Darwin on Trial
So… it’s been a while.
I promised a couple of months ago that I’d write a post or two regarding books I’m reading for school. Unfortunately, I’ve read several books already over the past three months and I’ve not written anything on the blog. Fortunately, I just finished a paper for my philosophy course which will provide ample material for a series of blog posts.
The book is Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial. This book was published in 1991 and not only was it an immediate success within the Christian community, it was met with a variety of both positive and negative responses from the scientific community. For Christian’s hoping to become engaged in the origins debate this book is essential reading.
Over the course of the next two weeks I’ll post a chapter by chapter summary of the book which will allow you to digest what is essentially my book report in smaller, manageable bits. If you haven’t had the chance to read this book, I would encourage you to do so. If you find it to be a bit daunting since it does cover a subject that can become quite technical very quickly, perhaps reading my blog posts will introduce you to the debate in a way that will help you understand the subject matter more quickly without having to read Johnson’s book.
I have one encouragement and one warning if you plan to read these posts. First, you will come across technical jargon that is inherent to the origins debate, such as “adaptation”, “mutation”, “micromutation”, and “speciation”, to name a few. If the definitions of these terms escape you, do not give up. Just hit “Control+t” on your keyboard or whatever your computer requires to open another browser window and go to www.dictionary.com and as you come across a difficult word, look it up and press on. This is not an insurmountable challenge. My warning: Johnson did not intend his book as a complete and total refutation of Darwinism; if that’s what you’re looking for, I’ll point out now that you will not find it either in his book nor in my summary on this blog. Johnson’s aim in writing his book was to point out to his readers that the argument for Darwinism is filled with unscientific assumptions that fail to convince a thinking mind. This is the first step in understanding the argument to a sufficient extent that one can engage the scientific ideas in culture by framing the argument rightly in one’s mind.
This is the second time I’ve read the book; the first time occurred about ten years ago as I was researching the topic for a speech I was giving in college. Johnson’s analysis of the debate was compelling then; it is just as compelling now.
I pray you are able to get something out of these posts.
