Freethought & Rationalism Archive

luvluv · 05-07-2003, 12:49 PM

Howdy. I'm reading Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson and I'm wondering if this site ever reviewed the book? It came out in 1991 I think? Anyone familiar?

ruby-soho · 05-07-2003, 01:10 PM

I don't know about a review here at Infidels, but a great review can be found here:

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth?
Why Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial and the "Intelligent Design" movement are neither science -- nor Christian

Hope that helps!

D

Grumpy · 05-07-2003, 02:09 PM

Here's what the Secular Web has to offer.

luvluv · 05-08-2003, 08:55 AM

Thanx Grumpy, but the links to the National Center for Science Education don't work anymore.

I don't usually read books like this but I was drawn in by the fact that on some of the internet sites I searced (amazon.com, barnes and noble.com, etc.) even those opposing the book gave it 3 to 4 out of a possible 5 stars. Have either of you read it?

MrDarwin · 05-08-2003, 09:17 AM

I read Darwin on Trial a few years back and wrote a review for Amazon.com on December 6, 1999 with the review title This book is not aging gracefully (sorry, I don't know how to link directly to the review). Johnson glossed over the fossil record in general and "transitional fossils" in particular but the fossil record is much better than he thinks and I'm still waiting for him to address all the amazing fossils (particularly from China) that have been discovered since his book was published. Among these are remarkable series of fossils of the fish-to-tetrapod, dinosaur-to-bird, ungulate-to-whale (as well as the equally amazing but much less publicized gymnosperm-to-angiosperm) transitions. Also since then, the field of molecular systematics has revolutionized evolutionary theory but usually confirms what we're discovering from the fossil record.

luvluv · 05-18-2003, 08:15 PM

MrDarwin I hope you don't mind if I reproduce your review over here, as it will provide a springboard for our discussion:

Quote:

Reading this book with a background in biology, I find that Johnson either profoundly misunderstands or seriously misrepresents not only the theory of evolution (which is actually a very complex web of theories, but Johnson has a knack for oversimplifying) but the way science itself operates. Johnson appeals to the layman's misunderstanding and mistrust of evolution, and of science in general, but is still unable to explain why the overwhelming majority of scientists accept evolution as fact, even the ones who are not atheists. In the course of his attack, he uses misdirection, innuendo, and misrepresentation and omission of evidence.

Johnson rests his case on two rather shaky assumptions: first, that absence of evidence is evidence is absence, and second, that the fossil record truly has an appalling absence of evidence for evolution. Not only has the fossil evidence always been better than Johnson leads the reader to believe, but the evidence continues to be found, not only in paleontology, but also in the fields of genetics, developmental biology, and molecular biology.

Johnson is remarkably unimaginative when it comes to ways to test evolutionary theory, aside from pointing to gaps in the fossil record. Johnson goes into detail about the origin of mammals from reptiles as the "best" evidence of major transitions in the fossil record, yet there is abundant evidence from other groups, much of it published and available in the literature long before Johnson's book. One has to wonder how Johnson deals with the truly startling recent fossil discoveries in China.

Evolution is tested by each new fossil discovery. Yet Johnson dismisses the existing evidence while neglecting to explain why new evidence keeps turning up. Amazingly, Johnson ridicules the discoverers of a whale fossil with hind leg bones for using standard scientific wording, then uses this wording to imply the leg bones they found might not even belong to the whale fossil in the first place! Johnson attempts to discredit physical evidence, such as the transition from reptiles to mammals, so that he can concentrate heavily on biological systems, such as the eye, which by their very nature cannot be studied in the fossil record. He often asks questions like "how did a bacterium become a bird?" but doesn't ask "how did a jaw bone become an ear bone?" presumably because this can (and has been) studied and documented. Johnson will grudgingly concede a certain amount of speciation or "macroevolution." Johnson's actual claim is that evolution and natural selection are incapable of explaining the origins of higher-level groups like phyla, classes, and genera. Here Johnson makes the twin mistakes of assuming that phyla and other major groups evolve, and that the boundaries between higher level taxa are easily defined. Species evolve; higher groupings are artificial and the recognition of discrete groups with large gaps between them is in large part an artifact of taxonomic classification.

