Classic Book of the Month: Darwin on Trial

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, September 6th, 2022. We’re so glad you’ve turned to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Emily Whitten reviews our Classic Book of the Month.

For September, she highlights a book that can help Christians see through some of the false claims of Darwinian evolution by putting Charles Darwin on the witness stand.

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER:

CLIP: I am not a scientist but an academic lawyer by profession, with a specialty in analyzing the logic of arguments and identifying the assumptions that lie behind those arguments.

That’s a clip from the audiobook version of our Classic Book of the Month–Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson, read by Frederick Davidson.

CLIP: This background is more appropriate than one might think, because what people believe about evolution and Darwinism depends very heavily on the kind of logic they employ and the assumptions they make.

Darwin on Trial first appeared in 1991, close on the heels of a 1987 Supreme Court ruling against a Louisiana law. That law sought to balance “evolution-science” in schools with the teaching of “creation-science.”

When Johnson–a law professor at UC Berkeley–read the evidence given in various hearings, he called foul. Many arguments in favor of evolution were simply bad arguments, scientifically and logically. So, in his book, Johnson put Darwin–and his theory of evolution–on the witness stand. His verdict?

CLIP: Darwinism plays an indispensable ideological role in the war against fundamentalism. For that reason, the scientific organizations are devoted to protecting Darwinism rather than testing it, and the rules of scientific investigation have been shaped to help them succeed.

I spoke recently with Joshua Hershey. He’s Assistant Professor of Science and Philosophy at The King’s College. Hershey recently listened to Johnson’s audiobook and he sees why it still matters today.

HERSHEY: I think the reason Johnson's book was so influential is that it did provide a clear, accessible, provocative critique of the reasoning behind Neo-Darwinian theory.

For one thing, Johnson shows that the evidence for Darwinian evolution just isn’t there. Microevolution, yes. The idea that a species of moths can vary in color based on their environment–that’s well proven. But macroevolution, or small changes over time as the origin of all life? Johnson says no, and Hershey agrees.

HERSHEY: There are major problems with the extrapolation if you're just trying to, you know, point to, to small micro evolutionary changes within species or even between very similar species, and then sort of extrapolate, ‘Well, if this small amount of can change can happen in a short amount of time, then, in a long period of time, much bigger changes can happen.’ Well, not necessarily.

In his college classes, Hershey uses the example of cabbages–where we see a huge variety. Within one species, we see broccoli, kale, and even brussel sprouts. But clearly, there’s a limit to that variety.

HERSHEY: No combination of dominant or recessive cabbage alleles is going to yield a baby squirrel, for example, right? The genes just aren't there for producing squirrel parts...

So if the evidence is lacking, why do so many people believe in Darwinism? To fully answer that question, Hershey says we’d have to consider many factors, including mistakes the church has made responding to Darwinism. But he echoes Johnson’s argument that many scientists hold to philosophical naturalism; they believe the natural world is all there is. So, they’re drawn to a natural explanation.

Johnson notes another reason. Christian scientist Carl Linnaeus used the Biblical idea of kinds or groups to create a taxonomy–or a tree of life–showing the relationships of plants and animals down to the level of species. Linnaeus believed many organisms share traits because they share a common designer–God. Darwin proposed a different source for those similarities–a common ancestor. Here’s the audiobook again.

CLIP: Darwin ended his chapter by saying that the argument from classification was so decisive that on that basis alone he would adopt his theory even if it were unsupported by other arguments. That confidence explains why Darwin was undiscouraged by the manifold difficulties of the fossil record.

As a scientist, Hershey understands the appeal of Darwin’s theory. But new discoveries in areas like nanotechnology and cosmology make Darwinism even less plausible now than in Johnson’s day.

HERSHEY: Unfortunately, when you look closely at the details, it very quickly gets a lot more complicated than than Darwin or even the Neo Darwinian synthesis advocates realized…

Darwin on Trial is over 30 years old, so it is out of date in some areas. Hershey says Karl Popper’s ideas about falsification don’t hold up that well. He also says you can find better resources on recent evidence for and against evolution. Hershey includes some of that evidence at his website, faithfulscience.com.

HERSHEY: Obviously, the founders of modern science regarded science as an expression of their faith in God. And the evidence of design in nature has continued to mount with recent discoveries in astronomy and cosmology, even biology. Many Christians including me, have found our faith strengthened and deepened by studying the sciences.

Phillip Johnson’s book Darwin on Trial helped spark the Intelligent Design movement, and Hershey follows that movement’s research. But if you fall more in the camp of Creation science or even if you sympathize with evolution, our Classic Book of the Month remains a critical read. In his heyday, Johnson summed up his work with the following motto. It comes from a speech posted on the IDquest Youtube channel:

CLIP: ‘A false hypothesis is better than none at all, for that it is false, does no harm at all. But when it fortifies itself, when it is accepted universally and becomes a kind of creed that nobody may doubt, that nobody may investigate, that is the disaster of which centuries suffer.’

He then adds,

CLIP: That of course is when science turns into religion.

I’m Emily Whitten.

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