by Phillip E. Johnson
Leadership University
2002


Editor's Note
Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, professor of paleontology at Harvard University and
a leading Darwinist, recently ended his year-long silence concerning the
attack on Darwinism from the book Darwin on Trial by Berkeley law
professor Philip Johnson.

Gould responded with a three-page book review in the July 1992 issue of
Scientific American. In the review, Gould chastised Johnson for what he
perceived as the misuse and omission of scientific evidences, the lack of
understanding of the logic of evolutionary thought, and on the inability
to cogently and equitably debate the issues.

In response, Johnson asked the editors of Scientific American if they
would grant him equal space to answer Gould. The publication denied
Johnson's request. In an effort to grant Johnson the opportunity to rebut
his critics, Johnson's reply is printed in its entirety. The Real Issue
has summarized Gould's review at the end of Johnson's rebuttal.

********************

"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of
having been designed for a purpose." So writes Richard Dawkins, author of
The Blind Watchmaker.

As a Darwinist, Dawkins maintains that the appearance is deceptive, and
that living organisms are actually the product of purposeless material
forces-random genetic variation and natural selection.

This "blind watchmaker thesis" is the most important claim of evolutionary
biology. If scientists were able to say only that primitive fish "somehow"
became amphibians, and then mammals, and finally humans, nobody would be
very impressed. Absent a credible mechanism, the transformation of a fish
into a human being is nearly as miraculous as the creation of man from the
dust of the earth.

What makes the story of evolution impressive is that Darwinist scientists
think that they know how such transformations occurred, through natural
processes requiring no divine guidance or non-material orienting force.
The blind watchmaker thesis has enormous religious significance because it
purports to explain the history of life without leaving any role to a
supernatural Creator.

"Before Darwin," writes Stephen Jay Gould, "we thought that a benevolent
God had created us." After the acceptance of Darwinism, that belief became
intellectually untenable. According to Gould: "No intervening spirit
watches lovingly over the affairs of nature (though Newton's clock-winding
god might have set up the machinery at the beginning of time and then let
it run). No vital forces propel evolutionary change. And whatever we think
of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature."

God as a remote First Cause thus remains a possibility, but God as an
active creator is absolutely ruled out by the blind watchmaker thesis.
That is why Richard Dawkins exults that "Darwin made it possible to be an
intellectually fulfilled atheist." That doesn't mean that Darwin made it
impossible to be anything but an atheist.

For example, Darwinism and theism can easily be reconciled by those who,
like Asa Gray and Charles D. Walcott, misunderstand Darwinian evolution as
a benevolent process divinely ordained for the purpose of creating humans.
(Gould himself has been particularly emphatic in correcting that sort of
misunderstanding.) On the other hand, Darwinism does give atheists and
agnostics a decisive advantage to the extent that belief in God's
existence is a matter of logic and evidence. Those who really understand
Darwinism, but still have spiritual inclinations, have the option of
making a religion out of evolution.

Theodosius Dobzhansky-Gould's prime example of a Christian evolutionist-
actually exemplified the religious dimension of Darwinism. Dobzhansky
discarded the traditional Christian conception of God, followed Teilhard
de Chardin in spiritualizing the evolutionary process, and worshipped the
glorious future of evolution.

Gould writes that religion and science should not conflict, "because
science treats factual reality, while religion struggles with human
morality." But this statement implies a distinction between morality and
reality which does not exist, and which Gould himself would never observe
in practice. Does the morality of racial discrimination, for example, have
nothing to do with the factual reality of human equality? The author of
The Mismeasure of Man didn't seem to think so. And what gives Gould the
authority to proclaim that religion may not concern itself with the
factual reality of God?

God can't have any moral authority unless He really exists, and if God
really exists He might take a hand in creation. When a scientific elite
claims exclusive authority to decide what is "real," it is asserting
control over science, religion, philosophy, and every other area of
thought.

Religion, like science, starts with assumptions or conclusions about
reality. If we were created by God for a purpose, that is one starting
point. If we are the accidental product of blind natural forces, that is a
very different starting point. In the former case we try to learn the will
of our creator, and in the latter case we discard that "intervening
spirit" as an illusion and proceed to chart our own course.

Thus Gould himself, in the concluding sentence of Wonderful Life, proceeds
directly from a Darwinist starting point to the religious conclusion that
we are morally autonomous beings who create our own values:
We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in
this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes-one
indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom
to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.

