EPS Article Library
Atheists Against Darwinism
References
[1]Phillip E. Johnson, Testing Darwinism:
An Easy-To-Understand Guide (Leicester: IVP, 1997), 92.
[2]ARN, "Top Ten Darwin and Design News Stories
for 2008"
http://www.arn.org/top10/2008newsstories.pdf Cf. Intelligent
Design The Future, "Top Ten Darwin and Design News Stories for 2008"
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2008-12-24T10_18_54-08_00.
[3]http://www.arn.org.
[4]ARN, "Top Ten Darwin and Design News Stories
for 2008". Cf. David Berlinski, The Devil's Delusion:
Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (New York: Crown Forum,
2008); David Berlinski, "The Scientific Embrace of Atheism"
http://www.discovery.org/a/4949;
Intelligent Design The Future, "David Berlinski on The Devil's
Delusion"
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2008-04-16T16_23_01-07_00;
Peter S. Williams, "Atheist Philosopher Bradley Monton Defends Intelligent
Design Theory"
http://idpluspeterswilliams.blogspot.com/2008/11/atheist-philosopher-bradley-monton.html;
Steve Fuller, Dissent Over Descent: Intelligent Design's
Challenge to Darwinism (Icon, 2008); Caspar Melville, "The Darwin
Wars: Still Raging"
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/17/evolution.religion?gusrc=rss&feed=commentisfree;
Thomas Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent Design", Philosophy & Public Affairs 36, no. 2 (2008) http://as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1172/papa_132.pdf On the constitutionality of teaching ID in America, Cf. Jay D. Wexler, "Kitzmiller and the 'Is It Science?' Question," 5 First Amendment Law Review 90, 93 (2006).
[5]Cf. Jerry Fodor, "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings",
London Review of Books, 18th October 2007,
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/fodo01_.html.
[6]Steve Fuller, Science vs Religion?
Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution (Cambridge:
Polity, 2007), 116 & 83.
[7] cf. A.N. Wilson, "Why I Believe Again" http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism; A.N. Wilson, "Religion of Hatred: Why we should no longer be cowed by the chattering classes ruling Britain who sneer at Christianity" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169145/Religion-hatred-Why-longer-cowed-secular-zealots.html; William Lane Craig, "A.N. Wilson" http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5887.
[8]A.N. Wilson, "Can you love God and agree with
Darwin?"
http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/returning-to-religion.
[9]Cf.
http://www.jameslefanu.com/.
[10]For example, in the course of discussing
physiological systems like the heart, Le Fanu writes: "when, as
here, the purposive efforts of brilliant bioengineers employing
the most sophisticated modern technology fall so far short of nature's
model, it seems merely perverse to suggest that the undirected processes
of nature, acting on numerous small, random genetic mutations, could
give rise to this or any other of those 'masterpieces of design.'
This is not to suggest that there must be a Creator after all .
. .", Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of
Ourselves (Harper Press, 2009), 122. Cf. James Le Fanu, "Why
'Why Us?'" http://www.jameslefanu.com/archives/502.
[11]James Le Fanu, Why Us? How Science
rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, 23, 58 & 88. Cf. Christopher
Booker, "Mind Over Matter", The Spectator, Wednesday, 28th
January 2009
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/3299576/mind-over-matter.thtml.
[12] Cf.
https://www.broadviewpress.com/product.php?productid=952&cat=0&page=1
Monton explains: "even though I'm an atheist, I'm of the opinion
that the arguments for intelligent design are stronger than most
realize. . . I maintain that it is legitimate to view intelligent
design as science, that there are somewhat plausible arguments for
the existence of a cosmic designer, and that intelligent design
should be taught in public school science classes."
http://spot.colorado.edu/~monton/BradleyMonton/ID.html
[13]Phillip E. Johnson, The Firing Line Creation-Evolution
Debate (1997)
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p45.htm
Cf. Cornelius G. Hunter, Darwin's Proof: The Triumph of
Religion Over Science (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press,
2003); Cornelius G. Hunter, Science's Blind Spot: The
Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Brazos Press, 2007); Intelligent Design The Future, "Dr Cornelius
Hunter and Science's Blind Spot"
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-07-30T16_00_48-07_00.
[14]Cf. William A. Dembski, ed., Darwin's
Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement
(Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006).