As do all creationists, Johnson completely overlooks plant evolution. Johnson is not entirely at fault here, since plant evolution has been woefully neglected by the popularizers of evolutionary biology like Dawkins and Gould, and Johnson himself admits that general and popular publications have been among his primary sources of information. In particular, I wonder how Johnson would deal with the huge number of plants that are fully capable of hybridization--both between species in the same genus, and between species of different genera, often wildly different in morphology, yet in many cases producing fully fertile hybrid offspring. Johnson further makes the mistake of assuming that species are both easy to recognize and to define. Such basic concepts as "species" and "speciation" are incredibly problematic in botany, precisely because evolution is an ongoing process and there are many populations representing the full spectrum from fully interbreeding through incapable of interbreeding--in other words, at every point along the road to speciating.

In the end, it's hard to know exactly what Johnson DOES believe, and he gives precious few clues as to what evidence he WOULD accept as convincing that evolution has occurred. I suppose it's progress that Johnson does not claim a literal interpretation of Genesis, or that the earth and universe are only 6000 years old. Although he takes pains to distance himself from the young-earth creationists, Johnson takes very personally the anti-creationism, pro-evolution, and occasionally anti-religious writings of many biologists that have been aimed precisely at the rightly-ridiculed "scientific" claims of the young-earth creationists. One wonders why Johnson gives credence to geologists--after all, nobody actually SAW the sedimentary layers being laid down millions of years ago--yet treats the science of biologists with such disdain.

This book is yet another case of a creationist (Johnson broadens the definition to include pretty much everybody who believes in God) pointing out errors, flaws, and weaknesses in evolutionary theory that biologists have made no effort to hide--yet failing to stem the tide of evidence that continues to unfold for evolution. In the end, Johnson's attitude seems to be that, since biologists themselves can't agree on all of the details of evolution, the theory itself must be wrong. Yet all biologists accept (1) that life has a long history on the earth, (2) that living things have changed over time, and (3) that living things have diverged from a common ancestry.

One final note: in the "epilogue" in the paperbook edition, Johnson complains about his treatment at the hands of evolutionary biologists. In particular, he complains bitterly about a book review by Stephen Jay Gould, in which Gould criticized both the style as well as the scientific content of the book. In other words, Johnson is complaining that a book reviewer is acting like a book reviewer, precisely as he had previously criticized a scientist for acting like a scientist.

Good stuff, MrDarwin.

I'd like to take this up with you, as I've finished the book.

First off, can I get a link to some of the fossil discoveries in China? And can you expound a little bit on the evidence for evolution in plant life?

It seems to me that much of Johnson's case was simply built around HOW the belief in Darwinism originated. Was it philsophy proceeding from science or science proceeding from philosophy. He obviously argues the latter, and I find it hard to disagree with him. Was there ever a period during which Darwinism was actually TESTED strenuously, for truth, or was it always a case of scientists searching for confirming evidence? Johnson points out that palentologists were the first to dispute Darwin's theory, but were they in the minority? My view on this might be colored by popular imagination, but it seems to me that scientists basically proclaimed the theory true simply because of it's philsophical plausibility. Science is a naturalistic endeavor, and there probably can be no better naturalistic explanation of speciation than Darwinism. Therefore many scientists accepted some form of Darwinsim as true by definition. If there is no creator, something like Darwinism must be true. Is this accurate historically? Did scientists design tests to FALSIFY evolution? Is it falsifiable? If so, what could falsify it?

It seems to my unlearned ears that he has a point about the animal fossil record. If the gradualism of Dawkins is correct, the planet should be overflowing with fossils of transitional animals. If every single attribute of our anatomy is the product of incremental step by step gradualism, the relative stasis of the fossil record is somewhat perplexing, is it not?

Lastly, I think that Johnson has every right to ask whether or not natural selection is truly a sufficient explanation for all the complexity the biological world exhibits. I don't think he used the example of the eye because the eye by it's nature couldn't be preserved in the fossil record. I think he used it because he can find no way, in principle, that an eye can be formed in incremental steps. That's a very reasonable objection in my view.