The author of all those statements castigated me for suggesting that
Darwinism is tied to naturalistic philosophy and opposed to any meaningful
theism. David Hull, reviewing Darwin on Trial for Nature, was equally
severe with me for refusing to concede that Darwinism has finished off
theistic religion for good. Hull emphatically proclaimed a Darwinist
doctrine of God:

What kind of God can one infer from the sort of phenomena epitomized by
the species on Darwin's Galapagos Islands? The evolutionary process is
rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste, death, pain and
horror.... The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent,
almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone
would be inclined to pray.

So much for Darwinism's religious neutrality. Now to the more important
question: Is the blind watchmaker thesis true? To put the question another
way, does natural selection really have the fantastic creative power which
Darwinists claim for it? That seems an appropriate question, but persons
like Gould, Dawkins, and Hull insist that the very definition of "science"
rules the question out of order.

They say that science is inherently committed to naturalistic premises,
that Darwinian evolution is the best scientific (i.e. naturalistic) theory
of biological creation that we have, and even that Darwinism possesses a
virtue called "consilience of induction"-meaning that it explains a lot if
we assume that it is true.

One way or another, Darwinists meet the question "Is Darwinism true?" with
an answer that amounts to an assertion of power: "Well, it is science, as
we define science, and you will have to be content with that."
Some of us are not content with that, because we know that the empirical
evidence for the creative power of natural selection is somewhere between
weak and non-existent. Artificial selection of fruit flies or domestic
animals produces limited change within the species, but tells us nothing
about how insects and mammals came into existence in the first place.
In any case, whatever artificial selection achieves is due to the
employment of human intelligence consciously pursuing a goal. The whole
point of the blind watchmaker thesis, however, is to establish what
material processes can do in the absence of purpose and intelligence. That
Darwinist authorities continually overlook this crucial distinction gives
us little confidence in their objectivity.

Examples of natural selection in action, like Kettlewell's observation of
population shifts in the peppered moth, actually illustrate cyclical
variation within stable species that exhibit no directional change. The
fossil record-characterized by sudden appearance and subsequent stasis- is
notoriously reluctant to yield examples of Darwinian macroevolution. The
therapsid reptiles and Archaeopteryx are rare exceptions to the general
absence of plausible transitional intermediates between major groups,
which is why it is important to understand that even these Darwinist
trophies are inconclusive as evidence of macroevolution.

No wonder that prominent authorities like Stephen Jay Gould and Lynn
Margulis have yearned for a new theory, on the ground that the evidence
contradicts the neo-Darwinist claim that macroevolutionary innovation
results from the accumulation of small genetic changes by natural
selection.

The point is not whether "evolution" in some vague sense is true.
"Evolution" has certainly occurred, but the scientific importance of this
statement is slight when evolution is defined vaguely as "change" or
modestly as "shifts in gene frequencies."

No doubt the pattern of relationships among plants and animals invites an
inference that there was some process of development from a common source.
But how much do we know about this process of development?
Perhaps one day scientists will be able to test some macroevolutionary
mechanism, involving changes in the rate genes or whatever, that will
explain how a four-footed mammal can become a whale or a bat without going
through impossible intermediate steps. The difficulties should be honestly
acknowledged, however.

What evolutionary theory needs is a reliable creative mechanism, capable
of building highly complex structures like vision and breathing systems
again and again in diverse lines. Speculation about how an occasional jump
might occur won't do the job.

Readers who know the score will understand why I feel honored that Stephen
Jay Gould could find no better response to my challenge than a vitriolic
attack that evades the main points and instead wanders through the book in
search of something to complain about. (Compare what I wrote on page 16 of
Darwin on Trial with Gould's complaint about "recombination," and you will
see how hard he worked to find a nit to pick.)

I welcome criticism on specific points; that is why I circulated
preliminary drafts to many distinguished scholars, including Gould.
The subject in controversy, however, is my argument that the blind
watchmaker thesis is not supported by the evidence-i.e., that science does
not know how life could have evolved to its present complexity and
diversity without the participation of preexisting intelligence. If Gould
had a convincing answer to that argument, you may be sure that he would
have stated the issues clearly and met the main line of reasoning head on.
The review itself merits no further response, but what requires
explanation is the hostility. What divides Gould and me has little to do
with scientific evidence and everything to do with metaphysics.
Gould approaches the question of evolution from the philosophical starting
point of scientific naturalism, which denies a priori that a non-material
being such as God could influence the course of nature. From that
standpoint the blind watchmaker thesis is true in principle by definition.
Science may not know all the details yet, but something very much like
Darwinian evolution simply has to be responsible for our existence because
there is no acceptable alternative.

