Saving Us from Darwin [Multiple Book Review]

The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism
by Phillip E. Johnson
InterVarsity Press, 192 pp., $17.99

Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong
by Jonathan Wells
Regnery, 338 pp., $27.95

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
by Michael J. Behe
Touchstone, 307 pp., $13.00 (paper)

Mere Creation: Science, Faith and Intelligent Design
edited by William A. Dembski
InterVarsity Press, 475 pp., $24.99 (paper)

Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology
by William A. Dembski
InterVarsity Press, 312 pp., $21.99

Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism
by Robert T. Pennock
Bradford/MIT Press, 429 pp., $18.95 (paper)

Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
by Kenneth R. Miller
Cliff Street Books/HarperCollins,338 pp., $14.00 (paper)

1. It is no secret that science and religion, once allied in homage to divinely crafted harmonies, have long been growing apart. As the scientific worldview has become more authoritative and self-sufficient, it has loosed a cascade of appalling fears: that the human soul, insofar as it can be said to exist, may be a mortal and broadly comprehensible product of material forces; that the immanent, caring God of the Western monotheisms may never have been more than a fiction devised by members of a species that self-indulgently denies its continuity with the rest of nature; and that our universe may lack any discernible purpose, moral character, or special relation to ourselves. But as those intimations have spread, the retrenchment known as creationism has also gained in strength and has widened its appeal, acquiring recruits and sympathizers among intellectual sophisticates, hard-headed pragmatists, and even some scientists. And so formidable a political influence is this wave of resistance that some Darwinian thinkers who stand quite apart from it nevertheless feel obliged to placate it with tactful sophistries, lest the cause of evolutionism itself be swept away.

As everyone knows, it was the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 that set off the counterrevolution that eventually congealed into creationism. It isn't immediately obvious, however, why Darwin and not, say, Copernicus, Galileo, or Newton should have been judged the most menacing of would-be deicides. After all, the subsiding of faith might have been foreseeable as soon as the newly remapped sky left no plausible site for heaven. But people are good at living with contradictions, just so long as their self-importance isn't directly insulted. That shock was delivered when Darwin dropped his hint that, as the natural selection of every other species gradually proves its cogency, "much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."

By rendering force and motion deducible from laws of physics without reference to the exercise of will, leading scientists of the Renaissance and Enlightenment started to force the activist lord of the universe into early retirement. They did so, however, with reverence for his initial wisdom and benevolence as an engineer. Not so Darwin, who saw at close range the cruelty, the flawed designs, and the prodigal wastefulness of life, capped for him by the death of his daughter Annie. He decided that he would rather forsake his Christian faith than lay all that carnage at God's door. That is why he could apply Charles Lyell's geological uniformitarianism more consistently than did Lyell himself, who still wanted to reserve some scope for intervention from above. And it is also why he was quick to extrapolate fruitfully from Malthus's theory of human population dynamics, for he was already determined to regard all species as subject to the same implacable laws. Indeed, one of his criteria for a sound hypothesis was that it must leave no room for the supernatural. As he wrote to Lyell in 1859, "I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."

Darwin's contemporaries saw at once what a heavy blow he was striking against piety. His theory entailed the inference that we are here today not because God reciprocates our love, forgives our sins, and attends to our entreaties but because each of our oceanic and terrestrial foremothers was lucky enough to elude its predators long enough to reproduce. The undignified emergence of humanity from primordial ooze and from a line of apes could hardly be reconciled with the unique creation of man, a fall from grace, and redemption by a person of the godhead dispatched to Earth for that end. If Darwin was right, revealed truth of every kind must be unsanctioned. "With me the horrid doubt always arises," he confessed in a letter, "whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind...?"

More excuses from Patrick. Lots of blather and no proof as usual. The point is Patrick that evolutionists keep saying that the proof is in the fossils but when asked about proof from the fossils we are told that "we are still looking for it, but we will find it for sure". I think after 150 years the evolutionists should have been able to find the ancestors of the gradual evolution which Darwin says was right there in the fossils. Instead of thousands of links showing the ancestry of modern species what we have is a thousand missing links and a few seriously doubtful "proofs" which have been concocted by ideologues not scientists. I have shown a few on these threads before and I will show them again if you doubt my word.

