From: philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu ()
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Gould versus Johnson
Date: 10 Jan 1993 04:02:29 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

Phillip E. Johnson                                  June 29, 1992

              The Religion of the Blind Watchmaker

[Stephen Jay Gould published a 3-page attack on Phillip E.
Johnson and his book Darwin on Trial in the July, 1992 issue of
Scientific American. Editor Jonathan Piel refused to publish this
response -- or any letters on the subject.]

   "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the
appearance of having been designed for a purpose."  So writes
Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker.  As a Darwinist,
Dawkins maintains that the appearance is deceptive, and that
living organisms are actually the product of purposeless material
forces -- random genetic variation and natural selection.  This
"blind watchmaker thesis" is the most important claim of
evolutionary biology.  If scientists were able to say only that
primitive fish "somehow" became amphibians, and then mammals, and
finally humans, nobody would be very impressed.  Absent a
credible mechanism, the transformation of a fish into a human
being is nearly as miraculous as the creation of man from the
dust of the earth.  What makes the story of evolution impressive
is that Darwinist scientists think that they know how such
transformations occurred, through natural processes requiring no
divine guidance or non-material orienting force.  
   The blind watchmaker thesis has enormous religious
significance because it purports to explain the history of life
without leaving any role to a supernatural Creator.  "Before
Darwin," writes Stephen Jay Gould, "we thought that a benevolent
God had created us."  After the acceptance of Darwinism, that
belief became intellectually untenable.  According to Gould, 

       "No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs
of nature (though Newton's clock-winding god might have set up
the machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run).  No
vital forces propel evolutionary change.  And whatever we think
of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of     
nature." [From "In Praise of Charles Darwin," Discover, 1982]

   God as a remote First Cause remains a possibility, but God as
an active creator is absolutely ruled out by the blind watchmaker
thesis.  That is why Richard Dawkins exults that "Darwin made it
possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."  That
doesn't mean that Darwin made it impossible to be anything but an
atheist.  For example, Darwinism and theism can easily be
reconciled by those who, like Asa Gray and Charles D. Walcott,
misunderstand Darwinian evolution as a benevolent process
divinely ordained for the purpose of creating humans.  (Gould
himself has been particularly emphatic in correcting that sort of
misunderstanding.)  On the other hand, Darwinism does give
atheists and agnostics a decisive advantage to the extent that
belief in God's existence is a matter of logic and evidence.  
   Those who really understand Darwinism, but still have
spiritual inclinations, have the option of making a religion out
of evolution.  Theodosius Dobzhansky -- Gould's prime example of
a Christian evolutionist -- actually exemplified the religious
dimension of Darwinism.  Dobzhansky discarded the traditional
Christian conception of God, spiritualized the evolutionary
process, and worshipped the glorious future of evolution.      
   Gould writes that religion and science should not conflict,
"because science treats factual reality, while religion struggles
with human morality."  But this statement implies a distinction
between morality and reality which does not exist, and which
Gould himself would never observe in practice.  Does the morality
of racial discrimination, for example, have nothing to do with
the factual reality of human equality?  The author of The
Mismeasure of Man didn't seem to think so.  And what gives Gould
the authority to proclaim that religion may not concern itself
with the factual reality of God?  God can't have any moral
authority unless He really exists, and if God really exists He
might take a hand in creation.  When a scientific elite claims
exclusive authority to decide what is "real," it is asserting
control over science, religion, philosophy, and every other area
of thought.
   Religion, like science, starts with assumptions or conclusions
about reality.  If we were created by God for a purpose, that is
one starting point.  If we are the accidental product of blind
natural forces, that is a very different starting point.  In the
former case we try to learn the will of our creator, and in the
latter case we discard that "intervening spirit" as an illusion
and proceed to chart our own course.  Thus Gould himself, in the
concluding sentence of Wonderful Life, proceeds directly from a
Darwinist starting point to the religious conclusion that we are
morally autonomous beings who create our own values:

     "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own
paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable
universes -- one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore
offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own
chosen way."

   The author of all those statements castigated me for
suggesting that Darwinism is tied to naturalistic philosophy and
opposed to any meaningful theism.  David Hull, reviewing Darwin
on Trial for Nature, was equally severe with me for refusing to
concede that Darwinism has finished off theistic religion for
good.  Hull emphatically proclaimed a Darwinist doctrine of God:

     "What kind of God can one infer from the sort of phenomena
epitomized by the species on Darwin's Galapagos Islands?  The
evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency,
incredible waste, death, pain and horror....  The God of the
Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical.  
He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be
inclined to pray."


