A controversy in a nutshell
A review of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent
Design by Jonathan Wells
Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C., 2006
reviewed by Lael Weinberger
Summarizing Intelligent Design (ID) is a fairly daunting task. ID was launched as
a movement in large part by Phillip Johnson’s landmark bestseller Darwin on
Trial. Since its publication in 1991, ID literature has been proliferating
exponentially. The literature critical of ID was slow to get going, but it is now
extensive as well. Jonathan Wells’ ambitious goal in The Politically Incorrect
Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design is to summarize the entire controversy
in one reader-friendly, popular level guide (the Politically Incorrect Guides
series is modelled after the hugely popular Dummy’s Guide series).
Wells’ large-scale organization isn’t as tight as Darwin on Trial,
where the arguments were so structured that you knew when you finished one chapter
what the next chapter was going to talk about. But what Wells lacks in structure
is made up for by the up-to-date and readable coverage he gives to the subject.
ID has always proceeded against evolution in a two-step process. First, design advocates
attack the sufficiency and accuracy of the reigning paradigm, Darwinism. But the
fact that Darwinism is insufficient and inaccurate does not, by itself, establish
the conclusion of design. So, as a second prong to the argument for ID, design advocates
argue that a scientifically more satisfactory explanation is design by an intelligent
designer. Even within a single argument, the two-pronged approach is often distinguishable.
For example, in Michael Behe’s formulation of irreducible complexity, the
negative argument states that the Darwinian process is incapable of forming an irreducibly
complex biological structure. The positive argument states that an irreducibly complex
biological structure is characteristic of design. (The two-pronged nature of the
argument is often lost on the evolutionists, but it is important because it means
that ID’s argument is not an argument from ignorance, as evolutionists often
suggest.) In this Politically Incorrect Guide, there is a pretty neat dividing
line between the anti-Darwinist and pro-ID sections.
Anti-evolution
ID has always proceeded against evolution in a two-step process. First, design advocates
attack the sufficiency and accuracy of the reigning paradigm, Darwinism. …
Second, design advocates argue that a scientifically more satisfactory explanation
is design by an intelligent designer.
Wells’ first several chapters are devoted to demolishing the credibility of
Darwinism, examining the fossil record, embryological recapitulation and genetic
phylogenies, among other things. Most of the themes will be familiar to anyone with
even a passing familiarity with ID and creationism. Yet unless you’ve been
reading the literature regularly and assiduously, Wells will probably have several
new tidbits on any given issue even for those who are quite familiar with the debates.
Particularly good is his chapter, ‘You’d Think Darwin Created the Internet’,
exploding the Darwinist claim that evolution is essential to science.
Wells’ discussion of speciation was one chapter that was not quite up to the
high standards of the rest of his discussions. Wells started strong, noting that
speciation is not a problem to Intelligent Design or young earth creation, but got
sidetracked into hairsplitting over whether any speciation had actually been observed.
This is certainly an interesting question worthy of inquiry, but not helpful insofar
as it reinforces the (false) public impression that creationists and Intelligent
Design advocates believe in fixity of species. Wells did make the effort to qualify
his discussion properly, but once you have stated that speciation is not a problem,
why go through a long (and on the whole, unconvincing) argument to show that we
haven’t seen speciation actually happen?
Pro-ID
Wells moves from the negative case against evolution to the positive case for Intelligent
Design, starting with the hardest of all ID arguments to explain at a popular level:
Dembski’s explanatory filter. He does a fine job of explaining this mathematically
involved concept to laymen, before moving on to discuss the design arguments from
biological information (focusing on Stephen Meyer), from irreducible complexity
(focusing on Michael Behe), and from cosmic fine-tuning (focusing on Guillermo Gonzalez).
This is a lot to cover, but Wells is a good teacher. He avoids getting bogged down
into minutiae, yet manages to give enough detail to make the discussion feel substantial.
Wells manages to cover the bacterial flagellum in three pages, including interactions
with the critics.
