by Phillip E. Johnson
Wall Steeet Journal
August 16, 1999


A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent
fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of
evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the
rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a
common ancestor as Darwin's theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets
American scientists, he wryly comments: "In China we can criticize Darwin
but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but
not Darwin."

That point was illustrated last week by the media firestorm that followed
the Kansas Board of Education's vote to omit macro-evolution from the list
of science topics which all students are expected to master. Frantic
scientists and educators warned that Kansas students would no longer be
able to succeed in college or graduate school, and that the future of
science itself was in danger. The New York Times called for a vigorous
counteroffensive, and the lawyers prepared their lawsuits. Obviously, the
cognitive elites are worried about something a lot more important to
themselves than the career prospects of Kansas high school graduates.

Two Definitions

The root of the problem is that "science" has two distinct definitions in
our culture. On the one hand, science refers to a method of investigation
involving things like careful measurements, repeatable experiments, and
especially a skeptical, open-minded attitude that insists that all claims
be carefully tested. Science also has become identified with a philosophy
known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists
that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can
have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and
that the means of creation must not have included any role for God.
Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded
skepticism, but to believe it on faith.

The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the
main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that
"evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more about
what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the product of
mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and
random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like
everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe. Do
you wonder why a lot of people suspect that these claims go far beyond the
available evidence?

All the most prominent Darwinists proclaim naturalistic philosophy when
they think it safe to do so. Carl Sagan had nothing but contempt for those
who deny that humans and all other species "arose by blind physical and
chemical forces over eons from slime." Richard Dawkins exults that Darwin
"made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," and Richard
Lewontin has written that scientists must stick to philosophical
materialism regardless of the evidence, because "we cannot allow a Divine
Foot in the door." Stephen Jay Gould condescendingly offers to allow
religious people to express their subjective opinions about morals,
provided they don't interfere with the authority of scientists to
determine the "facts"—one of the facts being that God is merely a
comforting myth.

There are a lot of potential dissenters. Sagan deplored the fact that
"only nine percent of Americans accept the central finding of biology that
human beings (and all the other species) have slowly evolved from more
ancient beings with no divine intervention along the way." To keep the
other 91% quiet, organizations like the National Academy of Sciences
periodically issue statements about public school teaching which contain
vague reassurances that "religion and science are separate realms," or
that evolutionary science is consistent with unspecified "religious
beliefs."

What these statements mean is that the realms are separate because science
discovers facts and religion indulges fantasy. The acceptable religious
beliefs they have in mind are of the naturalistic kind that do not include
a supernatural creator who might interfere with evolution or try to direct
it. A great many of the people who do believe in such a creator have
figured this out, and in consequence the reassurances merely insult their
intelligence.

So one reason the science educators panic at the first sign of public
rebellion is that they fear exposure of the implicit religious content in
what they are teaching. An even more compelling reason for keeping the lid
on public discussion is that the official neo-Darwinian theory is having
serious trouble with the evidence. This is covered over with the vague
claim that all scientists agree that "evolution has occurred." Since the
Darwinists sometimes define evolution merely as "change," and lump minor
variation with the whole creation story as "evolution," a few trivial
examples like dog-breeding or fruit fly variation allow them to claim
proof for the whole system. The really important claim of the theory—that
the Darwinian mechanism does away with the need to presuppose a creator—is
protected by a semantic defense-in-depth.

Here's just one example of how real science is replaced by flim-flam. The
standard textbook example of natural selection involves a species of
finches in the Galapagos, whose beaks have been measured over many years.
In 1977 a drought killed most of the finches, and the survivors had beaks
slightly larger than before. The probable explanation was that
larger-beaked birds had an advantage in eating the last tough seeds that
remained. A few years later there was a flood, and after that the beak
size went back to normal. Nothing new had appeared, and there was no
directional change of any kind. Nonetheless, that is the most impressive
example of natural selection at work that the Darwinists have been able to
find after nearly a century and a half of searching.

To make the story look better, the National Academy of Sciences removed
some facts in its 1998 booklet on "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature
of Science." This version omits the flood year return-to-normal and
encourages teachers to speculate that a "new species of finch" might arise
in 200 years if the initial trend towards increased beak size continued
indefinitely. When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of
distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in
trouble.

If the Academy meant to teach scientific investigation, rather than to
inculcate a belief system, it would encourage students to think about why,
if natural selection has been continuously active in creating, the
observed examples involve very limited back-and-forth variation that
doesn't seem to be going anywhere. But skepticism of that kind might
spread and threaten the whole system of naturalistic belief. Why is the
fossil record overall so difficult to reconcile with the steady process of
gradual transformation predicted by the neo-Darwinian theory? How would
the theory fare if we did not assume at the start that nature had to do
its own creating, so a naturalistic creation mechanism simply has to exist
regardless of the evidence? These are the kinds of questions the
Darwinists don't want to encourage students to ask.

Kansas Protest

This doesn't mean that students in Kansas or elsewhere shouldn't be taught
about evolution. In context, the Kansas action was a protest against
enshrining a particular worldview as a scientific fact and against making
"evolution" an exception to the usual American tradition that the people
have a right to disagree with the experts. Take evolution away from the
worldview promoters and return it to the real scientific investigators,
and a chronic social conflict will become an exciting intellectual
adventure.