Rating: 
Summary: A novel response to the evidence for evolution
Review: As a recent convert to Darwinism, I found myself comparing my reasons for accepting evolution against Hunter's thesis that evolutionists are influenced more by metaphysical than strictly scientific arguments. While demonstrating that evolutionists from the time of Darwin have argued their case by appealing to a Victorian notion of God (e.g., "God would not have directly created things the way we see them..."), he fails to consider that many of these arguments may be reformulated to avoid the mention of God while nonetheless retaining their evidentiary value. For example, Hunter discusses the fact that all mammals except guinea pigs and primates are able to synthesize their own vitamin C. Guinea pigs and primates, including humans, have an apparently non-functional gene that corresponds to the gene responsible for vitamin C production in other mammals. Hunter maintains that, without certain presuppositions concerning the nature of God, this argument fails as evidence for human-primate shared ancestry. Hunter includes the following quote by theistic evolutionist Terry Gray:"Further analysis shows that this gene is a pseudogene, i.e., it looks like a real gene, but it is not expressed due to a mutation in the gene itself or in the region of DNA that controls the expression of that gene. Now we could argue that in God's inscrutable purpose he placed that vitamin C synthesis look-alike gene in the guinea pig or human DNA or we could admit the more obvious conclusion, that humans and primates and other mammals share a common ancestor" (p. 168). By highlighting Gray's appeal to God's nature, Hunter justifies dismissing such evidence as metaphysical rather than scientific. Throughout the book, Hunter employs this novel approach to circumvent some of the strongest evidence for common descent. As is the case with pseudogenes, however, textual critics routinely use copyist errors for determining the ancestral relationships among historical manuscripts. It would be beyond coincidence to suppose that there exists no ancestral relationship in a series of texts containing the same set of differences vis-à-vis the majority of other manuscripts. The vitamin C pseudogene is just one example of many shared between humans and primates, and the differences in the pseudogenes grow with distance from humans in the standard phylogenic tree. Contrary to Hunter's claim that evolution makes no significant, testable predictions, the existence of the human vitamin C pseudogene was predicted and then discovered by Nishikimi et al in 1992. Do pseudogenes prove common decent in a mathematical sense, and are such arguments free from all metaphysical assumptions? Perhaps not, but at the end of the day, when we look into the mirror, we must ask ourselves, are we playing games with the evidence, trying to find loopholes to excuse us from its weight, or did we in fact descend from earlier primates? Ironically, intelligent design theorist Michael Behe, who offers praise for Hunter's book, finds the evidence for common descent from pseudogenes to be conclusive (see Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God, p. 164). One wonders how Behe and Hunter can coexist in the same camp, given their diametrically opposed views on such a fundamental question as common descent. Though I agree with Hunter that the nature of God should be left out of any strictly scientific discussion, there is a place for such considerations when evaluating ID claims. Whatever else might be supposed about God's nature, it is generally agreed that, if He exists, He is not deceptive. This is why many creationists are now abandoning the young-earth creationists' "appearance of age" theory. Yet Hunter is disturbed when evolutionists provide evidence for evolution and assert that "God would not have done it that way." Perhaps He did do it that way, but at the risk of introducing the strong appearance of evolution. In addition to highlighting the metaphysical underpinnings of many of the arguments for evolution, Hunter presents an array of scientific difficulties in evolutionary theory. Foremost among them is the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. He is not content to focus simply on the relatively sparse record leading up to the Cambrian explosion, but amazingly turns the very dense record of the reptile-mammal transition in his favor: "Douglas Futuyma echoes this sentiment: 'The gradual transition from therapsid reptiles to mammals is so abundantly documented by scores of species in every stage of transition that it is impossible to tell which therapsid species were the actual ancestors of modern mammals.' If it is 'notoriously difficult to decipher true ancestral-descendant relationships,' then how can evolutionists be so sure there is one? Certainly we can select our favorite sequence, but the fossils cannot tell us which is the correct sequence, or even whether there is a correct sequence at all" (p. 77). The upshot is that if the record of transition is sparse, that is evidence against evolution, and if it is dense, that is also evidence against evolution. However, if we find texts that appear to be intermediate between Latin and French (a descendent of Latin), but we do not know whether they are on a direct line to modern French or on a line to a dead French patois, can this be construed as an argument that French did not evolve from Latin? As a largely historical science, evolution suffers from many of the same difficulties as historical linguistics. If Hunter were sufficiently motivated, he could no doubt uncover many difficulties with historical linguistics (e.g., Japanese is apparently not related to any mainland languages), but this would not prove that, for example, Latin did not evolve into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French. I give three stars to Hunter for introducing a novel and thought-provoking argument into the tired debate over evolution, as well as for not hesitating to include a number of quotes supporting evolution. Though he attempts to refute these arguments, this may be the only exposure that many readers ever receive to the evidence for evolution.
