Procesul lui Darwin

by Phillip E. Johnson, Mihai-Silviu Chirilă (trad.)

Într-o vreme în care creaționiștii biblici se certau pe chestiuni legate de vârsta Pământului sau de interpretarea Facerii, iar materialiștii luau cu asalt cultura, Johnson a reorientat întreaga dezbatere către întrebarea esențială: este viața urmare a unor cauze naturale oarbe și lipsite de sens sau este rezultatul designului inteligent? Spre deosebire de mulți alți colegi din tabăra creaționistă, Johnson este un foarte bun cunoscător al argumentelor în favoarea evoluției, dar ajunge totuși la concluzia că evoluția neodarwinistă se bazează mai mult pe filosofia naturalismului decât pe dovezi. În viziunea lui Johnson, darwinismul, înțeles ca „evoluție complet naturalistă, ce implică mecanisme aleatoare și selecție naturală”, nu poate fi compatibil cu religia teistă, iar filosofia naturalistă din spatele doctrinei ar putea, pe termen lung, să corupă morala publică.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Evolution, Christian, Philosophy, Religion, Christianity

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Johnson is an American born-again Christian lawyer and creationist.

Reviews

[Charles van Buren · Rating 5 out of 5]

 Is Darwinism an established fact?

This review is from: Darwin on Trial (Paperback)

This is the book which, in 1992, reignited widespread public debate about Darwinism. Johnson brought one of America's finest legal minds to the subject, carefully examing all of the evidence purporting to prove the theory of evolution. He found that evidence wanting. As a trained and experienced intelligence analyst and investigator, I read the book with care and came to the conclusion that Johnson is right. The evidence does not support Darwinism as fact. A conclusion shared by my junior high, high school and university science and geology teachers. My geology professors were not advocates. They simply examined the science with open minds and let students think for themselves.

I have since read widely on this subject from all sides. If this were a case at law, the jury would be hung. All sides reach a point where it is necessary to either stop, acknowledging the issue as unresolved, or to proceed on faith.

In my opinion, logic does not, so far, support the Darwinist position. Let me also note that there seems to be some confusion concerning the content and purpose of the book. In the first edition which I read, Dr. Johnson does not attempt to prove intelligent design, instead he examines the evidence for Darwinism just as he would with a case at law. The book is about looking at the merits of design and Darwinism on their own terms without reference to intelligent design or religion.

Addendum 1/30/24: Amazon has removed this review. Apparently thinking is not approved on that platform. The message was the usual, "consult community guidelines."

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a culture that supposedly places a high value on open-mindedness and healthy criticism, evolution has somehow been a sacred cow, beyond the reach of serious analysis. Dissent has been effectively marginalized through the use of a caricature which assures us that all educated people recognize that evolution is a fact, even if there are in-house disagreements about the details. We are told that the only dissenters are Biblical fundamentalists who insist on a narrow, literal reading of Genesis and therefore come to the preposterous conclusion that the earth is only six thousand years old. But reasonable people of faith will find that their theism is not threatened by the theory of evolution.



Phillip Johnson argues that this caricature is grossly misleading and false. Evolution is a fact only if one starts with a prior commitment to materialism, the belief that the physical world is all there is. With materialism as the starting point, some form of evolution must be true; there is nothing else to explain the origin and history of life. Though the primary claim of the theory of evolution is the blind watchmaker thesis, that an unguided, purposeless process of mutation and natural selection is the means by which the complexity of life arose, it is not necessary (we are told) to be too precise when speaking of just what evolution is. Evolution can mean "changes in gene frequencies in a population," and so dog breeding, for example, is evolution, as is variations from year to year in the average size of finch beaks in a population of finches. Or evolution can mean "relationship." All living things are made of the same biochemical stuff, and that is a relationship we call an evolutionary relationship - that's evolution.



Evolution is just a thing to be believed, and to accept one part of it is to accept the whole package. It is a matter of logical deduction, if one starts with the premise that materialism is true. And it is here that Johnson puts his finger on the central locus of the debate over evolution. Evolutionary science is operating by two definitions of science - science as empirical research but also science as applied materialism. Everyone is candid about the first definition, but almost noone will admit to the second, which is actually the more important of the two. This becomes evident when a scientist, doing empirical research, comes to conclusions that don't conform to materialistic philosophy. Then the second definition trumps the first, and the practitioner is said to no longer be doing science.



What is at stake here, then, is a commitment to materialism. Discussion of evidence is important, but in a sense it is secondary, because all the evidentiary problems are not troubling to Darwinists who see everything through the glasses of materialism. But take away that prior commitment and it becomes a legitimate question to ask: if we don't know how evolution happened, how can we know that it happened? When a scientist like Niles Eldredge can on the one hand say, that based on his empirical observations, evolution "never seems to happen" but nevertheless refers to himself as a "knee-jerk Darwinist," this suggests a willingness to believe in spite of the evidence. His confidence in evolution appears to reside less in his findings as a paleontologist and more in his philosophical commitment.



Regarding the second aspect of the caricature, Johnson believes that it is just so much double talk for promoters of evolution to say that evolutionary science has nothing to say about religion, when in fact it is loaded with anti-theological implications. Darwin's theory was successful primarily because it gave to biology a mechanism - descent with modification - that seemed to get rid of the need for a creator. But in so doing, not only was the creator banished from biology, he was effectively banished from reality. Thus if God exists at all, he is more like Aristotle's First Cause than the God of the Bible. Such a being is thoroughly inscrutable, utterly irrelevant, and certainly not worthy of worship. So if science has nothing to say about religion it's because science also has nothing to say about Zeus. It is not that we gain knowledge from science and knowledge from religion, but rather it is understood that knowledge comes exclusively from science, whereas religion gives us meaning and morality, which do not constitute knowledge but merely subjective belief.



