Darwin on Trial

211 Pages·2015·1.567 MB·English

by  Phillip E. Johnson

Darwin on Trial

Copyright © 1991 by Phillip E. Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be
invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for
inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.
Regnery® is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding
Corporation
First e-book edition 2015, ISBN 978-1-62157-513-9
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Johnson, Phillip E., 1940-
Darwin on trial / Phillip E. Johnson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Evolution. I. Title.
QH366.2.J65 1991
575—dc20 90-26218
CIP
Published in the United States by
Regnery Publishing
A Division of Salem Media Group
300 New Jersey Ave NW
Washington, DC 20001
www.Regnery.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on
discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.
Distributed to the trade by
Perseus Distribution
250 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10107
To those (especially Kathie) who listened and read, and did
their best to help me stay on the straight and narrow path; and
To those brave souls who asked the hard questions even when
there was never a chance of getting a straight answer; and
To those in science who want to allow the questions to be
asked.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
THE LEGAL SETTING
CHAPTER TWO
NATURAL SELECTION
CHAPTER THREE
MUTATIONS GREAT AND SMALL
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FOSSIL PROBLEM
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FACT OF EVOLUTION
CHAPTER SIX
THE VERTEBRATE SEQUENCE
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE MOLECULAR EVIDENCE
CHAPTER EIGHT
PREBIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
CHAPTER NINE
THE RULES OF SCIENCE
CHAPTER TEN
DARWINIST RELIGION
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DARWINIST EDUCATION
CHAPTER TWELVE
SCIENCE AND PSEUDOSCIENCE
RESEARCH NOTES
CHAPTER ONE
THE LEGAL SETTING
In 1981 the state legislature of Louisiana passed a law
requiring that if “evolution-science” is taught in the
public schools, the schools must also provide balanced
treatment for something called “creation-science.” The
statute was a direct challenge to the scientific orthodoxy
of today, which is that all living things evolved by a gradual,
natural process—from nonliving matter to simple
microorganisms, leading eventually to man. Evolution is
taught in the public schools (and presented in the media) not as
a theory but as a fact, the “fact of evolution.” There are
nonetheless many dissidents, some with advanced scientific
degrees, who deny that evolution is a fact and who insist that
an intelligent Creator caused all living things to come into
being in furtherance of a purpose.
The conflict requires careful explanation, because the
terms are confusing. The concept of creation in itself does not
imply opposition to evolution, if evolution means only a
gradual process by which one kind of living creature changes
into something different. A Creator might well have employed
such a gradual process as a means of creation. “Evolution”
contradicts “creation” only when it is explicitly or tacitly
defined as fully naturalistic evolution—meaning evolution that
is not directed by any purposeful intelligence.
Similarly, “creation” contradicts evolution only when it
means sudden creation, rather than creation by progressive
development. For example, the term “creation-science,” as
used in the Louisiana law, is commonly understood to refer to
a movement of Christian fundamentalists based upon an
extremely literal interpretation of the Bible. Creation-scientists
do not merely insist that life was created; they insist that the
job was completed in six days no more than ten thousand years
ago, and that all evolution since that time has involved trivial
modifications rather than basic changes. Because creation-
science has been the subject of so much controversy and
media attention, many people assume that anyone who
advocates “creation” endorses the “young earth” position and
attributes the existence of fossils to Noah’s flood. Clearing up
1
that confusion is one of the purposes of this book.
The Louisiana statute and comparable laws in other states
grew out of the long-standing efforts of Christian
fundamentalists to reassert the scientific vitality of the Biblical
narrative of creation against its Darwinist rival. The great
landmark in this Bible-science conflict was the famous Scopes
case, the “monkey trial” of the 1920s, which most Americans
know in the legendary version portrayed in the play and movie
Inherit the Wind. The legend tells of religious fanatics who
invade a school classroom to persecute an inoffensive science
teacher, and of a heroic defense lawyer who symbolizes reason
itself in its endless battle against superstition.
As with many legendary incidents the historical record is
more complex. The Tennessee legislature had passed as a
symbolic measure a statute prohibiting the teaching of
evolution, which the governor signed only with the explicit
understanding that the ban would not be enforced. Opponents