[15]Phillip E. Johnson, The Right Questions:
Truth, Meaning & Public Debate (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002),
27.
[16]Phillip E. Johnson, The Wedge of Truth:
Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism (Downers Grove: IVP,
2000), 14.
[17]Bradley Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 1, 2 & 9-10
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002592/01/Methodological_Naturalism_Dover_3.doc
[18]Fuller, Science vs Religion? Intelligent
Design and the Problem of Evolution, 116 & 162.
[19]Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trail,
second edition (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993), 14. Creationist Dr Jonathan
Sarfati writes: "The authority of the Bible is the main emphasis
of Answers in Genesis. We don't try to 'prove' the Bible with science;
rather, we accept the Bible's propositions as true without proof,
i.e. as axioms or presuppositions. . . it's important
to realize that all 'facts' of science do not speak for themselves,
but are interpreted within a framework. Evolutionists start
with the axiom of naturalism or materialism. . . Biblical
creationists interpret the same facts and observations, but
within the framework outlined above." - Refuting Evolution
2 (Green Forrest AR: Master Books, 2002), 211-212.
[20]Johnson, Darwin on Trail, 14.
[21]Ibid., 28.
[22]Ibid., quoting the National Academy of Science,
28.
[23]Ibid., 28.
[24]Cf. Stuart Burgess, Hallmarks of Design:
Evidence of purposeful design and beauty in nature, revised
edition (Surrey: DayOne, 2002); David Rosevear, Creation Science:
Confirming that the Bible is Right (Chichester: New Wine
Press, 1991); Sarfati, Refuting Evolution 2;
http://www.answersingenesis.org/.
[25]Johnson, Darwin on Trail, 28.
[26]Ibid., 3.
[27]Ibid., 3-4.
[28]Ibid., 14.
[29]Ibid., 157.
[30]Johnson, The Right Questions:
Truth, Meaning & Public Debate, 80.
[31]Alvin Plantinga, "When Faith and Reason
Clash: Evolution and the Bible", Christian Scholar's Review
XXI:1 (September 1991), 8-33; re-printed in David L. Hull &
Michael Ruse, ed.'s, The Philosophy of Biology (Oxford University
Press, 1998),
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html.
[32]Alvin Plantinga, "Evolution, Neutrality,
and Antecedent Probability: a Reply to Van Till and McMullen"
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga2.html.
[33]Johnson, The Wedge of Truth, 14.
[34]Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions
of Demons", New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997.
[35]ibid, my italics.
[36]Fodor, "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings".
[37]Thomas Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", Philosophy & Public Affairs 36, no. 2 (2008),
202 http://as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1172/papa_132.pdf.
[38]Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell:
Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003), 254.
[39]Ibid.
[40] Cf. Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origins of Life (London: Penguin, 1998); Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2005); David Berlinski, "On the Origins of Life" http://www.discovery.org/a/3209; Stephen C. Meyer, "DNA and the Origin of Life: Information, Specification, and Explanation" in Darwin, Design and Public Education (Michigan State University Press, 2003) http://www.discovery.org/a/2184; Leslie E. Orgel, "The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth", PLoS Biol 6(1), January 22, 2008 http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060018&ct=1; Robert Shapiro, "A Simpler Origin for Life", Scientific American, February 12, 2007 http://ww.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-simpler-origin-for-life; J.T. Trevors & D.L. Abel, "Chance and Necessity do not explain the origin of life", Cell Biology International, Volume 28, Issue 11, (2004), 729-739; J.T. Trevors & D.L. Abel, "Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information", Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, (2005, 2: 29) http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958;
David Tyler, "Ribonucleotides and the revival of the 'warm little pond' scenario" http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2009/05/19/ribonucleotides_and_the_revival_of_the_w; Øyvind Albert Voie, "Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent," Chaos, Solutions and Fractals, Volume 28, Issue 4, May 2006, 1000-1004 http://home.online.no/~albvoie/index.cfm; Intelligent Design The Future, "Ed Pelzer: The Current State of Origins of Life Studies" http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2008-06-26T09_45_00-07_00.
[41]Davies, The Fifth Miracle, 64-65.
[42]Paul Davies, New Scientist, November
2006, 35. Kenneth Miller states: "the most profound unsolved problem
in biology is the origin of life itself." (New Scientist,
31 January 2009, 41.)
[43]Gregg Easterbrook, Wired, February
2007, 108.