With this in view, Johnson doesn't see theistic evolution as a viable solution to the evolution/creation controversy. First of all if it is genuinely theistic, if God did anything, then it's not evolution as the scientific community defines the term. It's not purposeless and unguided. And if it is purposeless and unguided, then it is not in any meaningful way theistic. It seems that theistic evolution is convincing for Christians only if they are vague about the definitions and are convinced that naturalistic philosophy is only an unnecessary addition to an otherwise sound theory. If, however, Johnson is right, and on its own merits the mutation-natural selection mechanism is inadequate to explain the history of life, then why would we want to reconcile our theology with a theory that is false?



Having said all this, Johnson isn't discounting a naturalistic theory of evolution out of hand. He is willing to hear evidence that mutation and selection, or any other naturalistic mechanism, can do the job of creation. But he's not willing to assume that it's the only possibility. Currently it's a closed system: if materialism is true, Darwinism is true, and it doesn't matter what the evidence is. But if you're willing to put the materialism in doubt, then the evidence really appears to be inadequate.



Just getting the issue of materialism on the table of mainstream academic discourse is the hard part. Once that happens and the scientific culture is reoriented towards the truth instead of towards materialism, Johnson is confident that the scientific story will change dramatically.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Phillip Johnson's DARWIN ON TRIAL should be viewed by most as Creationism's MEIN KAMPF or COMMUNIST MANIFESTO; a slick, well-written legal brief against evolution which is merely a litany of Johnson's anger towards "naturalistic" science and a compendium of alleged flaws made by distinguished 20th Century evolutionary biologists. It soon becomes quite apparent that Johnson neither understands nor appreciates why science must remain an enterprise devoid of supernatural explanations; one should only look to the Salem Witch Trials - so brilliantly recreated in Arthur Miller's play THE CRUCIBLE - to see how far the legal profession has come from embracing supernatural explanations to relying instead on credible, reasonable evidence (However, even today, it isn't totally perfect, since some lawyers have relied on quack scientists such as some who think they can find bite marks on long buried corpses.).

In twelve relatively short chapters Johnson valiantly tries to make the case that there isn't any evidence for Darwinian evolution, that evolutionary biologists are guilty of committing the crime of tautology for using circular reasoning in citing evidence which supports evolution, and that Darwinisim - and by extension, science, itself - has become a religion since it cloaks itself in a "naturalistic" philosophy which rejects any notion of a Creator intervening in natural processes. Oddly enough, Johnson has the temerity to cite philosopher Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion for good science in explaining why evolution isn't science, but instead, a religion. However, Johnson fails to mention how a "theistic science" - one which acknowledges the possiblity of supernatural intervention - would be consistent with Popper's reasoning.

Like classic Young Earth Creationists such as Henry Morris and Duane Gish, Johnson dismisses much of the scientific evidence for evolution. For example, he distorts the important work done by distinguished ecologists Peter and Rosemary Grant on the Galapagos finches; undoubtedly one of our finest ongoing field studies of microevolution and Natural Selection. He also trivializes the important work of Brown University biologist Hermon Carey Bumpus which demonstrated how natural selection works, sarcastically noting that Bumpus killed dying sparrows so he could do his scientific research (Actually these birds were dying, and Bumpus did try saving them, but Johnson ignores this point to make the case that Bumpus was insensitive towards his subjects.).

Instead of reading DARWIN ON TRIAL, I would strongly recommend reading Robert Pennock's TOWER OF BABEL, Kenneth Miller's FINDING DARWIN'S GOD, and Philip Kitcher's ABUSING SCIENCE - all of which have devestatingly effective critiques of creationism and its advocates, including Johnson. Of these three books, Pennock's tome does an excellent job pointing out the close intellectual kinship between traditional young earth creationism and Intelligent Design.

(Reposted from my 2002 Amazon review)

[Dave Maddock · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was reminded about this book the other day as I was listening to a UCSD Anthropology podcast. As a child I was taught the typical anti-evolution Christian ideology. I've always been one to do my own research and make up my own mind about things. I finally got around to evolution in college where I minored in anthropology and learned of the ridiculously large body of evidence for this "just a theory". To be fair, I read this book to get a reasoned opinion from the anti-evolution camp.

Reading this book made me realize just how baseless these arguments are. In that sense, I'd like to rate it higher, however I fear such a rating would be misconstrued. I think that most people who read this book already have an unrational bias against evolution and little-to-no real knowledge of the actual evidence. For those people, I can see how this book might reinforce their ideology. For that, I want to give it negative 5 stars.

Some advice for living: learn some critical thinking skills then apply them to your beliefs. If you're right, they'll stand up to actual scrutiny. If you're wrong, be an adult and admit it. In my experience, those most sure about their opinions are those who regurgitate crap they've taken on someone else's authority.

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read! This was just the book I was looking for: an honest and sincere evaluation of the flaws in macroevolutionary theory (or Darwinian naturalism) on its own merits, regardless of creationism or any kind of religion. I greatly enjoyed Johnson’s perspective in this one. His voice was genuine, and he did a good job of keeping his own bias out of the discussion. It's a bit dated, from 1993, but still very relevant for today's audience.

Having just read Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong, I found these two books paired together well. Many of the studies Johnson mentions had already been exposed to me by Wells as severely flawed, which gave even more credence to Johnson's points. I still find it incredible that Johnson himself is not a scientist, but a lawyer, and his clear, un-slanted take on macroevolutionary theory is valuable for any layman (any fellow non-scientist) in their quest to judge the case fairly. I want more of this type of writing!

Next, I want to read Johnson's Defeating Darwinism.

