by Terry Scambray<\/p>\n
<\/em>The Chesterton Review<\/em><\/p>\n Darwin\u2019s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil\u00a0<\/em>(Brazos Press, 2001, 189 pp.)<\/strong> According to Cornelius Hunter, theists, not atheists, are responsible for the death of God. Theists did this because God was getting such a bad rap for all the cruelty and imperfections in the world. In other words, in order to save God, theists had to destroy Him or, at the least, change His appearance and M.O enough so that no one would recognize Him which is like being dead anyway.<\/p>\n Assuming all this, imagine God asking in Henny Youngman\u2019s voice, \u201cWith friends like this, who needs enemies?\u201d<\/p>\n This is the question that Hunter takes up and in doing so he shows how religious ideas have profoundly influenced science and especially Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Darwin\u2019s Proof<\/em>, Hunter, whose Ph.D. is in biophysics, recalls that the 19th-century, Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge did not know what to make of Darwin who \u201cdid everything he could to steer his theory away from God, yet he referred to God repeatedly in his arguments for evolution. What sort of God did Darwin have in mind?\u201d (82)<\/p>\n Hodge had put his finger on something that is so obvious that everyone seems to miss it. Darwin, like his followers for the last 150 years, invariably argued that God can\u2019t possibly be responsible for such an evil and flawed creation. Darwin wrote : \u201cThere seems to me too muchmiseryin the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent an omnipotent God would have designedly created the [parasitic wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that the cat should play with mice.\u201d\u00a0 (12Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>)<\/p>\n Almost as upsetting to Darwin were \u201cthe mistakes and imperfect designs\u201d in nature: creatures like the water ouzel, a bird, that spends much of its time underwater, and woodpeckers living where there are no trees; land animals with webbed feet and marine animals with non-webbed feet. And he noted the now famous, Galapagos finches which were enough alike to be related but different enough to make him skeptical that each species was separately created.<\/p>\n But what branch of science is devoted to second guessing God\u2019s plan for the water ouzel? Or playing Monday morning quarterback in the apparently lopsided contest between cats and mice?<\/p>\n No branch of science, of course, is devoted to answering such questions. Yet evolutionists, including those prior to Darwin as well as those writing today, promote evolution because it assumes that an omniscient God would not have created such a maladapted and downright uncivilized world.<\/p>\n For Stephen Jay Gould evolution is true because many organisms look jerry rigged and oddly arranged in a way that \u201ca sensible God\u201d would never have done, but that a natural process would produce. (48\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>)\u00a0 Darwinist Francisco Ayala argues that natural selection accounts \u201cfor the dysfunctions, oddities, cruelties, and sadism that pervade the world of life. Attributing these to . . . the Creator amounts to blasphemy.\u201d (quoted on p. 160\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>) Kenneth Miller, the Brown University cell biologist and prominent Darwinist, says that God would not want to take credit for the mosquito; or take credit for pseudo genes which Miller believes are nonfunctional and reveal a designer who \u201cmade serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles. Evolution, in contrast, can easily explain them as nothing more than failed experiments in a random process.\u201d (47\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>) Physicist Howard Van Till says that separate creations of various species are \u201ctheologically awkward.\u201d Priest and physicist, John Polkinghorne, sees the world as \u201ca top down\u201d affair where God is undetectable, all the while giving \u201cthe gift of Love [which] must be the gift of freedom, the gift of a degree of letting-be.\u201d (20\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) For Polkinghorne, this open creation also explains how evil is able to enter the world.<\/p>\n This list of creation complainers could go on, but then I might open myself to the charge of being a fault finder.<\/p>\n Regardless, as Hunter puts it, \u201c. . . evolutionists who have rigorously attempted to prove their theory have routinely resorted to nonscientific claims.\u201d\u00a0 (112Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>)<\/p>\n Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, an evolutionism support group, offers a worthy distinction: \u201cScience answers the how questions; religion answers the why questions.