DARWIN ON TRIAL

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PHILLIP E JOHNSON

Darwin’s theory of evolution is accepted by most educated Americans as simple fact. This easy acceptance, however, hides from us the many ways in which evolution – as an idea – shapes our thinking about a great many things. What if this idea is wrong? What if “evolution” is just a word that covers up scientific ignorance of how the wonders of the living world could have been created?

Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson looks at the evidence for Darwinistic evolution the way a lawyer would – with a cold dispassionate eye for logic and proof. His discovery is that scientists have put the cart before the horse. They prematurely accepted Darwin’s theory as fact and have been scrambling to find evidence for it – mostly unsuccessfully. As the evidentiary difficulties have piled up, scientists have clung to the theory out of fear of encouraging religious fundamentalism, and in the process have turned belief in Darwinism into their own religion.