This is total hypocrisy. As the article on top shows Darwin's intent in formulating evolution was to ban God from creation, - me -

The article shows no such thing.

Obviously you are either lying, did not read the article, or are seriously deficient in reading comprehension - from the article ABOVE!:

Indeed, one of his criteria for a sound hypothesis was that it must leave no room for the supernatural. As he wrote to Lyell in 1859, "I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."

As to the science of astronomy, the star hunt has not, and can never prove the theory of stellar evolution,

Biology and astronomy have nothing to do with each other, you cannot even find a proper example to compare the lameness of evolution to any real science. Astronomy is a science because it can predict many things, has equations which can be used in its work, can predict the motion of planets and has been proven by both experiments and practical use. Evolution cannot lay claim to any of those scientific proofs.

You haven't the demonstrated credentials . . .

And you have? Truth requires credentials that meet your standards? That's hilarious. In any event, the article is authoritative.

It is a shallow review of a handful of writers on the margin of science . . .

Well, wrong again, donh.

. . . who argue, in various ways, that because you don't understand how something happened, it must be impossible.

Another absolute misrepresentation.

They do not, in any significant manner, gainsay that Darwinian Evolution, however incomplete and flawed, is on the table, and has a track record, that exceeds random luck, of successful predictions and profitable use in industry.

And more garbage. Evidence? None in support, much against. Predictions? Silliness. Profitable in industry? More hilarity.

None of your post is true, donh, however seemingly glib, and I conclude you either crave attention or just like to hear yourself write. In any event, you have a terrible time with truth and your posts are an abuse of JimRob's good graces. They will thus henceforth be ignored.

And for all that, we still want a predictive explanation for the morphological flow of the fossils we recover, in chronological order, in the geologic column, and the only serious taker on the table is Darwinian Evolution. No one in this long article here, not Dembski, Johnson, or Behe, is stepping up to the plate, and providing a "disproof"--they have simply made a fuss over the fact that the story is far from complete, and I'll repeat a piece of statistical advice I offered earlier: if you don't know how a thing happened, you haven't the slightest idea how to calculate the odds against it.

1/256⁵⁹⁸ randomly

And more garbage. Evidence? None in support, much against. Predictions? Silliness. Profitable in industry? More hilarity.

Every summer, geological paleontology students predict, based on the supposedly evanescent morphological flow, where to dig, and predict what they will find. This frequently, more frequently than chance would suggest, results in yet more filled in blanks where creationists were pointing and chortling over the "missing links" in the creationist story. This is how we went from 3 kinds of critters in the evolution of horses story, to several dozen, not occuring in random all over the historical landscape--occuring between the previously extant critters that they resemble in the mesozoic.

Oil companies follow the advancing and retreating shorelines of ancient worlds, as laid out by fossils in the geological column, to the Devonian layer, where the oil is.

The Gilder article you so venerate is riddled with well-known nonsense--I just showed you just above it 3 instances where Behe's cocksure predictions fell flat on the floor.

The article claims there are no examples of speciation, this is willful ignorance. It we weren't generating new infectuous bugs, we wouldn't be having to invent new anti-biotics. The U of Chicago, years ago, did an experiment where they sealed mealy bugs in separate bottles in the basement of the biology building, for some 30 years, at the end of which time, they could not interbreed. The report on the finches is also inaccurate--new modern patterns in finch beaks have resulted in finches that fail to interbreed in 100% of observed attempts. See "The Beak of the Finch" which just won the pulitzer.

Biology and astronomy have nothing to do with each other, you cannot even find a proper example to compare the lameness of evolution to any real science. Astronomy is a science because it can predict many things, has equations which can be used in its work, can predict the motion of planets and has been proven by both experiments and practical use. Evolution cannot lay claim to any of those scientific proofs.