\u201d She is apparently going to have to do some science educating of her colleagues because the Darwinists invariably permit \u201cWhy questions\u201d to creep into their discussions of science. And Professor Gould, himself, established the gold standard against which all discussions in science should be measured. He called it the non-overlapping magisteria, the famous NOMA principle for intellectual discourse, according to which science and religion are equal, though separated by a thick wall. Like other separate but equal doctrines, this one, apparently, is more honored in the breach than in the observance.<\/p>\n However, science, from its beginnings in 13th-century Europe was based on the theological, metaphysical assumption that the universe is rational and coherent because it was created by a rational God. The source of this conviction, according to Alfred North Whitehead, was \u201cthe medieval insistence on the rationality of God . . . [wherein] Every detail was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith in rationality.” And certainly almost all of the greatest scientists who ever lived, including Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Harvey, had their science influenced by this assumption.<\/p>\n So contrary to stated doctrine, Darwin\u2019s speculations were firmly within the tradition of mixing theological and metaphysical assumptions with science.<\/p>\n As Hunter trenchantly puts it: \u201cDarwin did not liberate biology from metaphysical thought as is sometimes claimed \u2014 he merely switched the metaphysics<\/em>.\u201d [Italics added] (49\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>)<\/p>\n In doing this, Darwin ostensibly made the earlier metaphysical arguments regarding a harmonious universe obsolete, turning them into relics from a non-scientific past. But, contrary to popular perception, he did not accomplish this by marshalling powerful evidence for his theory. As Hunter writes in\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>: \u201cEvolutionists use negative theological arguments that give evolution its force. Creation doesn\u2019t seem very divine so evolution must be true. Evolution is a solution to the age old problem of evil.\u201d (14) Evolution is a theodicy albeit with a scientific patina.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Darwin\u2019s Proof<\/em>, Hunter reaches back to Anselm in the 9th century to find the source of this second guessing of the Almighty. Anselm argued that God is \u201cthat than which no greater can be conceived.\u201d Despite Anselm\u2019s awkward syntax and the ways in which this argument has been discredited, it still has relevance, says Hunter. That is, when we try to imagine an entity greater than God, \u201ca greater god\u201d who would have made a perfect world, then we resemble the ancient Gnostics, the utopians of their day, seeking an impossible other worldly perfection in the here and now.<\/p>\n However, despite the fact that evolutionary theory rests on theological presuppositions, it could, after all, be true. As Hunter writes, \u201cThere is, to be sure, plenty of evidence supporting evolution, but there is plenty of evidence for all sorts of discarded theories.\u00a0 In fact, one can formulate arguments against evolution, often using the same evidence, that are more persuasive than the supporting arguments\u201d (10\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>)<\/p>\n Take dog breeding which is an artificial method of selecting desirable traits in an organism as opposed to natural selection which is nature\u2019s way of doing it. Darwin was fascinated by dog breeders who, starting with a few basic types, are able to develop a great variety of dogs. Darwin saw this selection process as analogous to what might have happened over long periods of time in nature to produce the many from the few.<\/p>\n But the dog breeding example can be used to come to a very opposite conclusion. For the modifications that animal breeders and also horticulturalists invite in animals and plants show that change has limits.\u00a0 An organism can adapt only so far and then it dies. This is why many varieties of plants and animals become extinct.<\/p>\n The famous Galapagos finches whose\u00a0average<\/em>\u00a0beak size changed due to changes in its environment are a much cited example of the power of natural selection. But not only were the changes in beak size microscopic, but the average beak size returned to normal when the food supply returned to normal and foraging was easy for even finches with smaller beaks. So natural selection is not a progressive force; it is a conserving force which occasioned a minor modification, thus permitting the finches to survive intact.