‘By knocking out genes and screening for cells that can no longer move, researchers
have identified all the gene products (proteins) required for assembly and operation
of the flagellum. Remove any of them, and it stops working. Thus the motor of the
bacterial flagellum meets Behe’s criterion for irreducible complexity’
(p. 113–114).
Darwinists have been unable to refute intelligent design with evidence, so they
rely on a self-serving definition of science that excludes it from serious consideration.—Jonathan
Wells
Ever since Behe first offered this argument, the critics have claimed that the flagellum
co-opted the apparatus from another biological feature, called the type-III secretory
apparatus (TTSS). Wells manages to present the critique and distil ID’s responses
from Behe, Minnich and Meyer in a page and a half:
‘[A] mechanic could remove the gasoline engine from an outboard motor and
run it by itself, but the outboard motor can’t function without it. Removing
the engine doesn’t refute the irreducible complexity of the outboard motor;
in fact, it confirms it’ (p. 114–115).
Also, evolutionary experts in the TTSS say that it came from a flagellum, so the
anti-ID critics are out of step even with their fellow evolutionists.
After devoting a separate chapter to each of these separate arguments for design,
Wells turns to the subject of naturalism and the definition of science:
‘Darwinists have been unable to refute intelligent design with evidence, so
they rely on a self-serving definition of science that excludes it from serious
consideration’ (p. 131).
Wells points out that the more fundamental question is not what meets a particular
definition of science, but what the true explanation for the phenomena we are studying
is.
Conservative values
Image wikipedia.org
Herbert Spencer has linked the free market to Darwinism in the minds of many people.
However, Jonathan Wells argues that there are reasons to view Darwinism as a better
fit with government interventionism than with the free market.
The ‘truth’ of Darwinism or design has important implications in many
fields, but Wells focuses on two: conservatism and Christianity. This is not surprising:
first, Wells’ publisher (Regnery) is best known for its conservative connections
on the American political scene. And second, despite ID’s disavowal of religious
commitments in its science, ID’s main support base is evangelical Christians
(who also are the most important religious bloc in American political conservatism).
Conservatism is hard to define (as one conservative writer put it, it’s a
question of what needs conserving1). For purposes of this book, Wells is talking
about both social conservatism in the sense of traditional morality, and economic
conservatism in the sense of small government, less regulation or fewer regulations
and a freer market. Wells gives a short but incisive review of Darwinism’s
dismal track record when it comes to social values: racism, abortion and eugenics.
On the economy, he is less convincing. The average educated reader probably will
come to the issue already seeing a strong link between laissez-faire economics
and the social Darwinist ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality,2 and Wells
has to overcome this if he wants to make the case that Darwinism is not supportive
of free enterprise. Wells offers some historical commentary to the effect that American
nineteenth-century capitalists actually drew their theories from classical economists
like Adam Smith rather than social Darwinists, which is all fine as far as it goes.3
Wells then notes that Darwinism is based on a struggle to survive in a world of
limited resources, and argues that this approach invites increased government regulation.
In contrast, ID sees the world as having potential for increased productivity based
on intelligent action. This is an interesting argument, which Wells is drawing from
articles by Discovery Institute Fellow George Gilder, but Wells does not develop
it sufficiently to prove the strong point he seems to want to make: that evolution
supports interventionism better than the free market. By closing the chapter
with this argument, readers will probably miss the main points, which are easily
explained and documented. First, evolution has not exclusively been used to justify
laissez-faire economics; statists and interventionists have also freely
appropriated it.4 Second, evolution is an ethically bankrupt political philosophy;
it has historically failed to provide limits to either individualistic rapaciousness
or collectivistic tyranny.5
Christianity
In moving from economics and political theory to Christianity, Wells is back on
turf he’s familiar with—but he’s still in an awkward position.
ID has always struggled to avoid being labelled religious, and it claims to make
no theological claims (which is itself a theological claim, though a minimal one).