Quote:
“I am not a defender of creation-science, and in fact I am not concerned in this book with addressing any conflicts between the Biblical accounts and the scientific evidence. My purpose is to examine the scientific evidence on its own terms, being careful to distinguish the evidence itself from any religious or philosophical bias that might distort our interpretation of that evidence.... The question I want to investigate is whether Darwinism is based upon a fair assessment of the scientific evidence, or whether it is another kind of fundamentalism.”

[Booketeer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm rating this book on the assumption of a stipulated umpteen-billion-year history of the universe. That is not my current belief, but I have virtually no knowledge of the science of dating so I have nothing to say about it at this point.

I recently read Coyne's much more recent Why Evolution is True. Seems that Darwinists have not been able to improve their presentation, because Darwin on Trial pretty much destroys Coyne as if he were responding to him, rather than writing a book twenty years ago.

This covers the issues really well. Given the fossil evidence, paleontology presents us with a picture of sudden appearances of intact species rather than any kind of gradual evolution. The "survival of the fittest" is a tautology rather than a testable hypothesis. And any theory looks good if you disregard all counter evidence.

What I learned from Johnson that I didn't know before was how scientists are having to police other evolutionary scientists to punish them when they don't sound dogmatic enough about the evidence for Darwinian evolution. It also seems that evolutionary biology is a "closed system" from biology in any other field even when the scientists are convinced Darwinists. An ape expert who bothers to look at the fossils and say that the idea that the creature walked upright is wishful thinking, will be marginalized and rejected. It is an insular field that expects to be accepted on faith.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philip Johnson fully admits that he is not a scientist--a fact that his critics seem to have brought up as a reason to discredit him. To a certain degree, I think they are right -- if he doesn't have a deep understanding of the science, he misses out on some aspects of the discussion. But to a large degree I think it's an elitist attitude to claim that a lack of complete and deep understanding means that one does not bring anything to the conversation.

Johnson specializes in Law -- specifically, "arguments". He does an excellent job at analyzing the arguments given in favor of evolution, focusing on the inconsistencies. He also discusses the underlying philosophy of modern science that possibly contributes to the drive to explain the world in the context of evolution.

One thing to be aware of is that this book was written "ages ago" (scientifically speaking) so some of Johnson's more scientific arguments may or may not still be applicable.

[IWB · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should like to give this book 1.5 stars but that is not possible.

If you want to know what it's like to get the theory of evolution wrong in so many ways, yet think you understand it well enough to refute it, then read this book and believe what the author says.

Coming from an intellect of Johnson's caliber, I'm deeply disappointed in the many sophmoric logical fallacies (I do mean of the standard textbook variety) he employs for the sake of rhetorical persuasiveness--the result of promoting an agenda rather than seeking truth.

This book is nothing less than a scientific farce and an intellectual junkyard.

He posits, what is now a mindless cliche, that Darwinism (a term he conflates with "evolution" and "theory of natural selection") is a faith system. Such nonsense, especially when he doesn't spell out the concept of faith in any robust sense. Does he presume to claim that the faith of the Darwinist is isomorphically analogous to the faith of the religious believer? If so, he does an incredible disservice to the religious believer because, since the Darwinist's 'leap of faith' does not yeild real knowledge of the object of that faith--it does not access truth, then neither does the faith of the religious believer yeild knowledge of God; thus the faith of the religious believer and the faith of the Darwinian scientist are on equal epistemic grounds--neither accesses the truth of reality; hence neither yeilds knowledge. Given this bitter pill, Johnson would do better to claim, on a charitable interpretation, that the faith of the religious believer and the faith of the Darwinian are analogous, but just not isomorphically so. But in what sense are they not isomorhpic? Johnson does not tell us so. He also doesn't give a robust account of a fact.

My intuition is that, granting Johnson's claim that Darwinism is a faith system for the sake of the argument (a claim to which I do not subscribe), the faith of the Darwinian and that of the religious believer are disanalogous. But this requires a well-defined notion of faith, which, I'll remind you, Johnson does not provide. I didn't say he doesn't have a definition; He doesn't provide a well-defined notion.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a culture that supposedly places a high value on open-mindedness and healthy criticism, evolution has somehow been a sacred cow, beyond the reach of serious analysis. Dissent has been effectively marginalized through the use of a caricature which assures us that all educated people recognize that evolution is a fact, even if there are in-house disagreements about the details. We are told that the only dissenters are Biblical fundamentalists who insist on a narrow, literal reading of Genesis and therefore come to the preposterous conclusion that the earth is only six thousand years old. But reasonable people of faith will find that their theism is not threatened by the theory of evolution.



Phillip Johnson argues that this caricature is grossly misleading and false. Evolution is a fact only if one starts with a prior commitment to materialism, the belief that the physical world is all there is. With materialism as the starting point, some form of evolution must be true; there is nothing else to explain the origin and history of life. Though the primary claim of the theory of evolution is the blind watchmaker thesis, that an unguided, purposeless process of mutation and natural selection is the means by which the complexity of life arose, it is not necessary (we are told) to be too precise when speaking of just what evolution is. Evolution can mean "changes in gene frequencies in a population," and so dog breeding, for example, is evolution, as is variations from year to year in the average size of finch beaks in a population of finches. Or evolution can mean "relationship." All living things are made of the same biochemical stuff, and that is a relationship we call an evolutionary relationship - that's evolution.



Evolution is just a thing to be believed, and to accept one part of it is to accept the whole package. It is a matter of logical deduction, if one starts with the premise that materialism is true. And it is here that Johnson puts his finger on the central locus of the debate over evolution. Evolutionary science is operating by two definitions of science - science as empirical research but also science as applied materialism. Everyone is candid about the first definition, but almost noone will admit to the second, which is actually the more important of the two. This becomes evident when a scientist, doing empirical research, comes to conclusions that don't conform to materialistic philosophy. Then the second definition trumps the first, and the practitioner is said to no longer be doing science.



