(Editors’ note: The October issue of First Things featured Phillip Johnson’s essay, “Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism,” along with responses to the essay by William B. Provine, Gareth Nelson, Irving Kristol, Thomas H. Jukes, and Matthew Berke. Herewith Professor Johnson’s reply.)

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Readers of my article and the responses may have noticed that where I attacked Darwinism and the establishment of naturalism, Thomas Jukes and William Provine responded with a spirited defense of evolution. The choice of words is important, because “evolution” is a vague term with immense power to confuse.

The important claim of “evolution” is that life developed gradually from nonliving matter to its present state of diverse complexity through purposeless natural mechanisms that are known to science. Evolution in this sense is a grand metaphysical system that contradicts any meaningful notion of creation, because it leaves the Creator with nothing to do. Contemporary neo-Darwinism rules out theistic or “guided” evolution just as firmly as it rejects direct creation ex nihilo.



I am glad to see Jukes stating explicitly that the peppered-moth case is notan example of evolution, because that example has been cited in texts and popular treatments for decades as proof of “Darwin’s theory.” Currently, the Darwinists are trumpeting some research on guppies as providing the elusive proof. The breeding practices of guppy populations vary according to the kind of predators they face. When predators attack adults guppies tend to produce more offspring earlier in life, and when predators attack primarily juveniles the adults tend to bear their offspring later in life.





It isn’t merely that grand-scale Darwinism can’t be confirmed. The evidence is positively against the theory. For example, if Darwinism is true then the bat, monkey, pig, seal, and whale all evolved in gradual adaptive stages from a primitive rodent-like predecessor. This hypothetical common ancestor must have been connected to its diverse descendants by long linking chains of transitional intermediates,* which in turn put out innumerable side branches. The intermediate links would have to be adaptively superior to their predecessors, and be in the process of developing the complex integrated organs required for aquatic life, flight, and so on. Fossil evidence that anything of the sort happened is thoroughly missing, and in addition it is extremely difficult to imagine how the hypothetical intermediate steps could have been adaptive.


From time to time something is found that can be interpreted to support the Darwinian scenario. The importance of such a find is then exaggerated, and the mountains of negative evidence are quite unscientifically brushed aside. An example is Provine’s purported “fossil ancestors of whales having small but still functioning legs.”

Provine evidently has in mind the Basilosaurus fossils recently reported inScience. Basilosaurus is not an ancestor of modern whales. This oddity was a kind of serpentine sea monster that has important affinities with whales but looks sufficiently different that it was at first thought to be a reptile. (The name means “King Lizard.”) Paleontologists report finding fossil leg and foot bones “in direct association with articulated skeletons of Basilosauras.” Upon reconstruction these are deemed to show vestigial hind limbs, which were too small to be used for swimming and which could not conceivably have supported the body on land. Possibly the limbs were used as guides for copulation, but that is only a guess.

There is additional circumstantial evidence which suggests a relationship between whales and land mammals. For example, modern whales have what appear to be rod-like vestiges of pelvic bones. You can call this relationship “evolution” if you like, but all you have done is to put a label on a mystery. What Darwinists want us to believe (and want to believe themselves) is that they know how mindless natural forces could have produced all those diverse mammals from an unknown common ancestor, and ultimately from a microorganism. The problem is that their theory doesn’t fit the evidence, which is why they have to protect it with bluster.


The point of Darwinism is not to describe molecular relationships but to get rid of the Designer and substitute the Blind Watchmaker. As a consequence the science education organizations are engaged in a campaign of indoctrination against the concept of creation. By that I donot mean biblical literalism, but the much broader notion that a purposeful intelligence is responsible for our existence. I regret that Irving Kristol misunderstood me on this point. No doubt that is my fault for not avoiding the word “creation,” but it is just too good a word for me to allow either the scientific naturalists or the biblical literalists to capture it for their own purposes.

The science educators are not staying away from the topic of creation, but rather are campaigning against the idea. When accused of this they prevaricate, hiding within the vagueness of terms like “evolution” and “religion.” The President of the august National Academy of Sciences resorted to the following classic of Newspeak: “A great many religious leaders accept evolution on scientific grounds without relinquishing their belief in religious principles.” He wouldn’t have signed his name to that statement if he had expected to be questioned closely about what he meant by “evolution,” “religious principles,” and “scientific grounds.”

Gareth Nelson refers briefly to the many points on which we agree, but then moves quickly to the safer ground of comparing today’s science-education establishment favorably to the Sorbonne theologians of 1751. I concede that the Darwinists do not show heretics the implements of torture, but they do use all their institutional power to ensure that critics do not get a fair hearing. That is what Jukes and Provine have in mind when they suggest that responsible editors know better than to publish essays like mine. Darwinists also pursue a steady campaign of disinformation, slandering dissenters as “creationists” (i.e., biblical literalists) who deny “evolution” (observable adaptive modifications or relationships) because they just can’t bear to face the facts.


The real danger to science is that it is being linked to a dogma that can’t stand close examination in order to further an ideological agenda that goes way beyond the proper concerns of science. The worst kind of science education is the kind that tells students it is wrong to question the pronouncements of authority. The corrective doesn’t require giving a place in science class to the biblical literalists. To borrow Irving Kristol’s prescription, “Our goal should be to have biology and evolution taught in a way that points to what we don’t know as well as what we do.” I would only add that it would help if we could get the science educators to define that word “evolution” precisely and use it consistently.

* Like “evolution,” “intermediates” is a term which can be used with different meanings. What Darwinism requires is not fossils that are in some vague sense intermediate between major groups, but fossils that can establish common ancestry and direct liries of descent from ancestor to descendant. According to University of Chicago paleontologist David M. Raup, “If Darwin were writing today, he would probably still have to cite a disturbing lack of missing links or transitional forms between the major groups of organisms.” This is after 130 years of very determined efforts to confirm the theory.
