Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism [Hardcover]

The book provides a general history of 20th Century "creationism", its programme and its proponents. The later "Intelligent Design" movement, which declares itself a "science" instead of a religious concept, Pennock declares a sham. Its influence is far too great, yet built from shoddy materials. Tracing the ideas and publications of such figures as Henry Morris and his followers, Pennock describes the propaganda techniques of the Institute for Creation Research and the recent wave material camouflaged under "scientific" or "legal" disguises. Pennock pores over their material, pinpointing their fallacies and exposing their tactics. He shows how evidence is ignored or twisted, explaining how ideology governs speeches, publications and strategy. Through it all, he shows how the Christians are as much at war with each other as they are with "materialism", the label they apply to Darwinian scholars.

Pennock adopts the unique method of showing how the evolution of languages repeats the biological pattern. From an original, lost language, modern tongues evolved in different environments. It continues to evolve today. It's a fitting analogy, one which teachers should note and apply in the classroom. It's appropriate that a scholar of Pennock's stature should thus ally science with the humanities. As he points out, much of the assault on biological evolution could easily be applied to farming, home life and law.

The author examines some of the renowned figures of the IDC cabal with a penetrating gaze. Pennock charitably skims over Michael Behe's ignorance of evolutionary process to focus on lawyer Phil Johnson. Johnson's legal training prompts him to address all questions in absolutes and to create straw men as easily demolished targets. Pennock simply dissects Johnson's writings to demonstrate not only false assumptions, but contradictions so severe as to inspire the reader to wonder how he maintains his academic position. According to Pennock, Johnson's works betray a messianic mentality from which he institutes a project to redeem American society. It's to Pennock's credit that the term "demagogue" doesn't appear in the text. One can only admire his forbearance.

Pennock's patience must have been stretched in undertaking the research to produce this book. He has debated Darwin's defamers, suffered through the morass of creationist publications and endured the assault on evidence unashamedly displayed at the creationists' museum. It can hardly be beaten as an exercise in mental self-flagellation. Yet, this book results in a mine of information, reasoned analysis and fine exposition. Every science or humanities teacher in North America would do well to consider keeping a copy close at hand. It's an invaluable resource. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I hasten to point out that no, evolution itself is not a controversial scientific subject and hasn't been for a century. However, the public's perception of it clearly still is in certain parts, and that's why such books can be very helpful.

Pennock's book is very well researched, well developed, and most importantly given its target audience, a lot of fun to read! I would recommend it to anyone, put especially to high school biology teachers who want simple material devoid of jargon to explain the principle of evolution to children.

Five stars, and well deserved.

Although it is tempting to think that IDC was "designed" to get around the Supreme Court decision that banned the teaching of creationism because it is a religious view, the approach was in fact "pre-adapted," as evidenced by such books as Michael Denton's "Evolution - A Theory In Crisis." Unlike classic creationism, IDC generally avoids stating its own alternative hypotheses and origins models, and does not identify the designer. Rather, IDC recycles long-refuted arguments against evolution, and builds upon them with some original ideas, none of which, however, qualify as science.

Pennock's novel approach uses linguistics, both as an analogy for biological evolution, and as an example of how anti-evolutionists of all stripes try to hide their internal disagreements, such as on the origin of human language diversity. Focusing on Phillip Johnson, but also discussing other prominent Discovery Institute fellows such as Michael Behe and William Dembski, Pennock exposes IDC as a "postmodern" approach that cleverly avoids the pitfalls of classic young-earth and old-earth creationism (YEC, OEC), whose models and hypotheses have been thoroughly discredited. Like Miller, Pennock does not give enough emphasis to the fact that America's poor science literacy is a chief reason that creationists can get away with their misrepresentations of evolution and science in general. But he does note that the general public has been sold on a false dichotomy of design vs. evolution. The logical disconnect between the "arguments for design" and "arguments against evolution" is lost on most audiences.

Pennock also downplays two other features of IDC. First, given his interest in linguistics, I expected more coverage of how the IDC strategy is mainly a semantic one. IDC's chief tactics are to quote scientists out-of-context and to define terms, especially "Darwinism," to suit its bait-and-switch arguments. Second, although he hints at it in places, he stops short of the claim made by Ronald Bailey in his insightful article "Origin of the Specious" (Reason magazine, July, 1997) - that many creationists privately accept evolution, despite their vocal arguments against it. While this may not be true of all creationists - indeed many IDCs may be closet YECs - I am fairly convinced that it applies to most professional IDCs. Their extreme political and philosophical views, however, prevent them from admitting it to a general public that they fear cannot handle the truth. But other than misrepresenting evolution, IDCs avoid bearing false witness by letting the audience do the dirty work of inferring whatever alternative they prefer. The more educated audiences usually infer OEC, sometimes including the common descent that Behe and others have admitted, while general audiences prefer YEC, America's favorite origins myth. But the fact that most audiences do not notice, and if they do, mostly ignore, the mutual contradictions among their alternative positions, is evidence that IDC is much "fitter" than its more slowly evolving creationism cousins. IDC is not "Creationism Lite," it is "Pseudoscience Xtreme."

After detailing their strategy, Pennock tries to "calm the creationists' fears." But surely he knows that Johnson et al have heard his philosophical arguments before and have well-rehearsed rebuttals. Though not often obvious, Pennock's arguments here are for the benefit of third parties who find the ID sound bites convincing, but have not given them much thought. Whether he privately agrees with Pennock or not, Johnson is, in the words of one reviewer, "past praying for." Pennock concludes by defending the counterintuitive claim that teaching only evolution is the fairest option.

Although "Finding Darwin's God" appealed to me more as a scientist, "Tower of Babel" is an excellent reference on the evolution of the anti-evolution strategies, and the parallel evolution of the creationists' "god" (the gap-dwelling designer that they promote, if not the God in which they believe) into a caricature that is unfit for both science and religion.