From Soup To Science
The final 2005 issue of Harvard Magazine advertised on its cover a feature on “Evolution versus Intelligent Design,” which turned out to be an article titled “Intelligent Evolution,” by Edward O. Wilson, Harvard’s most prominent Darwinist. The article is taken from the Introduction and Afterword he contributed to a new edition of some of Darwin’s classic works.
Despite the title, Wilson denies that evolution is intelligent. With all the assumed authority of a pope of science, he proclaims that “we must conclude that life has diversified on earth autonomously without any kind of external guidance.” He continues: “Evolution in a pure Darwinian world has no goal or purpose: the exclusive driving force is random mutations sorted out by natural selection from one generation to the next.”
No doubt that is true, but the question Wilson does not raise, let alone answer, is whether we actually live in that hypothetical pure Darwinian world.
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Phillip E. Johnson is Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions (InterVarsity Press), and other books challenging the naturalistic assumptions that dominate modern culture. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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