What is at stake here, then, is a commitment to materialism. Discussion of evidence is important, but in a sense it is secondary, because all the evidentiary problems are not troubling to Darwinists who see everything through the glasses of materialism. But take away that prior commitment and it becomes a legitimate question to ask: if we don't know how evolution happened, how can we know that it happened? When a scientist like Niles Eldredge can on the one hand say, that based on his empirical observations, evolution "never seems to happen" but nevertheless refers to himself as a "knee-jerk Darwinist," this suggests a willingness to believe in spite of the evidence. His confidence in evolution appears to reside less in his findings as a paleontologist and more in his philosophical commitment.



Regarding the second aspect of the caricature, Johnson believes that it is just so much double talk for promoters of evolution to say that evolutionary science has nothing to say about religion, when in fact it is loaded with anti-theological implications. Darwin's theory was successful primarily because it gave to biology a mechanism - descent with modification - that seemed to get rid of the need for a creator. But in so doing, not only was the creator banished from biology, he was effectively banished from reality. Thus if God exists at all, he is more like Aristotle's First Cause than the God of the Bible. Such a being is thoroughly inscrutable, utterly irrelevant, and certainly not worthy of worship. So if science has nothing to say about religion it's because science also has nothing to say about Zeus. It is not that we gain knowledge from science and knowledge from religion, but rather it is understood that knowledge comes exclusively from science, whereas religion gives us meaning and morality, which do not constitute knowledge but merely subjective belief.



With this in view, Johnson doesn't see theistic evolution as a viable solution to the evolution/creation controversy. First of all if it is genuinely theistic, if God did anything, then it's not evolution as the scientific community defines the term. It's not purposeless and unguided. And if it is purposeless and unguided, then it is not in any meaningful way theistic. It seems that theistic evolution is convincing for Christians only if they are vague about the definitions and are convinced that naturalistic philosophy is only an unnecessary addition to an otherwise sound theory. If, however, Johnson is right, and on its own merits the mutation-natural selection mechanism is inadequate to explain the history of life, then why would we want to reconcile our theology with a theory that is false?



Having said all this, Johnson isn't discounting a naturalistic theory of evolution out of hand. He is willing to hear evidence that mutation and selection, or any other naturalistic mechanism, can do the job of creation. But he's not willing to assume that it's the only possibility. Currently it's a closed system: if materialism is true, Darwinism is true, and it doesn't matter what the evidence is. But if you're willing to put the materialism in doubt, then the evidence really appears to be inadequate.



Just getting the issue of materialism on the table of mainstream academic discourse is the hard part. Once that happens and the scientific culture is reoriented towards the truth instead of towards materialism, Johnson is confident that the scientific story will change dramatically.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The very persons who insist upon keeping religion and science separate are eager to use their science as a basis for pronouncements about religion” (Johnson 8).

Natural selection is a tautology. It predicts the fittest organisms will produce the most offspring, “and it describes the fittest organisms as the ones that produce the most offspring” (20). To be fair, there are deductive arguments for natural selection, and Johnson lists one on p.23, but even those arguments don’t establish whether an organism will change into another organism.

Darwin wanted to avoid anything that looked like a “sudden jump” from one species to another, and for obvious reasons. Any such jump looks a lot like a specific creation. But that raises another difficulty: it’s hard to see how some variations in an organism (a wing or an eye) can function incrementally. Contra Dawkins, 5% of an eye does not equal 5% more vision. “Many complex parts must be working together” (34).

So we see the problem: there must be intermediaries in the chain, but the fossil record is mostly absent of any such intermediaries. Birds and bats appear in the record fully developed.

The Problem of the Fossil Record

Like pagan Greek philosophy, evolution needs a chain of being with intermediaries between species. The problem is simple: there are very few examples of such intermediaries. But Darwin’s problem is deeper than that: it’s not so much the absence of transitional fossils, but that the record is supposed to be mainly transitional fossils (again, see chain-of-being ontology). Yet that’s what we do not have.

Neo-Darwinists have given several responses to this problem:

“Punctuated equilibrium:” the problem here is that it makes the process of change nearly invisible (61).

“Saltationism.” A middle ground between creationism and evolution

The next few chapters deal with molecular biology and vertebrates. This wasn’t Johnson’s strong suit. The material isn’t wrong, per se, but it has been surpassed on both sides.

The final section of the book is where Johnson shines. He brings his legal analysis into more worldview areas. Get the naturalists to own up to the metaphysical implications of their system. Let’s end by revisiting the Arkansas court case, which ruled that “creation science” is illegitimate. Real science, by contrast, is the following:

(1) It is guided by natural law.

(2) It has to be explained by reference to natural law

(3) It’s conclusions are tentative.

(4) It is falsifiable.

It’s clear that the judge who issued this ruling was clueless about science and philosophy. These are easily rebuttable.

~1. Indeed, that is the very thing under discussion. What constitutes natural law?

~2. See above.

~3. This is nice in theory but laughably false in reality. Tentatively suggest that Naturalism can’t explain the origin of life and you will see how “tentative” these conclusions are.

~4. Exactly. The fossil record falsifies Darwin, as he himself feared.

This isn’t the final word in the debate. Much of it is dated and has been surpassed on both sides. Still, it is an important opening shot in the ID debate.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first really intellectually satisfying challenge to Darwinianism I've ever read. Johnson's book is NOT a religious challenge to Darwinian evolution, it is a scientific challenge to current evolutionary theory. Yet as a serious Christian I deeply appreciate the information that Johnson brings to light. It drastically reduced the tension between Christian faith and science for me. As someone who's also been deeply interested in science for most of my life it's also an eye opening presentation of the difference between the mainstream face of Science and the actual practice of science. Great read. Highly recommended.