[44]Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe,
Evolution from Space (Dent, 1981), 24-148.
[45]Ibid., 130.
[46]Michael Ruse, quoted from the Journal
of Theoretical Biology by Michael Behe in The Firing Line Creation-Evolution
Debate www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p45.htm.
[47]Michael Ruse, "Nonliteralist Antievolution,"
AAAS Symposium: "The New Antievolutionism," February 13, 1993, Boston,
MA (1993)
www.leaderu.com/orgs/arn/orpages/or151/mr93tran.htm Cf. Tom
Woodward, "Ruse Gives Away the Store"
www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/ruse.html.
[48]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 195. Cf. Alvin Plantinga, "Whether ID Is Science Isn't
Semantics"
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=3331.
[49]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 1.
[50]Cf. David Dewolf, John West, Casey Luskin
& Jonathan Witt, Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent
Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision (Seattle, WA: Discovery
Institute Press, 2006); David K. DeWolf, John G. West, and Casey
Luskin "Intelligent Design will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover," 68
Montana Law Review 7 (Winter, 2007)
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1372.
[51] Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 10.
[52]Michael Ruse in Robert B. Stewart, ed.,
Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski & Michael Ruse
in Dialogue (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 34 &
39-40.
[53]Garrett J. DeWeese & J.P. Moreland, Philosophy
Made Slightly Less Difficult (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 146.
[54] Jeffrey Koperski, "Two Bad Ways
to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones", Zygon,
43 (2), June 2008,433-449. According to Larry
Laudan: "If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason,
we ought to drop terms like "pseudo-science" and "unscientific"
from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only
emotive work for us." - "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem"
in Michael Ruse, ed., But is it Science? (Amherst: Prometheus,
1983), 349. Lauden explains: "There is no demarcation line between
science and non-science, or between science and pseudoscience, which
would win assent from a majority of philosophers." - Beyond Positivism
and Relativism (Westview Press, 1996), 210. Philip Kitcher states:
"Even postulating an unobserved Creator need be no more unscientific
than postulating unobservable particles." - Abusing Science
(MIT Press, 1983), 125. Willard Quine agrees: "If I saw indirect
explanatory benefit in positing… spirits, a Creator, I would joyfully
accord them scientific status too, on a par with such avowedly scientific
posits as quarks and black holes." - "Naturalism; or, Living within
One's Means", Dialectica 1995, vol. 49. Keith M. Parsons
comments: "I can see no reason why, in principle, supernatural hypotheses
might not be rigorously tested vis-à-vis natural ones. .
. Darwin did not define creationism out of science, but devastated
it by repeatedly demonstrating its failure as an empirical hypothesis.
. . Such hypotheses fail and have failed for centuries, which failure
- rather than atheistic prejudice - justifies the refusal of scientists
to take them seriously." - Review of Michael Ruse, Can a Darwinian
be a Christian? (2001)
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_parsons/darwinian.html.
[55]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision," 1-2.
[56]Fuller, Science vs Religion?, 102-103.
[57]Ibid., 117.
[58] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam,
2006), 50 & 59. Dawkins also endorses specified complexity as a
design detection criterion, Cf. Peter S. Williams, "The Design Inference
from Specified Complexity Defended by Scholars Outside the Intelligent
Design Movement – A Critical Review", Philosophia Christi,
Vol 9, Number 2
http://epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=54
Cf. William Lane Craig, "Naturalism and Intelligent Design" in Robert
B. Stewart, ed., Intelligent Design, 70-71.
[59]Michael Ruse, "Nonliteralist Antievolution,"
AAAS Symposium: "The New Antievolutionism," February 13, 1993, Boston,
MA (1993)
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/arn/orpages/or151/mr93tran.htm.
[60]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design," 198.
[61]Ibid., 201-202.
[62]Ibid., 195 & 197.
[63]Ibid., 189.
[64]Ibid., 188-189.
[65]Ibid., 189.
[66]Ibid., 189.
[67] Fuller, Science vs Religion?, 83.
