I feel quite strongly about the subject of Intelligent Design. It was not always the case, and not only for the obvious reason that it is a quite recent academic movement, and active mainly in the United States. My university training before entering Moore College over 40 years ago was in Electrical Engineering, not in Biology. As a primary school child and an avid reader, I was aware of a discrepancy between what I learned in Sunday School and what was being said elsewhere about the start of the human race.
Although down the years I accumulated a number of “anti-evolution” books, I was really more interested in other things. Besides, some of them claimed that the world really was created in six normal days, and so I paid them little attention, as I had come to the opinion that the scientific evidence for the long ages of human development is very good, and that a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis Chpt. 1 (and of Chpt. 2) is not the way to go. I am still of that opinion.
While those books were full of detail, my lack of expertise in Biology and Paleontology etc. etc. meant that I found it difficult to be fully persuaded by their content. In a sense, I was lazy, and altogether too trusting of biologists and what they put in their school text books and in other weightier tomes. I vaguely believed in “Evolution”, as propounded by Charles Darwin, and regarded it as the mechanism by which God brought life to its present stage. Also, I was unaware that in discussing this subject, one should distinguish between microevolution (change and adaptation within main classes of living things) and macroevolution (all living things having developed from a limited number of earlier, simpler organisms by “natural” and explainable mechanisms, involving millions of years of tiny and gradual changes). To say that “evolution is supported by fact” (as per a recent Editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald) masks the actual situation that microevolution is abundantly supported by facts, whereas the scientific evidence for macroevolution (Darwin’s main concern) is so lacking as to be almost non-existent. But I was unaware of this.
All this changed a few years ago, when I read a book by an Australian (actually English-born) molecular biologist, Dr Michael Denton, called “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis”, and first published in 1985. What set this book apart was not merely the “new” discoveries from the field of microbiology which were raising serious doubts about certain aspects of Darwin’s Theory. What was just as impressive was Denton’s almost encyclopaedic knowledge of how other areas of biology related to Darwin’s Theory, and of the wide-ranging effect the Theory has had on human thinking far beyond the borders of biology. He said in 1986 to a Sydney newspaper reporter, “I am 100 per cent certain that 50 years from now there will be very few academics who believe evolution occurred the way (we now say) it did.” He also described himself to that reporter as being an agnostic.
I have since bought and read carefully six substantial books written by the main proponents of Intelligent Design, and list them here along with the writers’ academic status. All are professing Christians. Denton’s book is included, although he would probably call himself a “fellow traveller”.
1. “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis” by Michael Denton. (An agnostic) First edition 1985 (Burnett Books Ltd of Great Britain) First paperback edition 1996 (Adler & Adler, Publishers, Inc. of U.S.A.) ISBN 0-917561-52-X (M.D. is an Australian molecular biologist and medical doctor who is best known for his biological research. His second book, “Nature’s Destiny”, deals with wider issues than biology. I have not yet read it).
2. “Darwin’s Black Box” by Michael J. Behe. First Touchstone Edition 1998 Touchstone is a trade mark of Simon & Schuster Inc. of U.S.A.) ISBN 0-684-83493-6 (Paperback) (M.B. is Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University).
3. “Intelligent Design” by William A. Dembski. Published 1999? by InterVarsity Press of U.S.A. ISBN 0-8308-1581-3 (Currently a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute Center for the Renewal of Science And Culture - the I.D. “headquarters”. He holds a number of degrees in mathematics, philosophy, theology and psychology)
4. “The Design Revolution” by William A. Dembski. Published 2004? by InterVarsity Press of U.S.A., USA ISBN 0-8308-3216-5
5. “Darwin on Trial” by Phillip E. Johnson. First Edition 1991. Second Edition 1993 by InterVarsity Press of U.S.A. ISBN 0-8308-1324-1 (P.J. has taught law for over twenty years at the University of California at Berkeley. He is not a scientist, but is skilled in logical argument and is a great debater in the field of Evolution.)
6. “The Wedge of Truth” by Phillip E. Johnson, 2000 by InterVarsity Press of U.S.A. ISBN 0-8308-2267-4
7. “Signs of Intelligence” ed. by William A. Dembski & James M. Kushiner. Published (2001?) by Brazos Press, a division of Baker Book House Company of U.S.A. ISBN 0-58743-004-5 (pbk.) Contains 14 essays of the main players in the I.D. movement, originally printed in the journal, “Touchstone”.
The content of these books may be divided into three main areas.
The first of these deals with incontestable scientific “facts” which are seriously at odds with Darwin’s Theory. This includes the fossil evidence, which Darwin knew at the time was not supportive of his ideas, only he expected that with more digging, it would. It hasn’t, although 150 years later there has been a lot more digging, some of it unearthing (literally) areas which cover vast lengths of time without interruption. It also includes evidence from scientific fields which did not exist at Darwin’s time, such as microbiology. I have been convinced by what I have read, that the widespread belief that Darwin has it all wrapped up is quite unwarranted by the evidence, and that his ideas (correct and impressive in some areas) need to be drastically re-assessed.
The second area concentrates on the subject of living things and their origins, particularly with respect to any hypothetical simple living cell or cells from which all else developed. Darwin paid little attention to this, apart from suggesting that a “fortuitous” coming together of the right chemicals in some primordial “soup” could account for the origin of such a cell.
Microbiology has now shown that the simplest living cell which we can imagine, capable of reproducing itself, is far from simple. Its complexity is (and would have to be) such, that its accidental appearance would involve statistics of astonishing unlikelihood. The matter is pursued with some mathematical rigour. The inference from this situation is that here is clear evidence that living cells have been designed by an intelligent agent. Hence the term, “Intelligent Design”. However, evidence pointing in the same direction is found in other aspects of living things, aspects which are very difficult to account for solely in terms of Darwin’s proposed mechanism of “Natural Selection”. This is the most controversial part of Intelligent Design, at least at one level, as it can be argued that this kind of inference is not scientific, for it implies the existence of some entity (e.g. God) which cannot be verified by scientific tests.
The third aspect of their books may be called “philosophical”, and addresses matters such as that stated in the previous paragraph. It correctly identifies “Naturalism” as a basic plank in much modern thinking, namely that the observable world (and universe) is basically all that exists, and nothing else. This explains why the attempts of the Intelligent Design movement to question the correctness of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is being met with such ferocious opposition.
These people are not creationists believing in a six-day creation of the world as recently as some thousands of years ago, nor do they lack credible scientific status or academic accomplishment. It can be claimed that some of them are risking academic career progress in speaking up for what they believe to be “scientific truth”. But Christians should be grateful for a movement, still in its infancy, which seems to have the potential to release the world from its obsession with a theory of life which as well as being wrong (judged by the scientific evidence), has had devastating effects on people’s readiness to take the Gospel of Christ seriously.
Many years ago at the dinner table at Moore College, Dr Broughton Knox said in my hearing, “We need to start attacking the Theory of Evolution”. I praise God that He seems to be raising up believers from within the scientific community, who are qualified to do just that! Let us learn from their efforts, and pray that God will use all this to His glory.
The Rev John Reimer has been Rector of Northmead, Pagewood and Leura. He retired in March 2004. He graduated in Electrical Engineering at U.N.S.W. in 1961 (the course included units in Formal Logic and Philosophy of Science) and in Divinity (University of London) in 1967 while studying at Moore College (the course included the subject, Philosophy of Religion).