Wells has a fine line to walk to maintain this stance while explaining why Christians
should prefer ID to Darwinism. He does this by focusing on why Darwinism is anti-Christian,
without an explicit discussion of the relationship of Christianity and ID.
He starts by pointing to three basics upon which ‘traditional Christians’
are united:
‘(1) God created everything from nothing, (2) God planned the incarnation—and
thus human beings—from the beginning, and (3) God continues to interact with
the creation’ (pp. 170–171).
The disappointment is that Wells does not go further. There are important biblical
and theological reasons for rejecting not just Darwinism, but also old-earth theories
generally … And they would also help answering typical objections: ‘Why
did a designer make things to go extinct or attack each other?’
Then he turns to the evolutionist literature for numerous statements on the opposite
theme: ‘Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process’ (p.
172, quoting George Gaylord Simpson). Wells concludes, ‘it is clear …
that there is a fundamental conflict here’. The conflict is ‘between
traditional Christianity and Darwinism’ (p. 173). Darwinism could
allow for the existence of God, but not the God of ‘traditional Christianity’.
All this is true enough; the disappointment is that Wells does not go further. There
are important biblical and theological reasons for rejecting not just Darwinism,
but also old-earth theories generally (even when those theories are generally compatible
with design). And they would also help answering typical objections: ‘Why
did a designer make things to go extinct or attack each other?’ These objections
are easy to answer with the biblical teachings of the Fall and Flood, but these
answers are unavailable in an old-earth paradigm.
ID advocates have usually avoided such discussions, and have satisfied themselves
with showing that ID is more compatible with Christianity than Darwinism is. For
these purposes, ID advocates try to stay in the realms of ‘consensus Christianity’,
as Wells does, without dealing with the heart of the theological questions. Christians
should recognize ID as a step in the right direction (away from Darwinism), and
nothing more.6 ID can be an ally, but should not be adopted as the Christian position.
So long as it clings to the myth of religious neutrality, it will also retain some
kinship to the Athenians in the book of Acts, in paying its homage to an unknown
god (cf. Acts 17:23).
War stories
Even if ID is not all that we would like it to be theologically, it is still a powerful
cultural symbol of resistance to the reign of naturalism as scientific and philosophical
orthodoxy. This is a theme that runs throughout The Politically Incorrect Guide,
as Wells recounts story after story of Darwinists attempting to silence an opposition
it cannot defeat in argument.7
In one chapter, Wells calls it ‘American Lysenkoism’, referring to Trofim
Lysenko, a leading figure in the Soviet scientific establishment in the 1930s and
1940s who espoused Lamarckian evolution. Lysenko opposed Mendelian genetics and
used his power ruthlessly against his opponents in scientific debate. Wells points
out that Lysenko opposed Mendelian genetics precisely because he believed it to
be un-Darwinian (p. 185).8 The bottom line is that science in the Soviet Union was
a matter of politics, not free inquiry.
Today, Wells says, Darwinism would crumble quickly in the face of free inquiry,
so it, like Lysenko, is propped up by power plays, politics and money. And Wells
delights to regale us with story after story to that effect. Some of the stories
made national news, such as the nearly ruinous attack on Smithsonian scientist Richard
Sternberg, whose only offence was allowing an ID article to be published in a science
journal he edited. Others were played out on a smaller stage. For instance, high
school science teacher Bryan Leonard had his doctoral dissertation rejected for
simply studying belief patterns of students who are taught scientific data both
for and against Darwinism. The faculty’s reasoning was that Leonard must have
assumed that there is ‘valid scientific data challenging macroevolution’,
which was ‘a fundamental flaw’ (p. 189).
There are many of these stories, and they play an important role in this book, not
primarily because they are part of the argument, but because they give the book
some human interest. Wells uses the persecution stories to keep up a theme of ‘culture
war’ controversy, befitting a ‘politically incorrect’ book.