Dawkins discusses SETI in The God Delusion: "It is a non-trivial
question . . . what kind of signal would convince us of its intelligent
origin . . . Metronomic rhythms can be generated by many non-intelligent
phenomena. . . . Nothing simply rhythmic . . . would announce our
intelligent presence to the waiting universe," 71. The regular,
specified but uncomplicated pattern of a pulsar does not require
an explanation in terms of design. Neither, of course, does the
irregular, unspecified complexity of static. So what sort of signal
would do the job? Dawkins notes: "Prime numbers are often mentioned
as the recipe of choice, since it is difficult to think of a purely
physical process that could generate them" (43). Dawkins affirms
that there is a type of pattern, in principle discoverable by empirical,
scientific investigation, for which it is difficult to account in
purely physical terms and which would rightly trigger a design inference.
Cf. Peter S. Williams, "The Design Inference from Specified Complexity
Defended by Scholars Outside the Intelligent Design Movement – A
Critical Review"; Peter S. Williams, "If SETI Is Science and UFOlogy
Is Not, Which Is Intelligent Design Theory?"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_setivsufology.htm.
[68] Cf. Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Canto,
1996); Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean? (Oxford University
Press, 1987); Mario Beauregard & Denyse O'Leary, The Spiritual
Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul
(Harper One, 2007); James Le Fanu, Why Us? How Science
Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves (Harper Press, 2009);
Edward Fesser, Philosophy of Mind: A Short Introduction
(Oxford: OneWorld, 2005); Stewart Goetz & Charles Taliaffero,
Naturalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); William Hasker,
The Emergent Self (Cornell Univeristy Press, 2001); Angus
Menuge, Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality
of Science (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); J.P. Moreland,
Consciousness and the Existence of God (Routledge, 2008); Victor
Reppert, C.S. Lewis" Dangerous Idea: In Defence of the
Argument from Reason (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003); William Hasker,
"How Not to be a Reductivist"
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Hasker_NonReductivism_103103.pdf;
William Lycan, "Giving Dualism its Due" @
http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/Du.htm;
Dallas Willard, "Non-Reductive and Non-Eliminative Physicalism?"
http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=48; Peter
S. Williams, "Nothing More than Blood and Bones?"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_bloodandbone.htm.
[69]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 189-190.
[70]A proposal I first made in "Reviewing the
Reviewers: Pigliucci et al on Darwin's Rotweiller & the public
understanding of science"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_pigliucci_reviewingreviewers.htm.
[71]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 188.
[72]Ibid., 201.
[73]Ibid.
[74]Ibid., 196.
[75]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 188. Cf. Beckwith, Law, Darwinism, And Public Education;
Casey Luskin, "Is Intelligent Design Theory Really an Argument for
God?"
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1341.
[76]Beckwith, Law, Darwinism, and
Public Education, xiii.
[77]Marcus Ross & Paul Nelson, "A Taxonomy of
Teleology", in Dembski, ed., Darwin's Nemesis, 274.
[78]Michael J. Behe, "The Modern Intelligent
Design Hypothesis", Philosophia Christi, Series 2, Volume
3, Number 1, 2001,165.
[79]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 9.
[80]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 188.
[81]Ibid.
[82]Cf. Plantinga, "When Faith and Reason Clash:
Evolution and the Bible".
[83]If ID is a legal ruse tailor-made for the
American legal situation, why does it garner support in other countries?
Cf. Intelligent Design Network Australia
www.idnet.com.au/; Progetto
Cosmo http://progettocosmo.altervista.org/;
Ondrej Hejma, "Intelligent Design Supporters Gather"
www.discovery.org/a/2974.
[84]Stephen C. Meyer, "A Scientific History
and Philosophical Defence of Intelligent Design Theory"
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=3241
Cf. Thaxton, Bradley & Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin
http://www.themysteryoflifesorigin.org/;
Intelligent Design The Future, "The Mystery of Life's Origin: An
Interview with Dr Charles Thaxton: Part One"
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2008-07-21T16_40_55-07_00
& "The Mystery of Life's Origin: An Interview with Dr Charles Thaxton:
Part Two"
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2008-07-25T13_49_57-07_00.
[85]Cf. Casey Luskin, "Principled (not Rhetorical)
Reasons Why Intelligent design Doesn't Identify the Designer"
http://www.discovery.org/a/4306;
Casey Luskin, "Is Intelligent Design Theory Really an Argument for
God?"
[86]Michael J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution:
The Search for the Limits of Darwinism (Free Press, 2007),
228-229.
