Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial

In the epilogue, Johnson updates the reader on the impact the book has made in the scholarly community as well as in the public domain. He asks the questions: what is a critic of evolution and why is criticism so unusual? He emphasizes that for him it is not a Bible versus science debate. He is interested in what scientific investigation has to tell us about the origin and history of life. The main argument of his book has been to recognize that we know a great deal less than has been claimed in evolutionary science. He points out that he is a critic of evolution because he distinguishes between naturalistic philosophy and empirical science and that he opposes the former when it comes cloaked in the authority of the latter. He poses that naturalistic evolution is not merely a scientific theory; it is the official creation story of modern culture.

Johnson brings up Stephen Jay Gould’s responses to much of these questions and notices how dangerously close he comes to admitting bias and prejudice in conducting scientific study. Gould unwittingly laid into destroying the argument of Darwin on Trial, but Johnson was elated because he realized he had struck a nerve in America’s most prominent Darwinist. In one place Gould was even self-refuting on the relationship of science and religion. Johnson goes on to retell his interaction with Michael Ruse, a philosophical Darwinist, where they debated on the campus of Southern Methodist University. About a year later, Ruse was asked to speak at conference about Darwin on Trial, without the presence of Johnson, in which he mentioned his previous discussions with Johnson to be “quite constructive.” The audience it seems was stunned with silence. They obviously did not know what to do with his statement. To this Arthur Shapiro remarked that Ruse was fully conceding to Johnson. Johnson notes that Shapiro’s remarks illustrate a misconception about theism as though one has to abandon science to recognize supernatural reality. His primary goal in writing Darwin on Trial was to legitimate the assertion of a theistic worldview in the secular universities. Johnson is certain that one can not be a theistic evolutionist because the mind can not serve two masters. People need to be willing to challenge false doctrines with clear-minded, reasoned arguments.

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