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnson's wit and clarity as a writer make this book very good reading. He uses his analytical reasoning as a lawyer to challenge the prevailing logic of neo-Darwinism. Unfortunately, biologists are not always strong on the critical thinking front, Dawkins I suppose being a case in point, and Johnson surveys how naturalistic assumptions have led to biologists often assuming naturalistic evolution is true rather than allowing it to be critically tested. His final challenge invoking Karl Popper's definition of science as proposing theories that are falsifiable is very helpful.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read this in college...not sure which edition, but it was definitely a shorter read than the more recent offerings of this book. Read this back before I knew just how controversial evolution could be.

From what I recall, this book is boring, poorly written, and naive. Johnson takes the lawyerly approach to presenting a case against evolution and the results feel like the word has been reduced to a rickety grade school diorama. Johnson most likely focused on word play and arguments based on definitions. It seems many people will often mistake the framework of our language for reality and fail to recognize when we have poorly defined a concept. Instead of trying to view a concept behind the language that has been traditionally used, people will get stuck arguing words off to the side of a topic instead of engaging the topic.

Here is a fresh example from the mailer "Awake" warning us of the new atheists: DNA is made of information and the only source of information is intelligence. Bleh!

Johnson gave attorneys a bad image for me in college with his attempts to shove reality into his theory of the case. Of course, since then, I was delighted to see much more elegant presentations of fact in the court of law, with my favorite example being a district court judge's opinion accepting evolution as fact. Which also reminds me that I need to finish "Monkey Girl."

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Darwin on Trial, a landmark book on intelligent design, is at the very least an important book for understanding a prominent sentiment in the United States. Johnson, a lawyer and philosopher, decided to examine the arguments of naturalistic (as opposed to theistic) evolution from a forensic (trial-law) standpoint. Really, though, it seems more that Johnson is employing a philosophical framework and using law as a rhetorical packaging, so that he can talk about weighing testimony and rendering verdicts.

Johnson's main contention is that there is a lack of empirical evidence that supports fully naturalistic evolution and that many lines of evolutionary argumentation are invalidated by erroneous assumptions or faulty logic. Both sides of Johnson's undertaking are surely legitimate, since one expects scientific theories both to have empirical support and to be logically sound.

Though raising many points of concern, Darwin on Trial has some serious flaws. One set derives from the framing of the book. First, the context of trial law may not be the most appropriate setting for this conversation. There are surface similarities between science and law, such as that both are interested in finding out what happened and in weighing the claims of various sides. Yet, the processes and standards of both are very different. A trial proceeds after all available evidence is gathered, features two opposing sides that each offer one version of the truth, and renders a one-time verdict. Science on the other hand is constantly gathering and refining evidence, a cooperative venture that may include many competing and shifting theories, and is open-ended. Furthermore, at times the roles seem reversed. If "Darwin" is indeed on trial, he ought to be given the benefit of the doubt, but here it seems as though the burden of guilt is on the defendant.

Another just as serious group of flaws concerns the science itself. It is not clear how much Johnson really knows about evolutionary science. Very little empirical discussion takes place. Few studies are cited. Interactions are almost entirely with popularizers such as Dawkins and Gould, who have been criticized by their own colleagues at times for mixing science with their own philosophical ideals. There is no bibliography. Many of the discussions seem dated. He shows little awareness of the boom of studies done in biogeography, paleontology, and molecular genetics since the 1950s. Thus, what the reader gets is very much the view of an armchair theorizer, not a field researcher. Finally, Johnson tends to treat gaps in evidence or current holes in knowledge as insuperable barriers to knowledge, thus disproving evolution. That is surely illogical.

On the whole, this is a book that raises many valid questions about the empirical bases of and logical consistency of current evolutionary theory. It is greatly handicapped by the author's lack of familiarity with the current state of science and questionable framework for evaluation.

[Ross · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read about half this book purely out of curiosity as a scientist with a great interest and knowledge of the theory of evolution.
The author was a lawyer and the inventor of the idea of Intelligent Design to replace so-called Creation Science which had come to be regarded as silly nonsense by many believers in a God of Creation. The argument put forward is that the genetic mutations that created all the species were not random, as science believes, but directed by a Designer who was doing the design work.
The book is simply filled with one error and distortion after another, but is very cleverly composed to convince those who don't know all the facts. The author was a highly skilled lawyer after all.
He admits in the preface that he is a deep believer in the God of Creation and that his God must have directed the design of everything, including us.
We scientists can't "prove" the author is wrong, but we can show that his idea is highly, highly unlikely. For example why would his Designer make so many mistakes.
On the issue of "mistakes" the author has the misconception that Darwinian evolution must not make an mistakes and he actually gives examples of mistakes, saying these were done by a "whimsical creator."

[Jennifer Mugrage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reread. The first edition was published in 1991. I've read it a number of times over the years. This time, I got it out because my students are getting to the age when we are going to have to start wading in to these debates.

Johnson is a lawyer, so he has a sharp eye for spotting equivocations, ad hominems, and the unexamined philosophical assumptions behind even honestly made arguments. His writing is a pleasure to read. It's a course in logic as well as a survey of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, or as he calls it, the Blind Watchmaker Thesis. Now, on my third or fourth reading, I realize that I missed a lot on previous readings because there is just so much going on in this book. Also, perhaps, because when we are accustomed to hearing a debate framed in one way, it can be difficult to follow, on first reading, when someone frames it differently.

