When did you first become aware that Darwinism was in trouble
as a scientific theory?
I had been vaguely aware that there were problems, but I'd
never had any intention of taking up the subject seriously or
in detail until the 1987-88 academic year, when I was a visiting
professor in London. Every day on the way to my office I happened
to go by a large bookstore devoted to science. I picked up one
book after another and became increasingly fascinated with the
obvious difficulties in the Darwinist case--difficulties that
were being evaded by tricky rhetoric and emphatic repetition.
I then began delving into the professional literature, especially
in scientific journals such as Nature and Science. At every step,
what I found was a failure of the evidence to be in accord with
the theory.
What was it that initially made you suspect that Darwinism
was more philosophy than hard science?
It was the way my scientific colleagues responded when I asked
the hard questions. Instead of taking the intellectual questions
seriously and responding to them, they would answer with all sorts
of evasions and vague language, making it impossible to discuss
the real objections to Darwinism. This is the way people talk
when they're trying very hard not to understand something.
Another tip-off was the sharp contrast I noticed between the extremely dogmatic tone that Darwinists use when addressing the general public and the occasional frank acknowledgments, in scientific circles, of serious problems with the theory. For example, I would read Stephen Jay Gould telling the scientific world that Darwinism was effectively dead as a theory. And then in the popular literature, I would read Gould and other scientific writers saying that Darwinism was fundamentally healthy, and that scientists had the remaining problems well under control. There was a contradiction here, and it looked as though there was an effort to keep the outside world from becoming aware of the serious intellectual difficulties.
What are some of the intellectual difficulties? Can you
give an example?
The most important is the fossil problem, because this is a
direct record of the history of life on earth. If Darwinism were
true, you would expect the fossil evidence to contain many examples
of Darwinian evolution. You would expect to see fossils that really
couldn't be understood except as transitions between one kind
of organism and another. You would also expect to see some of
the common ancestors that gave birth to different groups like
fish and reptiles. You wouldn't expect to find them in every case,
of course. It's perfectly reasonable to say that a great deal
of the fossil evidence has been lost. But you would continually
be finding examples of things that fit well with the theory.
In reality, the fossil record is something that Darwinists have had to explain away, because what it shows is the sudden appearance of organisms that exhibit no trace of step-by-step development from earlier forms. And it shows that once these organisms exist, they remain fundamentally unchanged, despite the passage of millions of years-and despite climatic and environmental changes that should have produced enormous Darwinian evolution if the theory were true. In short, if evolution is the gradual, step-by-step transformation of one kind of thing into another, the outstanding feature of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution.
But isn't it possible, as many Darwinists say, that the
fossil evidence is just too scanty to show evidence of Darwinian
evolution?
The question is whether or not Darwinism is a scientific theory
that can be tested with scientific evidence. If you assume that
the theory is true, you can deal with conflicting evidence by
saying that the evidence has disappeared. But then the question
arises, how do you know it's true if it isn't recorded in the
fossils? Where is the proof? It's not in genetics. And it's not
in the molecular evidence, which shows similarities between organisms
but doesn't tell you how those similarities came about. So the
proof isn't anywhere, and it's illegitimate to approach the fossil
record with the conclusive assumption that the theory is true
so that you can read into the fossil record whatever you need
to support the theory.
If Darwinism has been so thoroughly disconfirmed, why do
so many scientists say it's a fact?
There are several factors that explain this. One is that Darwinism
is fundamentally a religious position, not a scientific position.
The project of Darwinism is to explain the world and all its life
forms in a way that excludes any role for a creator. And that
project is sacred to the scientific naturalist-to the person who
denies that God can in any way influence natural events.
It's also an unfortunate fact in the history of science that scientists will stick to a theory which is untrue until they get an acceptable alternative theory-which to a Darwinist means a strictly naturalistic theory. So for them, the question is not whether Darwinism is true. The question is whether there is a better theory that's philosophically acceptable. Any suggestion that Darwinism is false, and that we should admit our ignorance about the origin of complex life-forms, is simply unacceptable. In their eyes, Darwinism is the best naturalistic theory, and therefore effectively true. The argument that it's false can't even be heard.
Surely there are some skeptics in the scientific world.
What of them?
Well, there are several, and we can see what happened to them.
You have paleontologist Colin Patterson, who's quoted in my first
chapter. He made a very bold statement, received a lot of vicious
criticism, and then pulled back. This is a typical pattern.
Another pattern is that of Stephen Jay Gould, who said that Darwinism is effectively dead as a general theory-and then realized that he had given a powerful weapon to the creationists, whose existence cannot be tolerated. So now Gould says that he's really a good Darwinist, and that all he really meant was that Darwinism could be improved by developing a larger theory that included Darwinism. What we have here is politics, not science. Darwinism is politically correct for the scientific community, because it enables them to fight off any rivals for cultural authority.
Darwinists often accuse creationists of intolerance. But
you're suggesting that the Darwinists are intolerant?
If you want to know what Darwinist science is really like,
read what the Darwinists say about the creationists, because those
things-regardless of whether they're true about the creationists-are
true about the Darwinists. I've found that people often say things
about their enemies that are true of themselves. And I think Darwinist
science has many of the defects that the Darwinists are so indignant
about when they describe the creationists.
Across the country, there has been a growing trend toward
teaching evolution as a fact-especially in California, your own
state. What does this say about science education in America?
This is an attempt to establish a religious position as orthodox
throughout the educational establishment, and thus throughout
the society. It's gone very far. The position is what I call "scientific
naturalism." The scientific organizations, for example, tell
us that if we wish to maintain our country's economic status and
cope with environmental problems, we must give everyone a scientific
outlook. But the "scientific outlook" they have in mind
is one which, by definition, excludes God from any role in the
world, from the Big Bang to the present. So this is fundamentally
a religious position-a fundamentalist position, if you like--and
it's being taught in the schools as a fact when it isn't even
a good theory.
Why should Christians be concerned about a scientific theory?
Why does it matter?
Well, not only Christians should care about it. Everyone should.
It is religion in the name of science, and that means that it
is misleading people about both religion and science.
Copyright 1997 Phillip E. Johnson. All
rights reserved. International copyright secured.
File Date:2.22.97