   So much for Darwinism's religious neutrality.  Now to the more
important question: Is the blind watchmaker thesis true?  To put
the question another way, does natural selection really have the
fantastic creative power which Darwinists claim for it?  That
seems an appropriate question, but persons like Gould, Dawkins,
and Hull insist that the very definition of "science" rules the
question out of order.  They say that science is inherently
committed to naturalistic premises, that Darwinian evolution is
the best scientific (i.e. naturalistic) theory of biological
creation that we have, and even that Darwinism possesses a virtue
called "consilience of induction" -- meaning that it explains a
lot if we assume that it is true.  One way or another, Darwinists
meet the question "Is Darwinism true?" with an answer that
amounts to an assertion of power: "Well, it is science, as we
define science, and you will have to be content with that."
   Some of us are not content with that, because we know that the
empirical evidence for the creative power of natural selection is
somewhere between weak and non-existent.  Artificial selection of
fruitflies or domestic animals produces limited change within the
species, but tells us nothing about how insects and mammals came
into existence in the first place.  In any case, whatever
artificial selection achieves is due to the employment of human
intelligence consciously pursuing a goal.  The whole point of the
blind watchmaker thesis, however, is to establish what material
processes can do in the absence of purpose and intelligence. 
That Darwinist authorities continually overlook this crucial
distinction gives us little confidence in their objectivity.
   Examples of natural selection in action, like Kettlewell's
observation of population shifts in the peppered moth, actually
illustrate cyclical variation within stable species that exhibit
no directional change.  The fossil record -- characterized by
sudden appearance and subsequent stasis -- is notoriously
reluctant to yield examples of Darwinian macroevolution.  The
therapsid reptiles and Archaeopteryx are rare exceptions to the
general absence of plausible transitional intermediates between
major groups, which is why it is important to understand that
even these Darwinist trophies are inconclusive as evidence of
macroevolution.  No wonder that prominent authorities like
Stephen Jay Gould and Lynn Margulis have yearned for a new
theory, on the ground that the evidence contradicts the neo-
Darwinist claim that macroevolutionary innovation results from
the accumulation of small genetic changes by natural selection.
   The point is not whether "evolution" in some vague sense is
true.  "Evolution" has certainly occurred, but the scientific and
religous importance of this statement is slight when evolution is
defined vaguely as "change" or modestly as "shifts in gene
frequencies."  No doubt the pattern of relationships among plants
and animals invites an inference that there was some process of
development from a common source.  But how much do we know about
this process of development?  
   Perhaps one day scientists will be able to test some macro-
evolutionary mechanism, involving changes in the rate genes or
whatever, that will explain how a four-footed mammal can become a
whale or a bat without going through impossible intermediate
steps.  The difficulties should be honestly acknowledged,
however.  What evolutionary theory needs is a reliable creative
mechanism, capable of building highly complex structures like
vision and breathing systems again and again in diverse lines. 
Speculation about how an occasional jump might occur won't do the
job.
   Readers who know the score will understand why I feel honored
that Stephen Jay Gould could find no better response to my
challenge than a vitriolic attack that evades the main points and
instead wanders through the book in search of something to
complain about.  (Compare what I wrote on page 16 of Darwin on
Trial with Gould's complaint about "recombination," and you will
see how hard he worked to find a nit to pick.)  I welcome
criticism on specific points; that is why I circulated
preliminary drafts to many distinguished scholars, including
Gould.  The subject in controversy, however, is my argument that
the blind watchmaker thesis is not supported by the evidence --
i.e., that science does not know how life could have evolved to
its present complexity and diversity without the participation of
preexisting intelligence.  If Gould had a convincing answer to
that argument, you may be sure that he would have stated the
issues clearly and met the main line of reasoning head on.       
   The review itself merits no further response, but what
requires explanation is the hostility.  What divides Gould and me
has little to do with scientific evidence and everything to do
with metaphysics.  Gould approaches the question of evolution
from the philosophical starting point of scientific naturalism,
which denies a priori that a non-material being such as God could
influence the course of nature.  From that standpoint the blind
watchmaker thesis is true in principle by definition.  Science
may not know all the details yet, but something very much like
Darwinian evolution simply has to be responsible for our
existence because there is no acceptable alternative.  If there
are gaps or defects in the existing theory, the appropriate
response is to supply additional naturalistic hypotheses. 
Critics who disparage Darwinism without offering a naturalistic
alternative are seen as attacking science itself, probably in
order to impose a religious straitjacket upon science and
society.  One does not reason with such persons; one employs any
means at hand to discourage them.  
   But maybe Darwinism really is false -- in principle, and not
just in detail.  Maybe mindless material processes can't create
information-rich biological systems.  That is a real possibility,
no matter how offensive it is to scientific naturalists.  How do
Darwinists know that the blind watchmaker created the animal
phyla, for example, since the process can't be demonstrated and
all the historical evidence is missing?  Darwinists may have the
cultural power to suppress questions like that for a time, but
eventually they are going to have to come to grips with them. 
There are a lot of theists in America, not to mention the rest of
the world, and persons who promote naturalism in the name of
science will not forever be able to deny them a fair hearing.
     Scientific naturalists who think that Darwinism can be
defended by waging ideological war against the critics are free
to follow the example of Stephen Jay Gould.  Others may prefer to
take the path of Michael Ruse and the Darwinist scientists who
participated in an academic symposium on the issues raised by
Darwin on Trial in March, 1992, at Southern Methodist University. 
These persons learned that it is possible to debate metaphysical
differences in an academic setting in a fair-minded and mutually
respectful manner.  In the end, the entire scientific community
will have to acknowledge that honest discussion -- with
assumptions identified and terms precisely defined -- is the only
method for resolving disagreement that is consistent with the
best traditions of science itself.  When scientists defend a
cherished doctrine by obscuring the issues and shutting out
criticism, it is a sure sign that what they are defending isn't
science.
-- 
Phillip E. Johnson
  School of Law, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720