<\/p>\n No evidence exists to show that natural selection could ever add any new genetic information which is required to change a finch, even over long periods of time, into a blue jay, let alone into a different type of animal. So when Darwin saw breeding as a useful analogy for major evolutionary transformations, one could be generous and say that he was using poetic license, permitting his hopes or his imagination to soar way beyond the evidence. Being less generous, one could say that he didn\u2019t know better or ignored the evidence.<\/p>\n The fossil record though regularly pointed to as evidence for evolution is, in fact, evidence for the opposite view. For among the fossils, plants and animals are displayed just as they presently exist, in the regular taxonomic categories. Of course, thousands of types of organisms that appear in the fossils have become extinct, but even those organisms can be placed within the existing biological taxonomies. Aristotle saw that life was categorical as did the observers in Darwin\u2019s time. Charles Lyell, the founder of modern geology, as well as Thomas Huxley knew the fossil record showed stasis, no change, altered only by the abrupt appearance of new types of plants and animals. For this reason, Huxley warned Darwin to down play the fossil record when presenting his theory, a theory that both of them had a large emotional investment in.<\/p>\n Since Darwin had used \u201cnegative theology to argue that there was no divine hand in nature,\u201d he could not afford to admit that the fossil record contradicted his thesis. (70\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>) Backed up by Lyell\u2019s uniformitarianism which had triumphed over the catastrophists, Darwin did not want to give back this important ground needed to support his theory. If he admitted too much, he might give some room for God to sneak back into the picture as the creator of those abrupt newcomers in the fossil record.<\/p>\n But he had to admit the obvious: the fossil record contradicted his idea of gradual change. So he quickly offset this admission by confidently predicting that later fossil finds would rescue his theory.<\/p>\n That, of course, did not happen. Fossil finds of the last 140 years have merely replicated the fossil discoveries in Darwin\u2019s time. However, by the 1970’s, when evolution was safely distanced from Darwin\u2019s negative theological arguments, and evolutionary theory had gained enough esteem so as to be synonymous with science itself, then the Darwinists finally had to admit their \u201ctrade secret\u201d as Gould called it. Then he and Niles Eldridge rationalized the situation by arguing that evolutionary change occurred in small isolated groups of animals and plants, so small and so isolated that no fossils exist to record this rapid evolutionary change. This explanation goes by the oxymoronic mouthful, \u201cpunctuated equilibrium.\u201d That is, rapid, abrupt change occurs amidst an ocean of tranquil stability.<\/p>\n As Hunter shows, the original misrepresentation of the fossil record persisted long enough for the theory to get up a good head of steam, after which the dirty laundry was permitted to be publicly aired. Even at that, the skepticism among the paleontologists had to be hidden behind the rubric of a confusing euphemism.<\/p>\n The so-called \u201cvestigial organs\u2019 are also seen as strong evidence for evolution. But as Hunter points out, \u201cThe very use of the term begs the question, for vestigial structures serve as evidence for evolution only if they are indeed vestigial.\u201d (33\u00a0Darwin\u2019s God<\/em>) Regardless, it did appear as if this argument used by Darwin was going to be verified; for, \u201cIn 1895 Robert Wiedersheim published a list of eighty-six organs in the human body that he supposed to be vestigial.\u201d (44\u00a0Darwin\u2019s Proof<\/em>) The pineal gland, the thyroid and the thymus glands, the appendix, the coccyx, all of these and others were classified as mere vestiges from our former selves. \u201cBut in 1981, zoologist, S.R. Scadding analyzed Wiedersheim\u2019s claims and had difficulty finding a single listed organ that was not functional. He concluded that the so-called vestigial organs provide no evidence for evolutionary theory.\u201d (44\u00a0Darwin\u2019s Proof)<\/em><\/p>\n The findings in genetics in the last 60 years are also rumored to have provided, indeed, salted away the case for Darwin by providing evidence \u201cthat\u00a0species do not resist genetic change.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>But the findings, once again, are quite the opposite of this prediction. \u201cRather than species exhibiting fluidity, they seem to resist change and exhibit stasis (as is observed in the fossil record). Geneticist I.M. Lerner coined the term\u00a0genetic homeostasis<\/em>\u00a0to describe this general finding . . .\u201d (78\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>)<\/p>\n However fatal this limitation is for evolution, evolutionists merely see it as something that is not yet understood and, thus, a worthy research problem which will yield, in time, the mechanism that causes the purported evolutionary change.