; $18 paper)
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.
One can do no more than you have done, considering that the issue is what Darwin actually did say. Somehow, I don't know how, you'll get a naysaying reply if you get one at all.
Won't be any reply. Not this thread. Next thread, same BS.
Working from memory. As everyone must realize by now--curse PH and his links!--it's "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record."
It's quite amusing to see the creationoids attempting to use Darwin as an authority against Darwin. It's a strange kind of appeal to authority.
The funniest thing is that at this late date it doesn't matter to science what anyone finds out about Darwin. They really don't know that. They think Darwin is the Jesus of evolution.
read later
I'm not one of your "passive Christians" who is going to scream and go, "Oh, he just used Scripture against me...I guess I'll just quit!"
I will deny your viewpoint because it is flat out WRONG! I will stand on the Word of God which is what really judges you because it clearly says EXACTLY how HE created the world and mankind.
And I WILL throw the "first stone" because you and your kind have been throwing stones at me and my kind since Cain murdered Able.
If you don't believe in the truths of the Bible, you can have all the "well-formed religious views" in the world and it will not get you any closer to anything meaningful than will a pack of explosives around his middle get a suicide bomber 72 virgins.
This "sheep" ROARS!
Last login: Wed Nov 24 16:14:45 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
[wbar2:~] hopiscoo% Why did the chicken cross the road?
tcsh: Why: No match.
[wbar2:~] hopiscoo% Was it a smoking chicken?
tcsh: Was: No match.
[wbar2:~] hopiscoo% Does evolution equate to good science?
tcsh: Does: No match.
[wbar2:~] hopiscoo% Can you say anything without adding "No match."?
tcsh: Can: No match.
[wbar2:~] hopiscoo% Fine. Go to hell, stupid computer.
tcsh: Fine.: Command not found.
The conversation went downhill from there, I'm sorry to report, but at least we have a definitive answer as to Darwin's opinion of evolution.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Very, very well said.
I did NOT compare you to Islamo-Fascists.
Again, I will not let you try to box me into the "judging Christian" trap you want to shove me into.
The Word of God judges what you say.
God does not want to be taken literally?!
Give me a break!
He has to practically scream to get most people's attention in this "enlightened" world. Do you think He put His very heart into writing so we could all guess about what he really means.
You are a humanist, no matter what other clothing you seek to wrap yourself in.
I think you and other evolutionists need to ask yourself whether you are closer to Christians or to Pharisees.
Whatever. Although you are probably blithely unaware that you are also "roaring" at Behe, Dembski, and other of the evolution critics discussed in the article. Many of them accept substantial evolution, including the evolution of man from apes. Behe seems to have little problem with the evolution of whole phyla. He just insists that certain crucial subcomponents of living things, mostly molecular machines, had to have been "intelligently designed".
In fact the differences in implied scenarios of earth and biological history between a typical progressive creationist and a young-earth creationist are as great as those between either and a typical evolutionist. So if you believe that you know "EXACTLY" how God created the world and mankind, that puts you at odds with a solid plurality, if not a majority, of creationists, and never mind us evolutionists.
The Bible is full of underdogs who only won out because the Lord was on their side.
I'll side with Him against your pitiful "plurality" and/or "majority" of anything.
What cracks me up is that "evolutionists" have resorted to redefining "species" to make their case.
Thus, any adaptation WITHIN a species, becomes an evoluition to a new species.
It's not me whom you need to worry about being damned by...
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