If there are gaps or defects in the existing theory, the appropriate
response is to supply additional naturalistic hypotheses.
Critics who disparage Darwinism without offering a naturalistic
alternative are seen as attacking science itself, probably in order to
impose a religious straitjacket upon science and society. One does not
reason with such persons; one employs any means at hand to discourage them.

But maybe Darwinism really is false-in principle, and not just in detail.

Maybe mindless material processes can't create information-rich biological
systems. That is a real possibility, no matter how offensive it is to
scientific naturalists. How do Darwinists know that the blind watchmaker
created the animal phyla, for example, since the process can't be
demonstrated and all the historical evidence is missing? Darwinists may
have the cultural power to suppress questions like that for a time, but
eventually they are going to have to come to grips with them.

There are a lot of theists in America, not to mention the rest of the
world, and persons who promote naturalism in the name of science will not
forever be able to deny them a fair hearing.

Scientific naturalists who think that Darwinism can be defended by waging
ideological war against the critics are free to follow the example of
Stephen Jay Gould. Others may prefer to take the path of Michael Ruse and
the Darwinist scientists who participated in an academic symposium on
Darwin on Trial in March, 1992, at Southern Methodist University. These
persons learned that it is possible to debate metaphysical differences in
an academic setting in a fair- minded and mutually respectful manner.
In the end, the entire scientific community will have to acknowledge that
honest discussion-with assumptions identified and terms precisely
defined-is the only method for resolving disagreement that is consistent
with the best traditions of science itself. When scientists defend a
cherished doctrine by obscuring the issues and intimidating the critics,
it is a sure sign that what they are defending isn't science.

*********************************

Stephen Gould Breaks Silence
on Darwin on Trial

A Summary of Gould's Book Review of Darwin on Trial which appeared in the
June, 1992 issue of Scientific American. Summarized by Doug Burnett,
Associate Editor, The Real Issue.

*********************************

The Nature of Law

Gould began his review by suggesting that the nature of the practice of
law does not lend itself to scientific inquiry. His assertion is based on
the understanding that legal decisions must be made even when insufficient
evidence exists.

Gould claims that for a lawyer to cross into the scientific realm he or
she must apply science's "norms and rules." A lawyer "cannot simply trot
out some applicable criteria from his own world and falsely condemn us
from a mixture of ignorance and inappropriateness.

"Legal systems are human inventions, based on a history of human thought
and practice" Gould stated. Hence, the legal system appeals to itself
through the use of legal precedent. In the "opposite way" scientists
"search continually for new signals from nature to invalidate a history of
past argument," said Gould.

Christianity and Darwinism

Gould then argued that, contrary to Johnson's position, Darwinism is not
contradictory to the notion of a world reflecting design and purpose and,
therefore, does not limit its proponents to naturalistic suppositions.
Gould cited several examples of what he called Christian Darwinists.
Gould maintained that Asa Gray, a well-known American botanist, advocated
natural selection and was a Christian.

Gould also claimed that fifty years after Gray, Charles D. Walcott,
credited with finding the Burgess Shale Fossils, was both a Darwinian and
a Christian. According to Gould, Walcott believed that God allowed natural
selection and used it to direct history according to His purposeful intent.
"Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of
Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs . . . ,"
Gould concluded.

This compatibility is based on Gould's belief that science and religion
have no common ground. Gould asserted, "science treats factual reality,
while religion struggles with human morality."

Scientific Errors

Gould then turned his criticism from Johnson's view of the nature of
religion and science to his use of scientific data.

Johnson's command of the facts of biology drew fire from Gould on issues
involving sexual recombination and its categorization to what Gould claims
is the use of outdated evolutionary arguments. Gould reprimanded Johnson
for what he called Johnson's "factual and terminological errors.

"Nothing is gained by exposing a 30-year old error-save the obvious point
that science improves by correcting its past mistakes."

Moreover, Gould questioned Johnson's understanding of "the purpose and
logic of evolutionary argument." Gould believes Johnson's limited view of
science-experimentation immediately followed by observation-to be
inaccurate.

"Doesn't he realize that all historical science, not just evolution, would
disappear by his silly restriction?" asked Gould.

Lastly, Gould felt Johnson did not bring forth logical arguments for his
position but used several unfair methods of discourse, including
exclusions that lead to false representations of people or claims; the
ploy of allowing the part to represent the whole; and the tendency to
castigate evolutionists for past errors.