Rating: 
Summary: Darwinian metaphysics.
Review: Charles Darwin's storied "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (1859) featured an appropriately long name. Darwin characterized it as "one long argument," and his recurring metaphysical assertions continue to be argued today, whether by Ken Miller, Mark Ridley, or the producers of PBS videos. The "long argument" has continued for a century and a half.
In this volume, biophysicist Cornelius Hunter examines these persistent metaphysical assertions. While metaphysical presuppositions are woven into Darwinism / neo-Darwinism, it remains that metaphysical assertions are not themselves within the logical domain of any physical science. "God wouldn't have done it that way" is not a scientific argument, it is a metaphysical -- more precisely, theological -- argument. This is the whole of Hunter's thesis here, and while some reviewers may be disappointed that the discourse is so narrowly defined, it is a philosophically important treatment. If Darwinian theory is scientifically sound, why the persistent usage of such an obviously questionable, perhaps even naïve, theological justification? Readers familiar with Darwin's writings will find that his arguments are reflected quite accurately in Hunter's examination. The author isn't wrestling with straw men here, but the reader will find many reasons to wonder what Hunter's theological ideas may be. Ultimately, this question isn't important, Hunter isn't the one whose metaphysics are under consideration, nor, unlike Darwin and his apologists, does the author misrepresent his own metaphysical views as being science. Mark Ridley, in his textbook (Evolution, 1993) says, "Positing a God merely invites the question of how such a highly adaptive and well-designed thing could in its turn have come into existence." Hunter reflects on the metaphysical presuppositions and logical poverty concomitant to such (often repeated) arguments, suggesting: "It is little wonder that many people do not believe in evolution. Whether coming from Le Conte in 1888 or Ridley in 1993, these sorts of metaphysical meanderings say more about evolutionists than they do about evolution. . . But Le Conte's and Ridley's premises, that only natural explanations are rational and that God was designed, respectively, are nonscientific. They are statements of personal belief." (p90). This criticism is rather kind. Ridley effectively demands an infinite regress of causes, in which case all explanation, including his own Darwinian one, is epistemologically meaningless.
This volume doesn't assume a judgment on Darwin's conclusions so much as it questions Darwin's logic. Judgments on whether Darwin's conclusions are right or wrong will today need to be oriented toward mathematical arguments. Darwin said that natural selection must act upon variations (mutation is our only candidate here) which he recognized must occur in "inconceivably great number". If 50 billion species (a number readily approximated and often cited) are to have been mechanistically generated in less than 4 billion years, then Darwin understated his "inconceivably great" problem. The most noted mathematicians in this debate are currently Ken Miller (for Darwin) and William Dembski (against Darwin). These arguments are not treated here.