of the law (and some people who just wanted to put Dayton,
Tennessee, on the map) engineered a test case. A former
substitute teacher named Scopes, who wasn’t sure whether he
had ever actually taught evolution, volunteered to be the
defendant.
The case became a media circus because of the colorful
attorneys involved. William Jennings Bryan, three-time
Democratic presidential candidate and secretary of state under
President Woodrow Wilson, led the prosecution. Bryan was a
Bible believer but not an uncompromising literalist, in that he
thought that the “days” of Genesis referred not to 24-hour
periods but to historical ages of indefinite duration. He
opposed Darwinism largely because he thought that its
acceptance had encouraged the ethic of ruthless competition
that underlay such evils as German militarism and robber
baron capitalism.
The Scopes defense team was led by the famous criminal
lawyer and agnostic lecturer Clarence Darrow. Darrow
maneuvered Bryan into taking the stand as an expert witness
on the Bible and humiliated him in a devastating cross-
examination. Having achieved his main purpose, Darrow
admitted that his client had violated the statute and invited the
jury to convict. The trial thus ended in a conviction and a
nominal fine of $100. On appeal, the Tennessee supreme court
threw out the fine on a technicality but held the statute
constitutional. From a legal standpoint the outcome was
inconclusive, but as presented to the world by the sarcastic
journalist H. L. Mencken, and later by Broadway and
Hollywood, the “monkey trial” was a public relations triumph
for Darwinism.
The scientific establishment was not exactly covering itself
with glory at the time, however. Although he did not appear at
the trial, the principal spokesman for evolution during the
1920s was Henry Fairfield Osborn, Director of the American
Museum of Natural History. Osborn relied heavily upon the
notorious Piltdown Man fossil, now known to be a fraud, and
he was delighted to confirm the discovery of a supposedly pre-
human fossil tooth by the paleontologist Harold Cooke in
Bryan’s home state of Nebraska. Thereafter Osborn
prominently featured “Nebraska Man” (scientific designation:
Hesperopithecus haroldcookii) in his antifundamentalist
newspaper articles and radio broadcasts, until the tooth was
discovered to be from a peccary, a kind of pig. If Osborn had
been cross-examined by a lawyer as clever as Clarence
Darrow, and satirized by a columnist as ruthless as H. L.
Mencken, he would have looked as silly as Bryan.
The anti-evolution statutes of the 1920s were not enforced,
but textbook publishers tended to say as little as possible about
evolution to avoid controversy. The Supreme Court eventually
held the statutes unconstitutional in 1968, but by then the
fundamentalists had changed their objective. Creation research
institutes were founded, and books began to appear which
attacked the orthodox interpretation of the scientific evidence
and argued that the geological and fossil record could be
harmonized with the Biblical account. None of this literature
was taken seriously by the scientific establishment or the mass
media, but the creation-scientists themselves became
increasingly confident that they had a scientific case to make.
They also began to see that it was possible to turn the
principles of liberal constitutional law to their advantage by
claiming a right to debate evolutionists on equal terms in
school science classes. Their goal was no longer to suppress
the teaching of evolution, but to get a fair hearing for their
own viewpoint. If there is a case to be made for both sides of a
scientific controversy, why should public school students, for
example, hear only one side? Creation-scientists emphasized
that they wanted to present only the scientific arguments in the
schools; the Bible itself was not to be taught.
Of course mainstream science does not agree that there are
two sides to the controversy, and regards creation-science as a
fraud. Equal time for creation-science in biology classes, the
Darwinists like to say, is like equal time for the theory that it is
the stork that brings babies. But the consensus view of the
scientific establishment is not enshrined in the Constitution.
Lawmakers are entitled to act on different assumptions, at least
to the extent that the courts will let them.
Louisiana’s statute never went into effect because a federal
judge promptly held it unconstitutional as an “establishment of
religion.” In 1987 the Supreme Court of the United States
affirmed this decision by a seven to two majority. The
Louisiana law was unconstitutional, said the majority opinion
by Justice William Brennan, because its purpose “was clearly
to advance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being
created humankind.” Not so, said the dissenting opinion by
Justice Antonin Scalia, because “The people of Louisiana,
including those who are Christian fundamentalists, are quite
entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific
evidence there may be against evolution presented in their
schools, just as Mr. Scopes was entitled to present whatever
scientific evidence there was for it.”