Scientific discoveries have changed a lot since Johnson wrote this book. The changes have not provided more evidence for the Blind Watchmaker thesis; quite the opposite. Soft tissue has been discovered in dinosaur fossils, for example. More and more "hominem" species that were thought to be sub-human have been discovered to have been, in fact, simply human. Stephen Meyer has published his books about the Cambrian explosion and the challenges it poses to the Blind Watchmaker thesis. Genetics gets more, not less, intricate the more closely it is studied. More "living fossils" have been found. However, the amazing thing is that none of this matters much to the thesis of Darwin on Trial. Johnson's argument is that the Blind Watchmaker thesis is not an empirical claim that its adherents set out to test, but rather a philosophical position: a logical deduction from naturalism, or from strict materialism. To true believers in the Blind Watchmaker thesis, none of the discoveries I have mentioned will look like disconfirming evidence.

[John Porter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was given this book while I was dealing with medical issues; maybe the idea was that debunking evolution would bring me closer to God. Well, I'm Christian, thanks. This book made me want to vomit. Leaving out the obvious lies and misrepresentations (it's startling how far off Johnson is about the BMNH and its position on evolution), I am completely baffled as to how someone can attempt to debunk science when said person doesn't know what the scientific method is.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Phillip Johnson is a lawyer, so anyone who calls this book "scientific" is sadly mistaken. As for Johnson's arguments, most were rebutted before finding their way into his book. The Wikipedia article on Johnson is a good place to start, specifically Eugenie Scott's and Stephen Gould's criticisms.

[Bill Nohmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

We know so little about it (Darwinian evolution) that many christians think it is possible God used evolution in creation. Phillip E. Johnson takes a courtroom approach to his investigation/examination of Darwinian evolution and concludes: If it were on trial, it would LOSE.

[Karla Renee Goforth Abreu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of information concerning fossil records, genetic, and molecular evidence, and such. The author writes as a lawyer, and stands face to face with the likes of Dawkins, Darwin, Gould, and others. Researched and well written.

[David Gilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent legal like discussion regarding the theories of Darwin and how they can be broken down.

[AttackGirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I have said and this book discusses why is their such thing as a bachelors of science in Christianity,

How aburd to imagine you know the answers then force or impose your will on others.

Do tell me what is the smallest… an electron is t that what you learned in school but now their are quarks. The quarks have always been there!


“All things already exist, it’s just man’s attempt to explain it” (Clarke, 1965)

[Rex Blackburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful, informative critiques of Darwinian evolution. Definitely enjoyed this. I expected it to be a lot hokier than it was. He accepts that Darwinism does have applications to the natural world, but what Johnson questions are the boundaries of Darwin's explanatory powers. Yes, it can explain adaptations and variations within species, but what about the appearance of entirely new kinds of species? It seems that, instead of supporting evidence, naturalists have settled for a generous interpretation of what evidence is available.

More thoughts to come..

Notable pieces from the book:
Ch. 1: "The very persons who insist upon keeping religion and science separate are eager to use their science as a basis for pronouncements about religion. The literature of Darwinism is full of anti-theistic conclusions, such as that the universe was not designed and has no purpose, and that we humans are the product of blind natural processes that care nothing about us. What is more, these statements are not presented as personal opinions but as the logical implications of evolutionary science."

Ch. 1: "Consider Colin Patterson's point that a fact of evolution is vacuous unless it comes with a supporting theory. Absent an explanation of how fundamental transformations can occur, the bare statement that "humans evolved from fish" is not impressive. What makes the fish story impressive, and credible, is that scientists think they know how a fish can be changed into a human without miraculous intervention."

Ch. 2: On Natural Selection as a tautology. I found this to be an important section because it does characterize much of what I hear from the evolutionary side of the aisle: "Just about any characteristic can be either advantageous or disadvantageous, depending upon the surrounding environmental conditions. Does it seem that the ability to fly is obviously an advantage? Darwin hypothesized that natural selection might have caused beetles on Madeira to lose the ability to fly, because beetles capable of flight tended to be blown out to sea. The large human brain requires a large skull which causes discomfort and danger to the mother in childbirth. We assume that our brain size is advantageous because civilized humans dominate the planet, but it is far from obvious that the large brain was a net advantage in the circumstances in which it supposedly evolved. Among primates in general, those with the largest brains are not the ones least in danger of extinction.

In all such cases we can presume a characteristic to be advantageous because a species which has it seems to be thriving, but in most cases it is impossible to identify the advantage independently of the outcome. That is why Simpson was so insistent that "advantage" has no inherent meaning other than actual success in reproduction. All we can say is that the individuals which produced the most offspring must have had the qualities required for producing the most offspring.

The famous philosopher of science Karl Popper at one time wrote that Darwinism is not really a scientific theory because natural selection is an all-purpose explanation which can account for anything, and which therefore explains nothing. Popper backed away from this position after he was besieged by indignant Darwinist protests, but he had plenty of justification for taking it. As he wrote in his own defense, "some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave most offspring leave most offspring," citing Fisher, Haldane, Simpson, "and others." One of the others was C. H. Waddington, whose attempt to make sense of the matter deserves to be preserved for posterity:
'Darwin's major contribution was, of course, the suggestion that evolution can be explained by the natural selection of random variations. Natural selection, which was at first considered as though it were a hypothesis that was in need of experimental or observational confirmation, turns out on closer inspection to be a tautology, a statement of an inevitable but previously unrecognized relation. It states that the fittest individuals in a population (defined as those which leave most offspring) will leave most offspring. This fact in no way reduces the magnitude of Darwin's achievement; only after it was clearly formulated, could biologists realize the enormous power of the principle as a weapon of explanation.'
That was not an offhand statement, but a considered judgment published in a paper presented at the great convocation at the University of Chicago in 1959 celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Apparently, none of the distinguished authorities present told Waddington that a tautology does not explain anything. When I want to know how a fish can become a man, I am not enlightened by being told that the organisms that leave the most offspring are the ones that leave the most offspring."