<\/p>\n So if one believes in evolution in the first place, then the various difficulties can be worked around with exquisite rationales like punctuated equilibrium or the promise of new discoveries. Otherwise the fossils, animal breeding, vestigial organs, and the limits imposed by genetics can more readily be used to discredit the theory.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of this leads to the curious combination of metaphysical certainty and scientific ambiguity in the historical sciences,\u201d as Hunter succinctly writes. (61Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) \u201cEvolution is a fact\u201d, we are relentless told, yet the theory leaks like a sieve. Pointing\u00a0this fact\u00a0<\/em>out will only gain one the appellation, \u201ccreationist,\u201d replete with all of its built-in pejoratives.<\/p>\n Such labeling is regrettable though, in a way, understandable given that Darwinists see themselves in relentless combat with a rigid orthodoxy. And this makes it difficult for them to make any concessions. How can they? \u2014 when they invariably insist that evil and imperfection are incompatible with a Divine Superintendent\u00a0 \u2014 all the while intoning against \u201cmixing science and religion.\u201d<\/p>\n But, Hunter\u2019s well documented trilogy demonstrates that it is the Darwinists who are deeply mired in religious doctrine, the doctrine of a non-interfering God.<\/p>\n Many factors, of course, have caused such a limiting idea to take hold, but for sure the discrediting of Christianity and specifically the Biblical doctrine of original sin inflated and distorted human perceptions.<\/p>\n Along with this, a new world was being dramatically opened up by the telescope and the microscope, a grainier and more disturbing world full of endless suffering and of distant peoples and even of distant universes, all of which were difficult to fit into a picture of a God who tends the lilies of the field and knows the trajectory of every sparrow.<\/p>\n Considering all this, it would be better that a benevolent and good God be distanced from such debasement. As Hunter writes: \u201cHistorians well know that the justification of the seventeenth century\u2019s naturalism involved non-scientific \u2014 theological \u2014 assumptions. What is not always appreciated, however, is just how crucial these theological assumptions were in the move to naturalism.\u201d (20\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>)<\/p>\n Not only are these beginnings of naturalism not understood, but Deism, the distancing God from the world, was not worked out by religious skeptics; it was done by theists who thought that an absentee God would be even more worthy of respect.<\/p>\n But an even richer irony is that the Darwinists, who label any criticism of evolution as \u2018religious\u2019, have, from the beginning, based their own arguments on what Hunter refers to as \u201ctheological naturalism.\u201d<\/p>\n Hunter documents this claim by first recounting the 17th-century disagreement between Isaac Newton and an influential Anglican cleric and science writer, Thomas Burnet. Newton, of course, had discovered the elegant laws of motion that keep the planets swirling in their orbits, but he also \u201cbelieved that these laws had their limits. Not only could they not construct the system in the first place\u201d but irregularities would occur that required divine intervention. (21Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) Thus, Newton was no Deist. Indeed, as one incisive commentator puts it, \u201cNewton himself did not hold what came to be called the Newtonian worldview.\u201d In contrast, Burnet, who corresponded with Newton and was widely admired, wrote, \u201cWe think him a better Artist who makes the clock that strikes regularly at every hour .\u00a0 .\u00a0 . than he that hath so made his Clock that he must put his finger to it every hour to make it strike.\u201d (20-21Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) In other words, God should not be reduced to playing the role of a 24\/7 celestial handyman for His own bungled creation.<\/p>\n Much the same critique was offered by Leibniz, and also Kant who wrote that it is appropriate to the wisdom of God that the cosmic structures \u201cdevelop themselves in an unforced succession out of the universal laws.\u201d (22\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>)<\/p>\n Even William Paley, famous for his clear expression of the design argument, expressed admiration for a God who could not only create objects that had a watch-like precision, but Who also could make them so that they would work on their own and even replicate themselves. Darwin\u2019s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who unlike Paley was a religious skeptic, reflected a pervasive belief of the time when he wrote : \u201cThe world itself might have been generated, rather than created.