On a September afternoon in 1988, something extraordinary began to unfold in a faculty lounge on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. A group of 20 professors gathered to respond to an 83-page critique of Darwinism by their colleague in the School of Law, Phillip E. Johnson.
Professor Johnson’s paper attacked the problem of the evolution controversy along a broad front; it included a sophisticated analysis of scientific evidence and probed philosophical and legal issues as well. Yet these lines of argument converged on a central thesis: Darwinian evolution is grounded not on scientific fact, but on a philosophical doctrine called naturalism.
Says Johnson, “My argument was that, although most people believe that an enormous amount of empirical evidence supports the general theory of evolution, this is in fact an illusion.” On the contrary, Johnson continues, many kinds of hostile scientific evidence have accumulated; but Darwinists do not question their doctrine of common ancestry since it is a “deductive certainty” derived from their philosophical system, not a conclusion they were driven to by the weight of evidence. In short, Johnson was claiming that Darwinism is as much the product of religious bias as is “creation science.”
Since one does not often hear Darwinian evolution labeled an “illusion” in polite meetings of Berkeley faculty members, it is not surprising that Johnson’s thesis seized the attention not only of his campus, but also of ever-widening circles of American academia over the past three years. In the course of Johnson’s many lectures around the country, and in meetings with distinguished scientists, theologians, and legal scholars, it has become clear that Johnson is creating something new, giving a fresh insight on the interplay of science, philosophy, and religion as they confront the question of origins. Anticipation has been steadily building for the appearance of the “Johnson critique” in book form so that the public can enter the dialogue.
Now, at last, we have Darwin on Trial (copublished by Regnery Gateway and InterVarsity Press). It is a lean volume, with 154 pages of text, followed by 33 pages of research notes. Michael Denton, the most prominent nonreligious skeptic of Darwinism of the 1980s, calls Johnson’s book “unquestionably the best critique of Darwinism I have ever read.”
In fact, it was Johnson’s reading of Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis while on sabbatical in England in 1987 that helped spark the whole project. Johnson discovered and read simultaneously both Denton’s critique of evolution and Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker, a best seller that vigorously defended Darwinian evolution. Johnson found Dawkins’s book “a brilliantly written polemic, and notable for the absence of supporting evidence,” and he was fascinated with Denton’s more skeptical outlook.
Darwin on Trial defies the comfortable stereotypes about creationism and evolutionism. For example, despite his deep surgery on Darwinism, Johnson has made it clear that he is not defending the teaching of “creation science” in schools, if the label is defined in legal terms as including such concepts as the recent, sudden creation of the universe and life, and Noah’s flood as the explanation for fossils.
This issue arose in the Berkeley faculty meeting. Some questioned Johnson’s purpose in critiquing Darwinism. Was there a hidden agenda—perhaps renewed legal challenges to suppress the teaching of evolution in schools or to include creationist material?
Johnson has responded by clearly identifying his own bias. He calls himself a “Christian and a creationist” but “not a Biblical literalist.” He defines creationist broadly as “anyone who believes in a God who creates.” Thus he is open to the possibility that evidence would show that God performed that work gradually over billions of years. To Johnson, the issue of the timing and speed of Creation are “side issues,” to which he pays little or no attention.
In The Dock
The title, Darwin on Trial, is perhaps inevitable, given Johnson’s vocation. As a professor of law, Johnson feels that he brings special tools of analysis to Darwin’s theory. He specializes in analyzing the logic that is used in arguments and in identifying the hidden assumptions that lie behind those arguments. Those tools have been honed in a distinguished law career.
Yet the title is a bit misleading, since Johnson spends little time discussing Charles Darwin himself. His target is Darwinism, the vast system of modern thought that has evolved since the Darwinian revolution of the 1800s. Darwinism is defined as “fully naturalistic evolution—meaning evolution that is not directed or controlled by any purposeful intelligence.”
Having identified the target, Johnson attacks it first from a scientific angle, with seven chapters surveying the alleged confirming evidence for the claims of Darwinism. Here, Johnson takes direct and deadly aim on the apologetics of Harvard’s Stephen Jay Gould, who has repeatedly argued that evolution (“common ancestry”) is a fact, while Darwin’s theory about how that happens (“natural selection”) is open to discussion. Gould’s three chief evidences for evolution (microevolution, imperfections, and key fossil transitions) are evaluated rigorously, and his arguments are found to be seriously flawed.
After concluding that scientific evidence offers no convincing basis for Darwinian claims, Johnson turns to the overlapping areas of philosophy, education, religion, and law. He lays bare the evasive word games that Darwinists often play, such as changing the meaning of the word evolution frequently to serve their purposes. He also outlines the rich paradox of Darwinist religion, showing how readily Darwinists will integrate religious ideas with Darwinist principles—as long as the religion in question does not include a “pre-existing intelligence” that could act meaningfully to create.
Perhaps the most important chapter is the last one, which takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of the thought of the late philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper. Popper’s “falsification” principle is clearly explained and ruthlessly applied to Darwin’s theory. Johnson challenges the scientific community truly to test the common-ancestry hypothesis, which he feels has not yet had its day in “court.”
Biological Thought Police
It remains to be seen whether that “falsification program” will be initiated by the scientific community—especially by those biologists who make their living teaching and studying evolution. Dissidents within science who support Johnson’s critique have described a system of “thought control” under which it is professional suicide to question the basic assumptions under which evolutionary science operates. Those who dominate this area of science see themselves as besieged by religious fundamentalists, a category that, to these scientists, seems to include anyone who believes in a God who takes an active role in the world.
The public got a rare glimpse into how this system operates when science writer Forrest Mims III lost a position with Scientific American magazine after admitting he does not believe Darwin’s theory (CT, Nov. 19, 1990, p. 56). The editor explained that, even if Mims’s admittedly impeccable science writing dealt entirely with other subjects, the magazine could not afford to offend its readers by employing a creationist.
The Mims incident helps explain why a critique of the basic Darwinist assumptions could only be written by a nonscientist, someone not dependent on research grants and peer approval and who has academic tenure protecting his job. Johnson regards the personal attacks he has received from critics as only to be expected, considering what is at stake.
“Darwinist scientists have claimed that they know how biological creation occurred,” Johnson commented recently, “and that it was a mindless, purposeless process. If they have to defend that claim in a public debate on fair terms, they are going to be seriously embarrassed.”
Ultimately, Johnson’s goal is to place the reconsideration of Darwinism on the table at the highest intellectual levels of academia. For that to happen, there must be a concerted effort to “arouse from dogmatic slumber” those who control the terms of public intellectual discourse. Darwin on Trial may be the first wake-up call.