Ch. 2: The contemporary neo-Darwinian synthesis grew out of population genetics, a field anchored in mathematics and concerned with demonstrating how rapidly very small mutational advantages could spread in a population. The advantages in question were assumptions in a theorem, not qualities observed in nature, and the mathematicians naturally tended to think of them as 'whatever it was that caused the organism and its descendants to produce more offspring than other members of the species.'" Good point. I think this is a weakness in Darwinism as a whole -- small biological adaptations can be observed over time, but the extrapolation necessary to conclude that entirely new species formed because of HIGHLY improbable successful genetic mutations seems to be a different thing entirely than biological observation.

Ch. 2: "What I find intriguing is that Darwinists are not troubled by the unfitness of the peahen's sexual taste. Why would natural selection, which supposedly formed all birds from lowly predecessors, produce a species whose females lust for males with life-threatening decorations? The peahen ought to have developed a preference for males with sharp talons and mighty wings. Perhaps the taste for fans is associated genetically with some absolutely vital trait like strong egg shells, but then why and how did natural selection encourage such an absurd genetic linkage? Nevertheless, Douglas Futuyma boldly proclaims the peacock as a problem not for Darwinists but for creationists:

'Do the creation scientists really suppose their Creator saw fit to create a bird that couldn't reproduce without six feet of bulky feathers that make it easy prey for leopards?'

I don't know what creation-scientists may suppose, but it seems to me that the peacock and peahen are just the kind of creatures a whimsical Creator might favor, but that an "uncaring mechanical process" like natural selection would never permit to develop. What we are seeing in Futuyma's comment about the peacock is the debating principle that the best defense is a good offense, but we are also seeing the influence of philosophical preconception in blinding an intelligent Darwinist to the existence of a counterexample. Natural selection is the most famous element in Darwinism, but it is not necessarily the most important element. Selection merely preserves or destroys something that already exists. Mutation has to provide the favorable innovations before natural selection can retain and encourage them." This, to me, is a compelling argument. Proponents of Natural Selection will often point to "imperfections" or "impracticalities" in creatures (for instance, Coyne references the fact that human male testes would function better if they were directly located on the outside of the body, where the cooler temps are better for sperm development; but we're stuck with them the way they are, because we inherited our developmental program for making testes from a fish-like ancestor, whose gonads remain completely within the abdomen, and so our testes migrate from the abdomen to the scrotum in gestation, through canals that are prone to inguinal hernias...No designer would've made this system, it developed as a "clumsy add-on.") as evidence against design. But if Natural Selection only favors profitable mutations, then how do we explain the presence of UNprofitable ones under natural selection?

Ch. 6: On finding "ancestors" in the fossil record: "Paleontology, as we saw in Chapter Four, has taken Darwinian descent as a deductive certainty and has sought to flesh it out in detail rather than to test it. Success for fossil experts who study evolution has meant success in identifying ancestors, which provides an incentive for establishing criteria that will permit ancestors to be identified. Gareth Nelson of the American Museum of Natural History has expressed in plain language what this has meant in practice:
'"We've got to have some ancestors. We'll pick those." Why? "Because we know they have to be there, and these are the best candidates." That's by and large the way it has worked. I am not exaggerating.' - Obviously, "ancestors" cannot confirm the theory if they were labelled as such only because the theory told the researchers that ancestors had to be there."

Ch. 6: "One also has to consider the cultural and economic aspects of the situation. The story of human descent from apes is not merely a scientific hypothesis; it is the secular equivalent of the story of Adam and Eve, and a matter of immense cultural importance. Propagating the story requires illustrations, museum exhibits, and television reenactments. It also requires a priesthood, in the form of thousands of researchers, teachers, and artists who provide realistic and imaginative detail and carry the story out to the general public. The needs of the public and the profession ensure that confirming evidence will be found, but only an audit performed by persons not committed in advance to the hypothesis under investigation can tell us whether the evidence has any value as confirmation."

Ch. 9: "If empiricism were the primary value at stake, Darwinism would long ago have been limited to microevolution, where it would have no important theological or philosophical implications. Such a limitation would not imply acceptance of creationism, even in the least restrictive definition of that term. What it would imply is that the scientific establishment after 1859 was carried away by enthusiasm, and thought it had proved an entire creation story when it had only filled in some minor details."

Ch. 9: "The "will of the Creator" is a concept generally acknowledged to be outside the ken of natural science altogether. To a clear understanding, that means that science cannot tell us whether there is or is not a transcendent will or purpose that goes beyond the laws of nature. To a scientific naturalist, however, "outside of science" means outside of reality. That is why scientific naturalists can in good conscience say at one moment that they do not deal with God or religion, and then in the next breath make sweeping pronouncements about the purposelessness of the cosmos. What other people understand as the limitations of science become twisted into limitations upon reality, because to scientific naturalists the notion that there could be a reality outside of science is literally unthinkable."

Ch. 11: " Darwinist scientists believe that the cosmos is a closed system of material causes and effects, and they believe that science must be able to provide a naturalistic explanation for the wonders of biology that appear to have been designed for a purpose. Without assuming these beliefs they could not deduce that common ancestors once existed for all the major groups of the biological world, or that random mutations and natural selection can substitute for an intelligent designer. Neither of these foundational beliefs is empirically testable and, according to the California Policy Statement, neither belongs in the science classroom."

Ch. 12: ""The wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right." In some cases this craving results from the pride of a discoverer, who defends a theory with every artifice at his disposal because his professional reputation is at stake. For Marxists and Freudians, the craving came from the sense of security they gained from having a theory that seemed to make sense out of the world. People base their careers and their personal lives on theories like that, and they feel personally threatened when the theory is under attack. Fear leads such people to embrace uncritically any device that preserves the theory from falsification."