Rating: 
Summary: Specious arguments against evolution
Review: Cornelius Hunter's thesis is that Darwinism and the theory of evolution in general rest on metaphysical "presuppositions" that are themselves unscientific, and that therefore Darwinism is really theology in disguise. To support his case Hunter repeatedly makes the argument that Darwin and various evolutionists are saying in effect, "God would never have made the world this way; therefore there was no divine creation." Although some evolutionists, usually through carelessness of expression or contextual ambiguity, have made statements similar to that--Hunter quotes Stephen Jay Gould as writing something similar on page 48--when they have, they are mistaken, just as Hunter is mistaken in supposing that such an argument underpins Darwinism. Evolution has a lot more going for it than a specious argument. Hunter is aware of this and in the course of the book tries to cast doubt on the overwhelming tide of evidence for evolution from the fossil record through molecular biology. Here's a typical example from page 38: "We have no idea how the genetic code originated; therefore we can hardly appeal to its existence as evidence for evolution." But that doesn't follow. I may not be able to account for the origination of the rock that went through my window, nonetheless I can appeal to it as the proximate cause of the broken glass. And on pages 31-32 we find, "At the core of evolutionary theory is Darwin's law stating that in most instances it is the fittest that reproduce. But due to the complexities of nature and its life forms, we usually cannot measure fitness aside from counting offspring. Those organisms that leave more offspring are usually more fit, but we are not sure precisely why." Here Hunter reveals that he doesn't understand that evolutionary fitness is defined strictly in terms of reproductive success, period. It has nothing to do with "complexities of nature," and there is no more precise way to measure fitness. Hunter also argues at length that Darwin was led in part to his theory of evolution through a desire to "reconcile the ways of God to man" (Milton) and especially to account for the existence of evil in this world. Again this is specious. Darwin may have been led, in part, to his theory of evolution because of his religious beliefs, but that has no bearing on the validity or effectiveness of the theory of evolution. Indeed, whatever Darwin's motivation was, it is irrelevant to the validity of evolution. However the main fault of this book is simply a misrepresentation of just what it is that has made evolution the enormously persuasive theory that it is. Hunter writes on page 162, "But in fact the theory of evolution relies on the belief that God never would have created the world as we find it." But this is emphatically NOT what evolutionists are saying. It's not that God would never have created the world this way (or any other way, for that matter) but that the intricacies of the fossil and molecular record are better explained by evolution than by an appeal to a metaphysics. God might have divinely created everything in seven days and made it look like billions of years. That supposition can never be disproved. It is also the case that the moon could be made of green cheese and the experience of NASA and our scientific instruments are being fooled by the Green Cheese God. If I say that "God wouldn't work that way" (as Hunter accuses evolutionists of saying), I would indeed be committing myself to knowledge I can't possibly have, and if I say this is proof that the moon is made of rock and mineral, etc., I have made a simple logical error. But I would not say that, and neither do evolutionists say (if they are careful with their words) that evolution is proven because God would not work in such and such a way. What IS being said is that the report of our senses is better evidence than an arbitrary appeal to metaphysics, which is exactly the way science cannot work. The Green Cheese God may indeed exist and he may be fooling us to test our faith in him, but to paraphrase Damon Runyon, that ain't the way to bet.
Rating: 
Summary: Darwinism / Evolution is rapidly collapsing
Review: Evolution is an idea that look great on the surface but the moment you dig it you would start to giggle, the more you dig the louder you giggle.... You would find out soon that the whole idea of evolution is laughable as it is fatally flawed.
Hunter's argument is Great, the whole idea of evolution is NOT science, it is Theodicy.
I wonder how Hemoglobin could exist as a result of long chain of uncontrolled blind chances of chemical reactions?
Imagine one day you walk in to a laboratory, in that lab you mix all kinds of chemicals that are available on earth at total random, would the chemical reactions create blood by chance? Most probably the lab itself would be destroyed by fire soon (as a result of crazy mixture of the entire chemicals).
Yes, any uncontrolled random mutation in any form is self-destructive in it self, thus it is NOT possible to create any gradual change of primitive life into higher form, even the life it self could not have existed in the first place.
