Science Futures
“Predicting is very difficult, especially when it is about the future.” I probably don’t need to tell readers of Touchstone that this weird sentence, paradoxically both wise and absurd, bears the trademark of New York Yankee sage Yogi Berra, the Buddha of baseball.
I think of the great Yogi’s maxim whenever I hear theistic evolutionists warn intelligent design theorists against committing what they call the “God of the gaps” fallacy. Their point is that it is futile to rely on “gaps” that the theory of evolution has not yet explained as places where divine acts might be necessary, because those gaps will inevitably be filled as science progresses. Eventually, God will be squeezed out of these spaces, with consequent embarrassment to the cause of religion.
To avoid committing this fallacy, they claim, we must concede that evolutionary naturalism in biology has been proved beyond doubt, since whatever proof is missing today will surely be supplied tomorrow. I see the point, but I wonder how these folks can be so sure that the future discoveries will always support naturalism. Don’t they know that predicting is difficult, especially when it is about the future?
I agree that science is a dynamic enterprise, and any objections I may have to claims for the creative power of natural selection may be satisfied by the science of some future date, if indeed natural selection really has the required creative power. If natural selection does not have that power, it is reasonable to expect that the difficulties of the theory will only multiply as knowledge grows.
I presume that even the most advanced science of the future will not discover things that do not exist, provided that science remains open to the free expression of dissent and criticism. True believers in the theory of evolution, however, do not consider the possibility that reality may not be as evolutionary naturalists have assumed it to be. They are willing to acknowledge that the current version of the theory may be in need of revision, but not that the theory might be wrong in some way that can’t be fixed by further research along the same lines.
These true believers know that every flaw can be fixed, because they have a basis for being certain that evolutionary science is on the right track, a basis that goes beyond the state of the evidence. The famous Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin has explained that scientists like himself believe in the enterprise of naturalistic science because “we have a prior commitment—a commitment to materialism.” That prior commitment tells him what is and is not possible, regardless of the state of the evidence at any particular time.
It is easy for me to understand why atheists believe a priori that all life must have evolved by purely naturalistic means all the way from non-living chemicals to modern human beings. They have no alternative that is consistent with atheism.
Protecting God from Embarrassment
It has been much harder for me to understand why Christian theists, who emphatically declare their belief in God, would have an equally firm commitment to a completely naturalistic understanding of the history of life. However, I have personal knowledge that theistic evolutionists in academia are often more offended than atheists when I argue that a pre-existing intelligence may be needed to account for the high information content of living cells.
I could easily understand how they might reluctantly acquiesce in the ruling theory of evolution as a result of being intimidated by the cultural power of the Darwinists, but this hypothesis does not explain why so many Christian academics are genuinely enthusiastic about naturalistic evolution, regarding it as superior to any alternative on theological as well as scientific grounds.
What are their theological grounds? The best explanation I know of the theological preferences that have been so helpful to evolutionary naturalists in achieving a dominant position even in Christian academic institutions is to be found in the most recent book by my friend and colleague Cornelius George Hunter, Science’s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism (Brazos Press, 2007). I have space here to provide only a few of Hunter’s main points, but no matter—the book itself is slender, inexpensive, easily available, and a good read. I need only to whet your interest.
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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