Ch. 12: "Darwin was relatively candid in acknowledging that the evidence was in important respects not easy to reconcile with his theory, but in the end he met every difficulty with a rhetorical solution. He described The Origin of Species as "one long argument," and the point of the argument was that the common ancestry thesis was so logically appealing that rigorous empirical testing was not required. He proposed no daring experimental tests, and thereby started his science on the wrong road. Darwin himself established the tradition of explaining away the fossil record, of citing selective breeding as verification without acknowledging its limitations, and of blurring the critical distinction between minor variations and major innovations."

Ch. 12: "all the basic elements of Darwinism are implied in the concept of ancestral descent. We can only speculate about the motives that led scientists to accept the concept of common ancestry so uncritically. The triumph of Darwinism clearly contributed to a rise in the prestige of professional scientists, and the idea of automatic progress so fit the spirit of the age that the theory even attracted a surprising amount of support from religious leaders. In any case, scientists did accept the theory before it was rigorously tested, and thereafter used all their authority to convince the public that naturalistic processes are sufficient to produce a human from a bacterium, and a bacterium from a mix of chemicals. Evolutionary science became the search for confirming evidence, and the explaining away of negative evidence. The descent to pseudoscience was completed with the triumph of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and achieved its apotheosis at the centennial celebration of the publication of The Origin of Species in 1959."

Ch. 12 - GREAT POINT - " "Evolution" in Darwinist usage implies a completely naturalistic metaphysical system, in which matter evolved to its present state of organized complexity without any participation by a Creator. But "evolution" also refers to much more modest concepts, such as microevolution and biological relationship. The tendency of dark moths to preponderate in a population when the background trees are dark therefore demonstrates evolution- and also demonstrates, by semantic transformation, the naturalistic descent of human beings from bacteria.
If critics are sophisticated enough to see that population variations have nothing to do with major transformations, Darwinists can disavow the argument from microevolution and point to relationship as the "fact of evolution." Or they can turn to biogeography, and point out that species on offshore islands closely resemble those on the nearby mainland. Because "evolution" means so many different things, almost any example will do. The trick is always to prove one of the modest meanings of the term, and treat it as proof of the complete metaphysical system....When disconfirming evidence cannot be ignored altogether, it is countered with ad hoc hypotheses."

Ch. 12 - " If Darwin had made risky predictions about what the fossil record would show after a century of exploration, he would not have predicted that a single "ancestral group" like the therapsids and a mosaic like Archaeopteryx would be practically the only evidence for macroevolution. Because Darwinists look only for confirmation, however, these exceptions look to them like proof. Darwinists did not predict the extreme regularity of molecular relationships that they now call the molecular clock, but this phenomenon became "just what evolutionary theory would predict"- after the theory was substantially modified to accommodate the new evidence."


Ch. 12 - "Darwinists took the wrong view of science because they were infected with the craving to be right. Their scientific colleagues have allowed them to get away with pseudoscientific practices primarily because most scientists do not understand that there is a difference between the scientific method of inquiry, as articulated by Popper, and the philosophical program of scientific naturalism. One reason that they are not inclined to recognize the difference is that they fear the growth of religious fanaticism if the power of naturalistic philosophy is weakened. But whenever science is enlisted in some other cause-religious, political, or racialistic- the result is always that the scientists themselves become fanatics. Scientists see this clearly when they think about the mistakes of their predecessors, but they find it hard to believe that their colleagues could be making the same mistakes today."

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a refreshing, logical discussion of why many of the "facts of evolution" are simply not proven. As a child, I had no reason to question evolution. Everywhere I encountered it, biology class, museums, weather reports, astronomy lessons...it was presented as fact, not theory. The elaborate artwork that fills museums and books regarding evolution was not presented with a strong caveat. It was shocking to learn how experts--scientists-- defended evolution, even when faced with huge counterevidence. I thought scientists were unemotional truthseekers! The new version of this subjective science is the Global Warming Issue. How emotional the experts can be! I found myself continually reminded of the Global Warming Defenders.

[Wade Stotts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but flawed. The problem with this book is that its author seems to think that while others' interpretations of evidence are informed by presuppositions, his research is based on "unbiased scientific investigation"
(157). This is, of course, not true. I learned long ago to be skeptical of anyone who thinks that everyone in the world has "a perspective," but he just believes what is true. As James White has said, "the man who says he has no traditions is the one who is most blind to his own."

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book attempts to discredit Darwin's theory of evolution. Johnson has done a great deal of research on the subject and his arguments can't be pushed aside lightly. If nothing else he points out Darwinism for what it is, a faith system that does not require God. As a layperson I found some of the scientific data a little overwhelming at first. I had to go back and reread several chapters before I was able to truly understand his arguments. Overall I enjoyed this book.

[Cormacjosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and thought provoking work of criticism which makes its points intelligently without sounding like a stereotypical advocate for intelligent design. This book was a gift from my now late co worker Seth Williamson, and it has his notes, marks and comments in pencil throughout. It was somewhat comforting to encounter them; because his opinions were documented, it was like having a conversation with someone I wasn’t expecting to be able to have.

[Josh Crews · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is not a Phd biologist, but rather and keenly-interested-in-evolution-origins law professor at Berkeley. He very well cross examines molecule-to-man evolution worldview that affects Western culture daily. He makes the case really well and for me delivered the intellectual fatal blow to evolution when I was a young Christian.

[Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Phillip Johnson is not a scientist, and that is shouted loud and clear throughout this book. There are many other great books out there that argue the same point, but in a much better manner. Most of the book felt like an attack on specific people or institutions rather than a logical refutation of a theory.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book that launched the Intelligent Design movement. After reading this, you'll never look the same way at the shallow Darwinistic dogma you get in the average news story of high school science textbook.