\u00a0 .\u00a0 .What a magnificent idea of the great architect ! The Cause of Causes ! \u201d (22\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>)<\/p>\n This religious sentiment gained popularity across the board, dovetailing with Charles Lyell\u2019s immensely influential concept of \u201cuniformitarianism\u201d which was thought to be more conducive \u201cto a properly worshipful attitude\u201d than instantaneous creation would be. It was better if nature were seamless and did everything on its own.<\/p>\n As the influence of the Bible declined under the attacks of the Higher Criticism, nature and reason alone came to be prized as sources for religious belief. Belief, thus, was seen as a logical conclusion to be drawn from the facts of nature which were available to everyone even those who, by no fault of their own, had not heard of the Bible. The title of Matthew Tindal\u2019s 1730 book,Christianity as Old as the Creation,<\/em>\u00a0makes the point.<\/p>\n Closer in time to Darwin and of immediate influence on him was the pristine world view of the Victorians. But this view withered when contrasted to the world revealed to Darwin on his five-year trip to South America. There he witnessed the horrors of slavery and the brutal life of aboriginal peoples, as well as the abundance of bizarre and inexplicable plant and animal life.<\/p>\n Then Darwin read Thomas Malthus, the Anglican parson and political economist, who contended that nature wills the death of millions of people because the population will always increase faster than the food supply. Malthus\u2019 idea became grimly popular and Darwin saw it as another example of nature\u2019s indifference.<\/p>\n Certainly atheists like Steven Weinberg and Richard Dawkins see naturalism as merely the way things are. But, as Hunter reminds us, in his latest book, \u201cthe atheists are a sideshow; the mandate for naturalism in science arose from theism, not atheism.\u201d (49\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>)<\/p>\n Other thinkers may find Hunter\u2019s thesis an intriguing revelation; but, for various reasons, they hesitate to challenge the reigning paradigm.<\/p>\n The historian, for example, knows that naturalism is an historical episode; nonetheless, he is impressed by the inexorable march of technical progress in the last 400 years which parallels the rise of naturalism. What he may not know is that the impressive success of naturalism in the experimental sciences has not been duplicated in the historical sciences.<\/p>\n The theologian is afraid to change the status quo and permit religion back into the discourse. Sure, religion may temporarily get a boost by using God to explain the present unknowns, but when science comes up with better explanations to fill the gaps, \u201cGod will be crowded out.\u201d (48\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) The philosopher, for his part, understands what naturalism is. Thus he looks at the findings of science with skepticism, knowing that even the most respected scientific theories may be unproveable and that science at times relies on useful fictions and constructs. But he will put up with the status quo because he fears religious activists who might corrupt science to serve their preconceived ideas.<\/p>\n But the evidence for a completely naturalistic explanation in biology as well as in cosmology is in tatters. Materialists like Francis Crick and Fred Hoyle while admitting that the universe is designed, nonetheless still insist that some combination of natural causes did the heavy lifting. Crick says that space aliens did it; Hoyle said that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, chemistry and biology to make the universe. Other cosmologists extend the possibilities by saying that an infinity of extinct universes, for which there is no evidence, had enough time through trial and error to naturally make our universe. Yes, the original multiverse concept was offered as an attempt to resolve problems caused by quantum theory. But has such speculation become a way for cosmologists to postpone infinitely, ever having to say that they are wrong? If one were sufficiently cynical, one could say that the intent of such airy speculation is to keep alternative views on the defensive. Regardless, no one from the naturalist camp appears ready to consider another possibility.<\/p>\n Even though, as Hunter reminds us, \u201cnaturalism is not a discovery of science \u2014 it is a presumption of science as currently practiced.\u201d It \u201carose within the history of ideas and that, like any idea, it might have its limits.\u201d (47\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) Indeed, saying that naturalism is science is itself not scientific.