This is high gibberish. Evolutionary micro-biology satisfies every criteria you have specified. See my previous answer to Phaedrus. AND, there is no such thing as proof in natural sciences, if there is, could you kindly point me to the proof of the theory of gravity? Your hangup on this subject is not helping you think very clearly, as witness your absurd statement here about astronomy and biology.

"any one stage" of descent 1) refers to the theory of fossil descent and 2) does not eliminate God from the universe, only from the "equation" by which we calculate descent. Your generalizations are contradicted by the man himself, and an unwarranted over-generalization, in any case.

What a lame excuse! Evolutionists have been saying for 150 years that the fossil record proves evolution. When asked for proof from it though you say the bones have not been found. Well if the fossil record proves evolution then you need to give proof, otherwise you need to admit that evolutionists have been lying for 150 years.

Science is not whatever you decide it should be. No evolutionary scientists have given proof of anything because there is no such thing as a proof in natural science. The bones appear in order--and that wants an explanation--Darwinism is an explanation that works pretty well. Your requests for proof betray a substantial mis-apprehension.

There is no flow. Certain characteristics appear, dissappear and reappear a hundred million years later.

Oh really? Than how do you know there was a mysterious cambrian explosion so popular with creationists for it's sudden appearance of species? The appearance of morphological flow is the overwhelming central conundrum that led Darwin, and many others, to obsess about the question of evolution in the first place. Anyone looking at the distinctively different, distinctly segregated in index order, fossils in the Grand Canyon, at each eon layer, notes right away the appearance of morphological ordering. This is the standard first field trip for geological paleontology students--to discover for themselves whether or not they see morpological flow. It is painfully obvious--to over-simplify: nothing so complex as a mammal appears in the middle record; nothing so complex as a chordate appears in the early record.

Your alternative explanation is pretty amusing. So you claim, what? That God whupped up all these various critters fresh from scratch each time? Some kind of occupational therapy I guess. Why did he do that using all the same components each time? Didn't it occur to him that he could have used a few different amino acids, and/or codon triplets, and made it impossible for, say, polio mylitus to live on human nerve cells? Why is it that humans can eat mollusks? Why is it that mosquitos can live on human blood? What kind of disorderly, cruel, brain-damaged God is this?

And you have? Truth requires credentials that meet your standards? That's hilarious. In any event, the article is authoritative

If the article is "authoritative", than you have some idea of the specific details of Behe's argument? With specific names of specific molecules? You have some idea, which you can state, why Behe's thesis should be given such consideration despite having failed already in several of his key predictions, as I have quite specificially pointed out to you? Can you even name the molecules in question?

I think you don't understand what authoritative means.

After many excuses you fall back on the you give proof nonsense.

I patiently await your proof of the law of gravity.

You insulted Behe, you slimed his work.

I did not insult Behe, I accurately explained to you, with accompanying reference to the precise articles where it happened, why many of his key predictions about irreducible complexity from his book, have now failed. You give the appearance of a man who does not know the contents of the book he is defending.

If you have no proof apologize, admit you were wrong, act like a man.

You might consider taking your own advice.

I will not let you change the subject.

I acknowledge your world-class expertise in this department.

Kindly point me to any examples where I've had a "terrible time with truth", other than by virtue of disagreeing with you, so that I can attempt to make restitution.

They will thus henceforth be ignored.

Fat chance.

can any evolutionist defend the general principle of darwin's philosophy?

Slavery, although in some ways beneficial during ancient times,* is a great crime; yet it was not so regarded until quite recently, even by the most civilised nations. And this was especially the case, because the slaves belonged in general to a race different from that of their masters. As barbarians do not regard the opinion of their women, wives are commonly treated like slaves. Most savages are utterly indifferent to the sufferings of strangers, or even delight in witnessing them. It is well known that the women and children of the North American Indians aided in torturing their enemies. Some savages take a horrid pleasure in cruelty to animals,*(2) and humanity is an unknown virtue.

Darwin ch 5

The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,* will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. * Anthropological Review, April, 1867, p. 236

Darwin ch 6

Thomas A. Edison

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming ALL other living beings, we are still savages."

http://www.all-creatures.org/quotes/edison_thomas.html

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