Great astronomer sir Fred Hoyle once conceded that the chance that higher life forms could emerge through evolutionary process is comparable with the chance that a "Tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the material therein". ("Hoyle on Evolution", Nature, Vol. 294, Nov 12, 1981). Who created this WONDERFUL and mysterious universe? It is GOD yes G-O-D, The GREATEST artist who created colorful fish, fruits, birds, music, flowers and many things. The Greatest of all: He created people who can love.
Rating:
Summary: Darwinism / Evolution is rapidly collapsing
Review: Evolution is an idea that look great on the surface but the moment you dig it you would start to giggle, the more you dig the louder you giggle.... You would find out soon that the whole idea of evolution is laughable as it is fatally flawed.
Hunter's argument is Great, the whole idea of evolution is NOT science, it is Theodicy.
I wonder how Hemoglobin could exist as a result of long chain of uncontrolled blind chances of chemical reactions?
Imagine one day you walk in to a laboratory, in that lab you mix all kinds of chemicals that are available on earth at total random, would the chemical reactions create blood by chance? Most probably the lab itself would be destroyed by fire soon (as a result of crazy mixture of the entire chemicals).
Yes, any uncontrolled random mutation in any form is self-destructive in it self, thus it is NOT possible to create any gradual change of primitive life into higher form, even the life it self could not have existed in the first place.
Great astronomer sir Fred Hoyle once conceded that the chance that higher life forms could emerge through evolutionary process is comparable with the chance that a "Tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the material therein". ("Hoyle on Evolution", Nature, Vol. 294, Nov 12, 1981). Who created this WONDERFUL and mysterious universe? It is GOD yes G-O-D, The GREATEST artist who created colorful fish, fruits, birds, music, flowers and many things. The Greatest of all: He created people who can love.
Rating:
Summary: A cogent explanation of the philosophical bases of evolution
Review: For decades, evolutionists have insisted that their theory is as good as proven, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. Hunter's book presents an interesting and persuasive explanation for this quasi-religious adherence to a supposedly scientific theory - he posits that it is, in fact, religous. Throughout the book, he gives examples of how older and modern evolutionists have attempted to "prove" evolutionary theory not by rigorous experimentation or accepted rules of evidence and causation, but by trying to disprove the only real alternative - a supernatural cause, specifically creationism. To show this, Hunter provides an abundance of quotes from leading evolutionists claiming *as evidence for their theory* that, essentially, "God wouldn't have done it this way, so evolution is the only explanation". Hunter points out, correctly, that this foundational assumption of evolutionary theory rests not on a scientific proposition, but on a religous judgment about the nature of God. (See, for example, Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" - the entire book rests on his personal assumptions about the way God should do things and concludes that, since the observable universe doesn't match what he thinks God would have made, evolution must be true.) Some of the previous critical reviewers (those who did not misunderstand the book's reasoning, at least - several did) claim that Hunter's thesis is useless because it presents an ultimately untestable claim - "God can create things however He likes, so nothing we see in nature can possibly contradict creationism." This is quite true. However, what these reviewers fail to see is that Hunter points out throughout the book that evolutionary theory does exactly the same thing. It takes fundamentally neutral observations - the fact that genetic code is identical for all creatures, for example - and, based on a nonscientific assumption about God's nature, declares that such a thing cannot possibly be the work of God and therefore must be a result of evolution, regardless of whether or not the observation at issue is really evidence for evolution. Resting as it does on a metaphysical presupposition, this basic tenet of evolution provides evolutionists with the ability to claim that any observation must be evidence for evolution because "God wouldn't have done it like that" or "even if we can't fathom how this might have happened, evolution must have done it, because there's no other possible explanation". In essence, they assume evolution to prove evolution. This may be a valid philosophical approach, but it is not science. Ultimately, what this book reveals is that creationism and evolutionary theory are not "religion vs. science" - rather they are two competing varieties of religious thinking, *each* resting on untestable assumptions about the nature and purpose of God, and as such neither is really science. This is fine, every theory has a right to compete in the marketplace of ideas, but evolutionists have for far too long been passing off their metaphysical theory as scientific fact. Hunter's book is another step toward finally forcing them to acknowledge the truth. A final note: I give this four stars only because, as a non-scientist, I occasionally had difficulty understanding Hunter's terminology. This is hardly a fatal flaw, though, and I would recommend the book to other laymen with an interest in this subject.