Doubting Didymus · 05-18-2003, 09:18 PM

Luvluv, I hope you don't mind If I furnish you with a few links? I'll keep them nontechnical, the way I like to read them myself.

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv
First off, can I get a link to some of the fossil discoveries in China?

National geographic article on chinese dinosaur-bird intermediate fossils, and how they are shaping our veiw of dinosaur evolution.

Quote:

Was there ever a period during which Darwinism was actually TESTED strenuously, for truth, or was it always a case of scientists searching for confirming evidence?

Components of the theory such as mutation, natural selection, and, say, speciation, can all be tested in the lab. They are ALWAYS being strenuously tested. There is another part of evolution, namely common descent, that is primarily a historical claim. Naturally, you can't test that in a lab, just as you can't interview Pharoh to see if he really commisioned the pyramids. That part of the theory must stand on historical evidence and modern extrapolations. The search for evidence is a search for ANY evidence, confirming or not.

Quote:

Johnson points out that palentologists were the first to dispute Darwin's theory, but were they in the minority? My view on this might be colored by popular imagination, but it seems to me that scientists basically proclaimed the theory true simply because of it's philsophical plausibility. Science is a naturalistic endeavor, and there probably can be no better naturalistic explanation of speciation than Darwinism. Therefore many scientists accepted some form of Darwinsim as true by definition. If there is no creator, something like Darwinism must be true. Is this accurate historically? Did scientists design tests to FALSIFY evolution? Is it falsifiable? If so, what could falsify it?

Talkorigins, of course, has an article on everything.

Quote:
"It is significant that, although it is often claimed that Darwinism is unfalsifiable, many of the things Darwin said have in fact been falsified. Many of his assertions of fact have been revised or denied, many of his mechanisms rejected or modified even by his strongest supporters (e.g., by Mayr, Gould, Lewontin, and Dawkins), and he would find it hard to recognise some versions of modern selection theory as his natural selection theory."

Common descent could be falsified by any number of things. A tetrapod fossil in the precambrian would sure as hell make us scratch our heads a bit.

Quote:

It seems to my unlearned ears that he has a point about the animal fossil record. If the gradualism of Dawkins is correct, the planet should be overflowing with fossils of transitional animals. If every single attribute of our anatomy is the product of incremental step by step gradualism, the relative stasis of the fossil record is somewhat perplexing, is it not?

I quote Dawkins from the blind watchmaker:

"The fact is that, in the fullest and most serious sense, Eldredge and Gould are really just as gradualist as Darwin or any of his followers. It is just that they would compress all the gradual change into brief bursts, rather than having it go on all the time; and they emphasise that most of the gradual change goes on in geographical areas away from the areas where most fossils are dug up.

So it is not really the gradualism of Darwin that the punctuationists oppose: gradualism means that each generation is only slightly different from the previous generation; you would have to be a saltationist to oppose that, and Eldredge and Gould are not saltationists. Rather, it turns out to be Darwin's alleged belief in the constancy of rates of evolution that they and other punctuationists object to. [241]

... it is all too easy to confuse gradualism (the belief, held by modern punctuationists as well as Darwin, that there are no sudden leaps between one generation and the next) with 'constant evolutionary speedism' (opposed by punctuationists and allegedly, though not actually, held by Darwin). They are not the same thing at all. [242-243] "

I copied this text and its order from this website. There are other quotes on the same subject toward the bottom of this page

In other words, Dawkins accepts punctuated equilibrium just fine. PunkEek is not so much a new theory, but a set of expectaitions from the fossil record. It says: Knowing what we do about natural selection and the role of geology in speciation etcetera, we should expect populations to find a new ecological niche, evolve at breakneck speed to suit it, speciate in the process, and then stay about the same until speciation happens again. This means we should see just about exactly what we do see: clear transitionals should be present (they are), but NOT common.