[87]Cf. William A. Dembski, "On the very possibility
of intelligent design" in J.P. Moreland, ed., The Creation Hypothesis:
Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer (Downers
Grove, Illinois: IVP, 1994).
[88]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 4.
[89]This said, design detection criteria used
within intelligent design theory can be applied to data that includes
propositional communication within the field of historical apologetics.
Cf. Gregory Koukl, "Prophecy and People: Both Designed to Fit"
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5508; John
A. Bloom, "Is Fulfilled Prophecy of Value for Scholarly Apologetics?"
Apologetics.com
http://www.apologetics.com/default.jsp?bodycontent=/articles/biblical_apologetics/bloom-prophecy.html;
Robert C. Newman, "Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle," In Defence
of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God's Action in History,
ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Leicester: Apollos,
1997); Robert C. Newman, "On Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle"
Philosophia Christi 3 (2001): 63-7; Hugh Ross, "Fulfilled Prophecy:
Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible,"
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/prophecy.shtml.
[90] Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
(Bantam Press, 2007), 73.
[91]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 9. One could attribute design to:
Plato's Demiurge, the gods of polytheism, angels, demons, time-travelling
humans, or the sort of observer-created self-caused loop apparently
favoured by Paul Davies in The Goldilocks Enigma: Why
Is The Universe Just Right For Life? (London: Penguin, 2007).
Scientists who accept Fred Hoyle's theory of directed-panspermia
might subscribe to ID. Directed Panspermia is accepted by members
of the naturalistic Raelian UFO Cult. Of course, this interpretation
of intelligent design theory faces an awkward explanatory regress
in explaining the origin of the aliens. Cf. Lee Elliot Major, "Big
Enough to Bury Darwin"
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/physicalscience/story/0,9836,541468,00.html;
Michael J. Behe, "The God of Science"
http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_godofscience.htm;
Peter S. Williams, "Raelians Successfully Clone Naturalism"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_raeliansclonenaturalism.htm.
[92] ARN guide to Evolution.
[93]Dembski, "Preface", Darwin's Nemesis,
20.
[94]Michael Behe, "Whether Intelligent Design
is Science"
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=697.
[95]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 3-4.
[96]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 199.
[97]Michael Ruse, The Firing Line Creation-Evolution
Debate.
[98]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 202.
[99]Ibid.
[100]Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box,
2nd edition (Free Press, 2006), 265-266. Cf. Robert C.
Koons, "The Check is in the Mail: Why Darwinism Fails to Inspire
Confidence" in William A. Dembski, ed., Uncommon Dissent:
Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI Books,
2004).
[101]Fuller, Dissent Over Descent, 146-147.
[102]As Richard Swinburne argues: "If it seems.
. . to S that x is present, that is good reason for
S to believe that it is so, in the absence of special considerations
– whatever x may be." – The Existence of God (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991), 260.
[103] Harold, The Way of the Cell, 205.
[104]Cf. Koons, "The Check Is in the Mail:
Why Darwinism Fails to Inspire Confidence".
[105] Fodor observes: "it's important to see
that the phylogeny could be true even if the adaptationism isn't
. . . the classical Darwinist account of evolution as primarily
driven by natural selection is in trouble on both conceptual and
empirical grounds." He castigates those who assert "We can't do
without biology and biology can't do without Darwinism": "The biologist
Theodosius Dobzhansky said that nothing in biology makes sense without
Darwinism, and he is widely paraphrased . . . Shake a stick at a
Darwinist treatise and you're sure to find, usually in the first
chapter, claims for the indispensability of adaptationism. Well,
if adaptationism really is the only game in town, if the rest of
biology really does presuppose it, we had better cleave to it warts
and all. What is indispensable therefore cannot be dispensed with,
as Wittgenstein might have said. The breaking news, however, is
that serious alternatives to adaptationism have begun to emerge;
ones that preserve the essential claim that phenotypes evolve, but
depart to one degree or other from Darwin's theory that natural
selection is the mechanism by which they do. There is now far more
of this sort of thing around than I am able to survey." - "Why Pigs
Don't Have Wings". Fuller thinks Dobzhansky is wrong: "Neo-Darwinism
could be abandoned tomorrow, and most research programs in genetics
– and other biological disciplines – would continue apace. Of course,
this is not an argument against the validity of neo-Darwinian knowledge
claims, but it does argue against their indispensability." - Fuller,
Science vs Religion?, 132. In Dissent Over Descent
Fuller writes: "The vast majority of published research in the biomedical
sciences makes little or no reference to evolution . . . it may
be that public professions of faith in evolution by scientists are
best interpreted as simply making solidarity with the reigning orthodoxy
. . . Much of the biology that currently flies under the banner
of 'Darwinism' relies little, if at all, on the bone of contention
between evolutionists and ID theorists; namely, whether life has
developed over a very extended time-frame through purely self-organizing
natural processes." (32 & 231.)