A ‘politically incorrect’ theme also creates an expectation of an accessible
and exciting political editorial style, and so we are treated to some occasionally
raucous and humorous pull-out quotes accompanying the text to spice things up. I
would be interested to know whether these were chosen by Wells or his publisher.
The Darwinism-design controversy really doesn’t need help being sensationalized,
so it would not have been my approach.
Still, whoever chose the quotes generally did a good job, with one exception. In
the text, Wells mentioned the rabidly anti-Christian attitudes of Professor Paul
Mirecki, an outspoken critic of ID (but who has no qualifications in science; his
department is Religious Studies, Academe-speak for ‘anti-Christian religious
relativism’). This was relevant to the discussion in the text, which was on
the connection between Darwinism and atheism, so there was nothing wrong here. The
problem was the pullout quote, with a large heading: ‘A Darwinist’s
opinion of Pope John Paul II’, followed by the description endorsed by Mirecki:
‘A corpse in a funny hat wearing a dress’ (p. 174; see also p. 169).
The pullout was accurate—Mirecki is a Darwinist, and that was
his view of Pope John Paul II. But the effect is to link Darwinism in general with
a particularly extreme and rude statement by one Darwinist on a tangential matter,
and it looks like a cheap propaganda technique. The attention-grabbing shock effect
is not worth flirting with misrepresentation, not even in the interests of giving
a ‘politically incorrect’ aura to sell books.
The future of ID
The ‘war stories’ of persecuted ID advocates, though, were included
with a much better reason than merely giving an exciting ‘politically incorrect’
context. To Wells, they are hopeful signs—that Darwinism is unstable and can
only keep its position in society by force, not argument. In his concluding chapter,
Wells turns to the future of ID, with the theme of scientific revolution. This has
been a favourite metaphor of ID, with all its implications of a Kuhnian ‘paradigm
shift’ in the works. This is precisely how Wells describes the situation,
setting the context with a description of Kuhn’s thesis itself.9 He identifies
four key points from Kuhn that are relevant to ID and uses them to lay out his optimistic
predictions for the future of ID.
First, scientific revolutions usually involve a debate over the definition of science.
That is certainly the case in the Darwinism versus design debate. Ever since Phillip
Johnson launched the design movement with his book Darwin on Trial, ID
has relentlessly critiqued the naturalistic definition of science, and the Darwinist
opposition has fought back with equal persistency.
Scientific revolutions usually turn on the question of which paradigm should control
future inquiry.
Second, scientific revolutions usually divide the scientific community into parties,
‘old paradigm’ versus ‘new paradigm’. The Darwinism versus
design debate has divided the scientific community, indeed. And Darwinists, the
‘old paradigm’, are throwing everything they have into the fight against
the upstarts, ranging from conventional scholarly critiques to the harassment that
Wells emphasizes. This harassment, Wells suggests, is a sign that the design advocates
have made substantial progress, and the Darwinists are desperately grasping at every
weapon at their disposal.
Third, scientific revolutions usually turn on the question of which paradigm should
control future inquiry. According to Kuhn, the more important question is not what
research has already been done, but what paradigm ought to set research programs
for the future. So the mere fact that ID has promise in this area is enough to make
it a player. Wells spends some time here describing potential ID research projects.
He points to several lines of research that are either already completed or underway,
including experiments with proteins and new hypotheses about pathogenic viruses,
indicating that ID already has proven to be a worthy research program.
Fourth, scientific revolutions are usually precipitated by the young researchers
in a field, who are not personally involved in the already existing paradigm community.
On this point, Wells is convinced that ID’s appeal among young people is ‘skyrocketing’.
As concrete evidence, he points to the proliferation of Intelligent Design and Evolution
Awareness (IDEA) clubs on university campuses since the first group was founded
in 1999 at the University of California–San Diego.10 Wells concludes,
‘A growing number of bright young men and women have the courage to question
Darwinism, study intelligent design, and follow the evidence wherever it leads.
… And the future belongs to them’ (p. 207).