Quote:

Lastly, I think that Johnson has every right to ask whether or not natural selection is truly a sufficient explanation for all the complexity the biological world exhibits. I don't think he used the example of the eye because the eye by it's nature couldn't be preserved in the fossil record. I think he used it because he can find no way, in principle, that an eye can be formed in incremental steps. That's a very reasonable objection in my view.

I don't see why that should be. Let me aid your imagination:

Single photocell, multiple photocells, sheet of photocells (starfish eye, at this point), slightly concave sheet, slightly more concave sheet covered in slime (mollusc eye, at this point), complete cup (different moulluscs have these), cup with curved in lips (another known mollucs eye), cup with just a hole, (yet another mollusc), cup filled with slime from step 5, Closed over cup with thicker slime at pinhole, cup with very thick slime at pinhole, cup with solid gooey football shape at pinhole, closed over cup with primitive lens.

Where, exactly, do you see an unbridgeable jump in that series? Keep in mind that just about all these forms have living examples, proving that they all work.

Here is another worldofdawkins link. This one is adapted from river out of eden. He is talking about a (now famous) simulation that gave a pessimistic estimate of the time that this series of transitions might have taken.

Lobstrosity · 05-18-2003, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv
Did scientists design tests to FALSIFY evolution? Is it falsifiable? If so, what could falsify it?

Well lets see, you could falsify it by demonstrating that computer implementations of genetic algorithms fail to alter "fitness" in any coherent manner (i.e. that the genetic algorithm is not a sound concept). You could falsify it by demonstrating that bacteria can never genetically adapt to environmental changes (such as applications of antibiotics, changes in temperature, etc).

Evolution is an excellent theory both on paper and in practice. The fossil record overwhelmingly supports it. Simulations overwhelmingly support it. Tests in the lab overwhelmingly support it. The only reason why some people refuse to accept evolution is because it contradicts the Bible. It has nothing to do with how sound the theory is or how much evidence supports it, it has to do with the fact that it defies ancient religious doctrine. So some people decide from the get-go that Creationism must be the truth (screw the evidence) and then proceed to look for anything that can prove evolution wrong. This is not science...you don't get to pick and choose the data that supports your claim if you are indeed looking for the truth.

I wrote another post a few days ago that lists some more things that would falsify evolution. Furthermore, these would be things that one would expect to find were Creationism true.

Look around, luvluv, and tell me you don't see remarkable similarities between supposedly unrelated species (and I mean unrelated from a Creationist standpoint). Isn't it interesting that nearly all land vertebrates have the same general physiology? You find that such creatures have one head that houses the brain and primary sensory organs, two front legs, and two hind legs (yeah, you could naively argue that snakes have no legs, but clear vestigal appendages are evident and guess what...there are four of them!). In birds and bats the two front legs have become wings (i.e. the wings didn't just pop out of nowhere as would be expected by Creationism). In bipedal animals such as humans the two front legs have become arms (i.e. the arms didn't just pop out of nowhere). Why do we see no birds with four legs? Why do we see no four-legged vertebrates with a set of arms? From a Creationist point of view, such things would be perfectly reasonable, would they not? Hell, they'd be expected if God were striving for diversity.

There's obvious diversity amongst organisms on this planet. You've got insects with six legs, some arachnids with eight legs and six eyes, octopi with eight arms and three hearts... Obviously there's no specific need for the current vertebrate structure and obviously whatever led to life on this planet doesn't find itself restricted to the whole "one head, two arm, two leg" scheme. So if God created all life on this planet almost as is and was interested in diversity (as current diversity of life attests to), there is no reason why each species should look like a "tweaked" form of some other species. There's no reason beyond evolution why all mammals should have two eyes, two ears, one mouth, and four "legs." There's no reason why they should all have similar sexual organs.

Don't you see how the distribution of genetic material on Earth is specifically what one would expect from evolution? There are is an infinite spectrum of genetic distributions that would instantly destroy the idea of evolution, and yet you still want to proclaim that God chose one of the relatively few that would still allow evolution to appear valid? Isn't that a bit of a stretch?