<\/p>\n In the experimental sciences, when doing things like studying the ontogeny of a frog, naturalism can explain a great deal. But it is less useful as an explanation of human consciousness. Naturalism also is not up to the task of explaining certain phenomena in the historical sciences, an area which encompasses the study of origins. This is not to say that naturalism should be ruled out as an explanation in either of these areas; insisting on this would also be unscientific.<\/p>\n Hunter wisely sees that when naturalism is misapplied, science is hampered by a \u201cblind spot\u201d which prevents otherwise sensible people from seeing worthy alternatives.<\/p>\n For Hunter, \u201cthe evidence for design is overwhelming.\u201d (147\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) Michael Denton, a medical doctor, PhD molecular biologist and religious agnostic, is also a strong design advocate. In what is, perhaps, the singularly most important book of the last half century,\u00a0Evolution: A Theory in Crisis<\/em>, he writes: \u201c. . . the inference to design is a purely\u00a0a posteriori<\/em>\u00a0induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications, but it does not depend on religious presuppositions.\u201d (341)<\/p>\n In Denton\u2019s 1998 sequel,\u00a0Nature\u2019s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology<\/em>\u00a0reveal Purpose in the Universe,\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0he exhaustively shows how user friendly the universe is. He concludes this detailed but limpid book by writing:<\/p>\n Whether one rejects or accepts the design hypothesis, whether one thinks of the designer as the Greek world soul or the Hebrew God, there is no avoiding the conclusion that the world\u00a0looks<\/em>\u00a0as if it has been uniquely tailored for life:\u00a0it appears to have been designed<\/em>. All reality\u00a0appears<\/em>\u00a0to be a vast teleological whole with life and mankind as its purpose and goal . . . Four centuries after the scientific revolution apparently destroyed irretrievably man\u2019s special place, banished Aristotle, and rendered teleological speculation obsolete, the relentless stream of discovery has turned dramatically in favor of teleology and design . . .\u00a0 (387-389)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Denton and others like him should not be ruled out merely because their pronouncements stand outside \u201cthe relatively narrow band of naturalism,\u201d as Hunter puts it. (144\u00a0Science\u2019s Blind Spot<\/em>) Accepting design as a possible explanation in the study of origins would redirect science away from the narrower path of naturalistic explanations and down a wider and more encompassing path toward truth.<\/p>\n Design advocates, for their part, are not unalterably opposed to naturalistic explanations when such explanations fit the evidence. Perhaps the evolutionist\u2019s idea of common descent is true, though more evidence must be forthcoming to make the case.<\/p>\n The main obstacle to the acceptance of intelligent design is the same rationale the Darwinists use to support evolution: The world has too much evil and is poorly designed. But design does not presuppose perfection; only a certain view of a designer presupposes perfection, imagining \u201ca greatergod\u201d who could\u2019ve or should\u2019ve. And that gets us back into theology. As do discussions of evil which is difficult, if not impossible, to measure scientifically.<\/p>\n Besides, as with vestigial organs, science simply does not know or understand the differences between imperfect and perfect designs. For example, certain design features involve trade-offs. Thus it is not coincidental that many engineers are attracted to design theory. They would be among the first to understand that when designing a house, the designer can\u2019t put the attic in the basement, nor place all the windows so as to take perfect advantage of the sun as it moves in different seasonal paths across the sky. Of course, one could argue that the Designer, being all powerful, should be able to adjust the sun\u2019s movement to satisfy the desires of each of the residents of the home during various times of the day as well as allow the sun to perform its many other functions. The weaknesses of such an argument are obvious.<\/p>\n Regardless, a great variety of arguments do need to be hashed out. Surely Hunter\u2019s trilogy is incisive and bold enough to encourage such a consilience to occur. Perhaps then people will recognize the differences between science and theology. Failing to do so, limits the responses that we are able to give to that most important question: Where did we come from?