[106] Behe, The Edge of Evolution, 3.
[107]Fuller, Science vs Religion?, 132.
Cf. Koons, "The Check Is in the Mail: Why Darwinism Fails to Inspire
Confidence".
[108]Behe, The Edge of Evolution, 10.
[109]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 192.
[110] Ibid. Fodor reports: "an appreciable
number of perfectly reasonable biologists are coming to think that
the theory of natural selection can no longer be taken for granted.
This is, so far, mostly straws in the wind; but it's not out of
the question that a scientific revolution – no less than a major
revision of evolutionary theory – is in the offing . . . Darwinists
have been known to say that adaptationism is the best idea that
anybody has ever had. It would be a good joke if the best idea that
anybody has ever had turned out not to be true . . . The high tide
of adaptationism floated a motley navy, but it may now be on the
ebb. If it does turn out that natural selection isn't what drives
evolution, a lot of loose speculations will be stranded high, dry
and looking a little foolish." - "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings".
[111]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 192 & 199.
[112]Ibid., endnote 11.
[113]Behe, The Edge of Evolution, 146.
[114]Ibid., 101 & 135. Cf. Prof. Ralph Seelke,
"What Can Evolution Really Do?"
http://www2.uwsuper.edu/rseelke/What%20Can%20Evolution%20Really%20Do_05.doc;
Intelligent Design The Future, "Micro or Macro? Microbiologist Ralph
Seelke on Evolution"
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-01-03T12_49_31-08_00;
Stuart Pullen, Intelligent Design or Evolution? Why the Origin
of Life and the Evolution of Molecular Knowledge Imply Design
(Raleigh, NC: Intelligent Design Books, 2005); Dr J.C. Sanford,
Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome (New York: Elim
Publishing, 2005); David Swift, Evolution under the microscope
(Stirling: Leighton Acadmeic, 2002); John C. Lennox, God's Undertaker:
Has Science Buried God? 2nd edition, (Oxford:
Lion, 2009).
[115]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 199.
[116]Cf. Rick Durrett & Deena Schmidt, "Waiting
for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution
and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution", Genetics
180: 1501-1509 (2008)
http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/180/3/1501;
Michael J. Behe, "Waiting Longer for Two Mutations: Published Letter
in Response to Durrett & Schmidt", Genetics 181:
819-820, (2009) http://www.discovery.org/a/9461;
Durrett and Schmidt, "Reply to Michael Behe",
Genetics 181: 821-822 (2009)
http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/181/2/821;
Michael J. Behe, "Waiting Longer for Two Mutations"
http://www.discovery.org/a/9611;
Michael J. Behe's Amazon Blog
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A3DGRQ0IO7KYQ2/ref=cm_blog_blog/102-1065209-4286505.
[117]Nagel, "Public Education and Intelligent
Design", 202.
[118]Ibid.
[119]Ibid.
[120]Ibid., 188. Note that to displace
design is not that same as contradicting design.
[121]Ibid., 202.
[122]Ibid., 202-203.
[123]Ibid., 199.
[124]Ibid., 202-203. As Nagel candidly comments
in The Last Word (Oxford University Press, 1997): 'I want
atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the
most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.
It isn't that I don't believe in god and, naturally, hope that I'm
right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want
there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. My
guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition
and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism
of our time.', 130-131.
[125]Ibid.
[126]Johnson, The Wedge of Truth, 16-17.
[127]Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science?
Dissecting the Dover Decision", 6.
[128]Cf. The closing interview of Ben Stein's
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Premise Media/Vivendi
Entertainment, 2008).
[129]Phillip E. Johnson, "Intelligent Design
in Biology: The Current Situation and Future Prospects", Think
(The Royal Institute of Philosophy), February 19, 2007
http://www.discovery.org/a/3914.



