Darwin On Trial [Paperback]

 

 

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I read this to give the author a fair chance to make me question anything about evolution. Full of inane comments and no scientific method there is nothing in here that makes any sense. It is pure junk science.

I was astonished by Johnson's fine book when it first appeared. Unsurprisingly, and as catalogued in these reviews, the typical response of evolutionists is to resort to various logical fallacies--a favorite being name-calling. It appears that very few of Johnson's critics have actually read his book.

One brief story: After reading Darwin on Trial when it was first released, I asked a very good (macro-evolutionist) friend of mine in Berkeley about his rebuttal to Johnson's arguments. To my surprise, his response was, shall we say, inadequate. Yet, my friend's passion for macro-evolution was undiminished. Graciously, Johnson (with whom I spoke once previously on the telephone) agreed to meet in his (Johnson's Berkeley campus office) for an informal discussion/debate about the subject of Darwin on Trial. Initially, my friend went along with the idea, but shortly before the scheduled meeting he backed out without explanation. I never pressed him; after all he was my friend.

In a culture that supposedly places a high value on open-mindedness and healthy criticism, evolution has somehow been a sacred cow, beyond the reach of serious analysis. Dissent has been effectively marginalized through the use of a caricature which assures us that all educated people recognize that evolution is a fact, even if there are in-house disagreements about the details. We are told that the only dissenters are Biblical fundamentalists who insist on a narrow, literal reading of Genesis and therefore come to the preposterous conclusion that the earth is only six thousand years old. But reasonable people of faith will find that their theism is not threatened by the theory of evolution.

Phillip Johnson argues that this caricature is grossly misleading and false. Evolution is a fact only if one starts with a prior commitment to materialism, the belief that the physical world is all there is. With materialism as the starting point, some form of evolution must be true; there is nothing else to explain the origin and history of life. Though the primary claim of the theory of evolution is the blind watchmaker thesis, that an unguided, purposeless process of mutation and natural selection is the means by which the complexity of life arose, it is not necessary (we are told) to be too precise when speaking of just what evolution is. Evolution can mean "changes in gene frequencies in a population," and so dog breeding, for example, is evolution, as is variations from year to year in the average size of finch beaks in a population of finches. Or evolution can mean "relationship." All living things are made of the same biochemical stuff, and that is a relationship we call an evolutionary relationship - that's evolution.

Evolution is just a thing to be believed, and to accept one part of it is to accept the whole package. It is a matter of logical deduction, if one starts with the premise that materialism is true. And it is here that Johnson puts his finger on the central locus of the debate over evolution. Evolutionary science is operating by two definitions of science - science as empirical research but also science as applied materialism. Everyone is candid about the first definition, but almost noone will admit to the second, which is actually the more important of the two. This becomes evident when a scientist, doing empirical research, comes to conclusions that don't conform to materialistic philosophy. Then the second definition trumps the first, and the practitioner is said to no longer be doing science.

What is at stake here, then, is a commitment to materialism. Discussion of evidence is important, but in a sense it is secondary, because all the evidentiary problems are not troubling to Darwinists who see everything through the glasses of materialism. But take away that prior commitment and it becomes a legitimate question to ask: if we don't know how evolution happened, how can we know that it happened? When a scientist like Niles Eldredge can on the one hand say, that based on his empirical observations, evolution "never seems to happen" but nevertheless refers to himself as a "knee-jerk Darwinist," this suggests a willingness to believe in spite of the evidence. His confidence in evolution appears to reside less in his findings as a paleontologist and more in his philosophical commitment.

Regarding the second aspect of the caricature, Johnson believes that it is just so much double talk for promoters of evolution to say that evolutionary science has nothing to say about religion, when in fact it is loaded with anti-theological implications. Darwin's theory was successful primarily because it gave to biology a mechanism - descent with modification - that seemed to get rid of the need for a creator. But in so doing, not only was the creator banished from biology, he was effectively banished from reality. Thus if God exists at all, he is more like Aristotle's First Cause than the God of the Bible. Such a being is thoroughly inscrutable, utterly irrelevant, and certainly not worthy of worship. So if science has nothing to say about religion it's because science also has nothing to say about Zeus. It is not that we gain knowledge from science and knowledge from religion, but rather it is understood that knowledge comes exclusively from science, whereas religion gives us meaning and morality, which do not constitute knowledge but merely subjective belief.

With this in view, Johnson doesn't see theistic evolution as a viable solution to the evolution/creation controversy. First of all if it is genuinely theistic, if God did anything, then it's not evolution as the scientific community defines the term. It's not purposeless and unguided. And if it is purposeless and unguided, then it is not in any meaningful way theistic. It seems that theistic evolution is convincing for Christians only if they are vague about the definitions and are convinced that naturalistic philosophy is only an unnecessary addition to an otherwise sound theory. If, however, Johnson is right, and on its own merits the mutation-natural selection mechanism is inadequate to explain the history of life, then why would we want to reconcile our theology with a theory that is false?

Having said all this, Johnson isn't discounting a naturalistic theory of evolution out of hand. He is willing to hear evidence that mutation and selection, or any other naturalistic mechanism, can do the job of creation. But he's not willing to assume that it's the only possibility. Currently it's a closed system: if materialism is true, Darwinism is true, and it doesn't matter what the evidence is. But if you're willing to put the materialism in doubt, then the evidence really appears to be inadequate.

Just getting the issue of materialism on the table of mainstream academic discourse is the hard part. Once that happens and the scientific culture is reoriented towards the truth instead of towards materialism, Johnson is confident that the scientific story will change dramatically.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Mostly Good
I have generally stayed away from getting engrossed in the always contentious creation/evolution debate - mainly because I'm neither a scientist nor a philosopher and I recognize... Read more

Published on July 17 2004 by J. F Foster

1.0 out of 5 stars This is why OJ got off
An absolutely blistering indictment on the entire foundation of the legal industry, and the appalling abuses we can commit with language. Read more

Published on Jun 20 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Johnson's best!
I read Johnson's book Defeating Darwinism about 3 years ago, and was not impressed with his arguments against evolution in that book. Read more

Published on May 17 2004 by Seth Aaron Lowry

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting
This book seemed to me to be an excellent example of what is at the heart of the Creation-Evolution debate.
Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson embodies all that is wrong with it. Read more

Published on April 28 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Darwinism's Unstated Philosophical Presupposition
In 1991, "Darwin on Trial" staked out new ground against Darwinism. Today some critics accuse it of outdated science. Read more

Published on Jan 10 2004 by Dr. Dennis Bonnette

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolution = Ptolemaic Astronomy
Thoroughly destroys the house of cards that is evolution. If humanity wasn't so tragically stupid, it would be funny.

Published on Dec 10 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Neo-Darwinism at the Bar of Reason
Phillip Johnson has taken Darwinian evolution to court and the verdict rendered is guilty. He argues incisively that Darwinism cannot be verified by the empirical evidence... Read more

Published on Aug 1 2003 by William E. Turner Jr.

3.0 out of 5 stars Read this if you wish to get dumber.
I read this book when it came out, while I was a college student majoring in Genetics. At the time, the book seemed to really find objective cracks in evolutionary theory. Read more

Published on July 22 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Using Evolutionist's Own Words
In this book, Phillip Johnson uses evolutionists' own words to show just how unsure of the theory of evolution they really are. Read more

Published on Jun 7 2003 by H. L. Nigro

3.0 out of 5 stars to get an acquital, all you need is reasonable doubt
I read the book years ago when it first came out. I remember how unique and revolutionary it appeared. No one was saying anything like this. Read more

Published on Mar 6 2003 by R. M. Williams

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