Oolon Colluphid · 05-19-2003, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lobstrosity
Look around, luvluv, and tell me you don't see remarkable similarities between supposedly unrelated species (and I mean unrelated from a Creationist standpoint). Isn't it interesting that nearly all land vertebrates have the same general physiology? You find that such creatures have one head that houses the brain and primary sensory organs, two front legs, and two hind legs (yeah, you could naively argue that snakes have no legs, but clear vestigal appendages are evident and guess what...there are four of them!).

And the oddities of similarity go deeper:

the standard vertebrate eye with its wired-in-backwards retina
the tetrapod limb being made of a singal proximal (nearest the body) bone and two distal ones: humerus - radius & ulna, femur - tibia & fibula, regardless of whether they are all used for running, or for swimming, flying or typing on keyboard
the same number of cervical vertebrae in nearly all mammals, whether guinea pig or giraffe. (The exceptions are interesting: sloths and Sirenia, and again clustered in those groups.)
a tailbone (caudal vertebrae) in mammals, whether they have a tail of not (guinea pigs, humans)
a through-flow ventilation system in all birds, whether ostrich, penguin or eagle, and a tidal one for all mammals, whether cheetah, bat or sloth
Both mammals and birds having only one aortic arch: the aortas develop in the embryo from the bilaterally symmetrical fourth gill arch, and one arch is lost for greater efficiency; yet in all mammals it is the left arch that is retained, while in every bird it is the right one. Regardless of their lifestyles.

...and so on, and on, and on...

There�s no reason from creation why the same pattern of such things need be found in widely different sorts of creature. Descent with modification from a common ancestor makes it inevitable.

Cheers, Oolon

MrDarwin · 05-19-2003, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv
MrDarwin I hope you don't mind if I reproduce your review over here, as it will provide a springboard for our discussion:

I don't mind, but I think amazon.com might, as that material is copyrighted by them.

I don't have time to deal with this right now; hopefully I'll have time to get back to it in a few days. (It's also several years since I read the book, so I may need to refresh my memory on it a bit.)

In the meantime I should probably emphasize that Johnson is an old-earth creationist. He grants that the earth is ancient and that life has existed for long time. But one thing I remember finding striking about the book was how defensive he was against "evolutionists" who were primarily aiming their arguments at the ridiculous claims of young-earth creationists.

05-07-2003, 12:49 PM	#1
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	Darwin on Trial review? Howdy. I'm reading Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson and I'm wondering if this site ever reviewed the book? It came out in 1991 I think? Anyone familiar?

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05-07-2003, 01:10 PM	#2
ruby-soho Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Kansas City USA Posts: 68	I don't know about a review here at Infidels, but a great review can be found here: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth? Why Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial and the "Intelligent Design" movement are neither science -- nor Christian Hope that helps! D

05-07-2003, 02:09 PM	#3
Grumpy Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Alaska, USA Posts: 1,535	Here's what the Secular Web has to offer.

05-08-2003, 08:55 AM	#4
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	Thanx Grumpy, but the links to the National Center for Science Education don't work anymore. I don't usually read books like this but I was drawn in by the fact that on some of the internet sites I searced (amazon.com, barnes and noble.com, etc.) even those opposing the book gave it 3 to 4 out of a possible 5 stars. Have either of you read it?

05-08-2003, 09:17 AM	#5
MrDarwin Veteran Member Join Date: May 2001 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 4,140	I read Darwin on Trial a few years back and wrote a review for Amazon.com on December 6, 1999 with the review title This book is not aging gracefully (sorry, I don't know how to link directly to the review). Johnson glossed over the fossil record in general and "transitional fossils" in particular but the fossil record is much better than he thinks and I'm still waiting for him to address all the amazing fossils (particularly from China) that have been discovered since his book was published. Among these are remarkable series of fossils of the fish-to-tetrapod, dinosaur-to-bird, ungulate-to-whale (as well as the equally amazing but much less publicized gymnosperm-to-angiosperm) transitions. Also since then, the field of molecular systematics has revolutionized evolutionary theory but usually confirms what we're discovering from the fossil record.

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