<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Terry Scambray<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Review of Cornelius Hunter’s trilogy. by Terry Scambray The Chesterton Review Darwin\u2019s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil\u00a0(Brazos Press, 2001, 189 pp.) Darwin\u2019s Proof: The Triumph of Religion over Science\u00a0(Brazos Press, 2003, 168 pp.) Science\u2019s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism\u00a0(Brazos Press, 2007, 170 pp.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[87,85],"tags":[192,218,559,1028,1067,558,662,1060,1073,661],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Cx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3152,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obstructed-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":2389,"position":0},"title":"Obstructed View","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Scambray Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity Science\u2019s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism\u00a0by Cornelius Hunter. (Brazos Press, 2007) Most people think that science and religion were entangled in the past, to the detriment of science, but that the modern, experimental science of the last 400\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1563,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/beyond-the-scopes-trial\/","url_meta":{"origin":2389,"position":1},"title":"Beyond the Scopes Trial?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Singham's new book misses the Christian foundation of law and much more. by Terry Scambray New Oxford Review God vs. Darwin: The War between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom\u00a0by Mano Singham (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). You can judge this book by its cover. Or at least by its title.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terry Scambray"","block_context":{"text":"Terry Scambray","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/terry-scambray\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1352,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-eulogy-for-selective-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":2389,"position":2},"title":"A Eulogy for “Selective Death”","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Scambray New Oxford Review A review of\u00a0What Darwin Got Wrong\u00a0by Jerry Fodor and\u00a0 Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 179 pp.) Modernism is built on Charles Darwin's idea that the world made itself. So when Darwin's idea is discredited, then the materialist and reductionist foundations of Marxism, Freudianism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":404,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/silenced-partner-two-books-on-alfred-wallace\/","url_meta":{"origin":2389,"position":3},"title":"Silenced Partner: Two Books on Alfred Wallace","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Scambray Touchstone A review of: Alfred Russel Wallace's Theory of Intelligent Evolution: How Wallace's Theory of Life Challenged Darwinism\u00a0by Michael A. Flannery (Erasmus Press, 2008.\u00a0 216 pp.) Includes an abridged version of Wallace's\u00a0The World of Life, with an Introduction by Flannery and a Forward by William A. Dembski.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6666,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/book-review-intelligent-design-or-unintelligent-design\/","url_meta":{"origin":2389,"position":4},"title":"Book Review: Intelligent Design or Unintelligent Design?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Scambray \/\/\u00a0New Oxford Review, October 2013\u00a0 Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, Stephen C. Meyer. Harper One, 2013. 412 pp. \u00a0Stephen Meyer has followed his highly acclaimed,\u00a0Signature in the Cell, with a worthy sequel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The sequel,\u00a0Darwin's Doubt,\u00a0blends the findings from molecular\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1167,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/evidence-against-the-evidence\/","url_meta":{"origin":2389,"position":5},"title":"Evidence Against the Evidence","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Meyer's new book reveals the irrational about evolution by Terry Scambray New Oxford Review A review of\u00a0Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design\u00a0by Stephen C. Meyer.\u00a0 Harper One, 2009. In a scene that could be straight out of a Henry James novel, Stephen Meyer, then an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terry Scambray"","block_context":{"text":"Terry Scambray","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/terry-scambray\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/2391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDarwin\u2019s Proof: The Triumph of Religion over Science<\/em>\u00a0(Brazos Press, 2003, 168 pp.)<\/strong>
\nScience\u2019s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism<\/em>\u00a0(Brazos Press, 2007, 170 pp.)<\/strong><\/p>\n