Conclusion
ID has indeed made major progress toward dethroning the hegemony of naturalism in
science and opening many eyes to the problems with Darwinism and the superiority
of design. For this, creationists are grateful. We stop short of identifying ourselves
with the ID movement not because we are unappreciative of their work, but because
we recognize that ID has a major theological blind spot. ID insists on clinging
to the myth of neutrality, as if science can be done without religious interpretation.
Everything anyone does is grounded in religious presuppositions, and the problem
with ID is that it does not go all the way to recognize the true Designer, the Triune
God of Scripture. Still, in many of the Darwinism-design arguments, creationists
are in the same boat as ID, and we can only profit from more familiarity and interaction
with the ID community and its writings. And hopefully, the ID movement will reciprocate
with a greater openness to discuss the theological issues that we cannot compromise.
Despite its somewhat sensational ‘politically incorrect’ marketing,
The Politically Incorrect Guide is a good resource to have on hand for
ready reference on the status of ID. And this is something we can all appreciate.
Related articles
Further reading
Recommended Resources
References
- Evans, M.S., The Theme is Freedom, Regnery, Washington
D.C., 1994. Return to text.
- Actually, though, rather than cruel competition, the free
market’s theory is that ‘the success of the more able raises the productivity
and improves the standard of living of the less able.’ Reisman, G.,
Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, Jameson Books, Ottawa, IL,
p. 344, 1998 (emphasis in original). Return to text.
- Although it does not go back far enough; for the historical
Christian foundation of capitalism, see Stark, R., The Victory of Reason,
Random House, New York, pp. 55–68, 2005. Return to text.
- This was well described by, of all people, Michael Ruse in
his chapter on social Darwinism in The Evolution-Creation Controversy,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 103–112, 2005. Specific historical
connections between government economic interventionism and evolution are also well
illustrated by Lester Frank Ward, the American opponent of Herbert Spencer. See
Bogardus, E.S., A History of Social Thought, University of Southern California
Press, Los Angeles, CA, pp. 277–287, 299, 1922. And of course, Marxists, the
most hard-core opponents of the free market, rely heavily on Darwinism. See Noebel,
D.A., Understanding the Times, Harvest House, Eugene, OR, pp. 134–153,
1991. Return to text.
- For a general discussion of two different political philosophies
based on evolution, see Noebel, ref. 4, pp. 576–613, as well as Bergman, J.,
Darwin’s critical influence on the ruthless extremes of capitalism, J. Creation
16(2):105–109, 2002; The Darwinian foundation of Communism,
J. Creation 15(1):89–95, 2001. Return
to text.
- See Wieland, C., CMI’s views on the Intelligent Design
movement, <creation.com/IDM>. Return to text.
- One of the most recent being Guillermo Gonzalez’s denial
of tenure. Wells covered the beginnings of the persecution, pp. 127–129; for
the continuation, see Grigg, R., Darwinian thought police strike again <creation.com/gonzalez>,
12 June 2007. Return to text.
- Interestingly, modern Darwinians primarily remember the fact
that Lysenko rejected the modern version of Darwinism (known as the ‘neo-Darwinian
synthesis’) that attempts to put natural selection in terms of Mendelian heredity.
They then lump Lysenko in with anti-Darwinists, forgetting that it was precisely
because Lysenko was a Darwinian that he rejected Mendel. Return to
text.
- In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1962), Thomas Kuhn proposed that science
proceeds by revolutions. A ruling paradigm remains in place even as discrepancies
and contradictions accumulate between the paradigm and the empirical data, and the
decision to discard the old paradigm in favour of a new one is accomplished by a
revolutionary ‘paradigm shift’. For a discussion of ID’s use of
Kuhn, see Woodward, T., Doubts About Darwin, Baker books, Grand Rapids,
MI, pp. 40, 66, 129–130, 2003. Return to text.
- ‘There are now clubs in Canada, Kenya, Ukraine, and
the Philippines, not to mention several dozen in the U.S.’ (p. 206).
Return to text.
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