Review of Defeating Darwinism

I recently checked out Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, by Phillip Johnson, from the library and thought I would share my thoughts on it. Hopefully in the process I can clarify why I do not support the Intelligent Design movement, which is primarily lead by the Discovery Institute. Please note the following abbreviations I will be using: DD = Defeating Darwinism; ID = Intelligent Design; IC = Irreducible Complexity.

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DD was published in 1997 and follows Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance, written by Johnson, as well as Darwin's Black Box, written by Michael Behe. (See here for my review of Behe's book, as well as my first post about intelligent design. Because some of the arguments apply here, also see my post on the randomness of evolution.) I have not read Johnson's other books.

The purpose of DD was to provide a simple, straightforward explanation of ID and criticism of evolutionary theory that could be understood by someone in high school. It is less than 150 pages and is a easy read. If you want to quickly determine where Johnson is coming from, I recommend this book. One of the broad purposes of this book, and Johnson's work in general, is to help enable students to maintain religious faith in the face of the mountain of evolutionary theory. He seems genuinely concerned that people are needlessly jettisoning their faith (especially Christian faith) and wants to help. In this respect I am sympathetic. It is his approach and conclusions that I disagree with.

Johnson begins the book by relating how some students try to reconcile their faith with science. The reconciliation is usually some form of theistic evolution--that God used evolution in his creative processes. Johnson argues that no reconciliation can be made because evolution is based on naturalism/materialism and therefore, by definition, excludes God. Therefore science, and education in general, must be stripped of naturalistic assumptions. His argument is essentially an ultimatum--choose God or naturalism. He writes:

The evolutionary story is a story of humanity's climb from animal beginnings to rationality, not a story of a fall from perfection. It is a story about learning to rely entirely on human intelligence, not a story of the helplessness of that intelligence in the face of the inescapable fact of sin.

There is no satisfactory way to bring two such fundamentally different stories together, although various bogus intellectual systems offer a superficial compromise to those who are willing to overlook a logical contradiction or two. A clear thinker simply has to go one way or another.

Unfortunately, I do not believe either story is free of logical contradictions. It is for this reason that I believe that when the whole truth is known, there will be a perfect compromise. False dichotomies are easy to make.

He goes on to discuss issues of critical thinking, ID and IC, and then quite frankly and openly discusses the overall cultural strategy he is charting. He also lays out his general critiques of the evidence supporting evolutionary theory. Prominent among them is the fossil record, and he includes the usual quotes from Eldridge and Gould admitting to its weaknesses. (Scientists, including Eldridge and Gould, insist that their arguments have not been properly understood. Neither Johnson nor I are paleontologists so I will not engage this argument. However, note that evidence for common descent does not rest on fossils alone.) He also tries to draw a distinction between the medium of DNA and the message it contains, arguing that the message could not have come about by chance. My following comments will be a mixture of reaction to the book and ID in general.

The critical problem with ID, in terms of science, is testability. If God has intervened in the development of life on earth, how would we know it? Proponents of ID argue that design can be detected by positive evidence. What is this positive evidence? The answer is IC. But the very notion and implications of IC are disputed--or ignored--by mainstream science. And at root, IC is an argument from ignorance--we don't know how something could have evolved by natural means and therefore it must have been designed. It is a subtle trick to turn an argument from ignorance into "positive evidence"--create a category that is derived from an argument from ignorance, find a biological system that fits the criteria of your category, then call that positive evidence for design.

What I don't think many people realize is that ID really cannot get them what they want. For the sake of argument, let's say that IC is a legitimate concept and really does indicate ID. The reason it can detect design is because it is the only marker that can distinguish natural processes from intelligent ones. In other words, it distinguishes organisms created with ID from those related just by common descent. The IC systems that have been proposed thus far might distinguish some higher taxa, but most species and genera would probably be unaffected. For example, what kind of IC system would distinguish chimpanzees from humans? The only IC systems proposed so far are things like vision, the immune system, blood clotting, and cilia. Both humans and chimpanzees--most vertebrates for that matter--have all of those. Given the very high degree of DNA identity between these two species, I think it is highly unlikely that any IC biochemical systems will be identified to differentiate them. With the main tool of ID being useless in distinguishing between humans and chimpanzees, we are left with naturalism. So we can infer ID throughout the tree of life except where it really counts--us. The concepts of IC and ID are therefore useless to anybody hoping to establish that humans are uniquely created apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and we are essentially left with a concept that Johnson finds unacceptable--naturalism/materialism responsible for the ultimate creation of humans!

My point here is not to argue that mankind are merely animals or that God has nothing to do with our creation. It is to show that ID is utterly useless to show otherwise where the theological stakes are highest. If the tools of ID cannot establish a unique creation for humans, does the rest really matter?

As I stated above, Johnson spends some time drawing a distinction between the information contained in DNA and the medium of the information (ie. the DNA itself.) He argues that it is ID that is responsible for the information contained in DNA. This is because matter cannot organize itself to contain information--just as ink and paper have no ability to produce words and sentences. I'm not quite sure I fully understand his argument here, and I'm not prepared to persue it. I'll just say that his analogies are fundamentally different than biological processes and they smell funny to me--but I can't quite put my finger on it yet.

If you have any question about whether cultural issues are really at the bottom of the ID movement, just read the last few chapters. Johnson believes that, like Freud and Marx, Darwin must be overthrown. He blames naturalism/materialism for social and moral decay, and he issues a Christian call to arms to help overthrow materialism.

Although I disagree him on a number of issues, I think Johnson and I can agree on this: all people should know more about science and the assumptions and philosophies that govern it. Whereas Johnson thinks that the rules governing science are arbitrary and in need of overhaul, I think that they are necessary and should be maintained. However I also support clear explanations of what they are and why they are needed. With a proper understanding of the issues involved, I believe students can make good (not just reactionary) judgments as to how much of their worldview should be shaped by science, and how much by religion.