Doubts about Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design - Book Review

By Kim I. Robbins

In 480 BC, when the great Persian army was winning in the war against Greece, the Persian leaders probably thought the Battle of Salamis was going to be a cake walk—odds being three to one in Persia’s favor. King Xerxes sat on a high hill to watch the destruction of the Grecian force—you can almost picture him rubbing his hands in anticipation of triumph. Persia had a strong fighting force of 300,000 men and a fleet of 1,200 ships versus the Greeks who only had a puny force of 85,000 men and 350 ships. What Xerxes didn’t foresee was that overwhelming numbers might not be enough. Athenian statesman Themistocles devised a strategy using a long narrow and lightweight ship call a Trireme. The ships were extremely maneuverable which allowed the Greeks to fight in shallow water. Simply put, the Greeks defeated the Persians simply by ramming and sinking the foes’ big clumsy ships. The Persians that didn’t drown were killed with rocks. The Greeks won the battle and the Persians fled back to Asia. The Greek triumph was achieved through magnificent strategic planning.

Another epic "against the odds" battle is being fought today in the realm of science. These combatants are using words instead of ships and rocks. Rhetorical historian Thomas Woodward recently published a fast paced and highly entertaining book entitled, Doubts about Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design (Baker Books). Using plenty of battle metaphors, Woodward tells the stories of four founders of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement and their use of brilliant rhetorical strategy to crack Darwinism’s paradigm.

Besides showing the “historical dimension” of the movement, Woodward’s reason for telling the story is that it “is nurturing to the health of science itself and even to the civic health of American society.” Why? For the last century or so, any questioning of strict Darwinian orthodoxy has been squashed with an astonishing amount of misinformation. Furthermore, even when “proofs” proved false, like peppered moths and embryonic drawings, Darwinists continue to tout their “proof” as true. In one sense it is perfectly understandable that Darwinists continue to grasp at faulty proof because what’s at stake is no less than “supreme cultural authority,” says Woodward. The origin debates, he continues, “touch the deepest level of our personal and societal notions of what it means to be human.”

What motivated the founders in this book (and other participants) to instigate this “reformation within science” is a passion for intellectual truth telling. “Design sees itself,” writes Woodward, “as…doing its best to restore epistemic integrity and to expose and dissolve networks of self-deception as well as public deception.”

Woodward introduces medical doctor and biochemist Michael Denton who lobbed the first salvo in the Design battle. Faulty fossil links and perbiotic soup among other flawed origin stories led Denton to brandish his “weapon,” Evolution: A Theory in Crisis which would establish the tone, purpose, and value of the fight. Woodward’s style of writing is fun to read as is illustrated when Woodward sets the stage of Denton’s “explosive” surprise. He writes, “As the invaders clambered up the cliffs towering over the beaches, they hurled Denton’s explosive charges toward the pillboxes.”

The next person to come to the forefront in this new scientific war over truth is law professor Phillip Johnson. Johnson, Woodward tells us, read both Darwinist Richard Dawkins’ and Denton’s books which reached antithetical conclusions. Johnson realized the immense cultural implications if the Darwinian worldview was proved false. Woodward sums it up by saying it would create a “vast intellectual upheaval” because the Darwinian worldview is interwoven throughout the “entire university environment.” Immediately, Johnson, a keen legal rhetorician and strategist, put Darwin on trial and put considerable energy into getting the discussion started.

Johnson’s story is followed by biologist Michael Behe author of the “anti-Darwinist bomb,” Darwin’s Black Box. Woodward relates how, like Johnson, Behe read Denton’s book and experienced “the greatest intellectual shock of his life.” For years, Behe had believed Darwin’s empirical proof because he had been taught it throughout his school career. He, too, began teaching the controversy. Behe’s conversion caused him to rethink biochemical systems. Behe coined the term “irreducibly complexity” to describe molecular systems which would not function with a missing part, a new weapon in the Intelligent Design movement.

Is it possible to tell if a biological system is “designed?” Mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William Dembski says you can and has devised a new filter to test for it, which he spells out in his book The Design Inference. As Dembski found out, truth telling is never wrong, but sometimes it is costly. In case you’re thinking that Christian institutions are immune from Darwinian stranglehold on truth, you will be surprised to read Dembski’s story where fellow colleagues at Baylor University worked to shut down Dembski’s dissent.

Many well-educated people are resistant to allowing ID a place at the scientific table. Over the years the Wilberforce Forum has received letters from earnest Christians who work in various science fields advising Chuck Colson to forget about the ID movement because it hurt’s the cause of Christianity. But Woodward shows that telling the truth will never hurt the Christian cause. ID’s purpose isn’t to stop good scientific practices—quite the contrary. It will open the stifling Darwinian regime to include considering “natural and intelligent causes in this history of biological origins and innovation,” writes Woodward. What is particularly inviting about the ID movement is its big tent policy. It is comprised of a wide spectrum of people from diverse backgrounds and professions who believe in different origin stories—such as those who believe in guided evolution, others who believe the world was created old or young, and still others who have no particular faith.

Doubts about Darwin is an exciting lesson about the history of Intelligent Design and the intelligent use of rhetoric to breach Darwin’s impregnable fortress. While there are no truces in view, says Woodward, these fighters are working toward intellectual freedom within the academy which has profound implications for all of society.

Kim I. Robbins serves as project manager and research associate for the Wilberforce Forum. She is the managing editor of the Forum's quarterly journal, Findings.

This book by Woodward can be purchased from ARN, at the following page:

http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/php/book_show_item.php?id=62

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