Rating:
Summary: Omphalos Redux
Review: In 1857, two years before the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, Philip Gosse, a leading British authority on marine life and dedicated Plymouth Brethren minister, published a book, Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot. This book, which has become a symbol for the extremes to which religious apologists will go to make science compatible with their religious beliefs, was confidently believed by its author to be the definitive solution to the conflict between traditional ideas of a young earth and immutable species and the rising evidence for an ancient earth and the evolution of life so soon to be argued by Darwin. Gosse's solution? A very simple one, advanced with rigorous and impeccable logic. Just as God would not create the first tree without growth rings (it wouldn't be a real tree if he did) or mammals without navels (omphalos is Greek for "navel"), so any coherent notion of God creating life as we know it today means he created it with the appearance of age. This being the case, the creation could have occurred in the quite recent past with only an appearance of great antiquity. To Gosse's dismay, both religious conservatives and scientific nonbelievers rejected his thesis as a foolish ad hoc attempt to reconcile conflicting ideas with a kind of philosophical sleight of hand. Now Cornelius G. Hunter has brought us an update to the Omphalos thesis, which, despite accepting the usual criticisms of Gosse, nevertheless operates by much the same logic. Like Gosse, Hunter is a sincere scientist seeking a simple solution to what others see as a largely irreconcilable conflict between the evolutionary underpinnings of modern biology and traditional Bible-based religious belief. Hunter's solution? Whatever science shows us that seems to confirm evolutionary theory and discredit creationism can only do so if we assume a priori that God would not have done things the way science shows us it was in fact done. This thesis has all the power of Gosse's, for it can "account" for any scientific observation whatsoever.
Gosse's and Hunter's biggest problem is an extremely naïve comprehension of the basic enterprise of science, which only advances when observations are not only collected and systematized, but closely analyzed in an attempt to find underlying principles and laws which account for the particular character of the observations and have predictive value. In Gosse's time, the philosophy of science was still rather young, so he may perhaps be excused, but anyone reading Hunter's book with only a passing acquaintance with the literature of modern philosophy of science can only be amazed at the crudity of the framework by which Hunter understands the relationship of observation to theory. Put briefly, a recurring theme in Hunter's book is to review classic arguments in favor of evolution, concede that they do indeed support an evolutionary interpretation, but nevertheless then refuse to accept that interpretation since it is always possible to claim that another interpretation, namely, "God just did it that way" is equally valid. The crudity of this argument is admittedly disguised by much discussion of the "theological assumptions" of evolutionists, so much so as to lead Hunter to confidently claim that evolution is a theological (or at least only philosophical) notion that has no real scientific support. Hunter does have a valid point about evolutionists rushing to conclude that a rational Creator would not have created a world such as we have. Why should the Creator conform to our ideas of rationality? If he wants to create individually and ex nihilo dozens of kinds of elephants, all but a few now extinct, but all showing close homologies with each other but far fewer than with hippos, for instance, who are we to say he can't or didn't? We weren't there, so all we have to go on is the actual observational evidence, which admits of a Hunterian as well as an evolutionary interpretation.
Hunter's view is rather like saying that if I go to my mailbox and find it full of my mail, I have no reason to claim that this in any way supports the theory that someone called "the mailman" put it there. Now of course I have in the past seen the mailman putting mail in my box, but how do I know today, if I did not actually see him do it, that that's how the mail got there? By Hunter's logic, it would be an equally valid (or invalid) thesis to claim the mail materialized in the box ex nihilo. It is to me both a good and a bad sign of the times that, unlike Gosse, whose theory was rejected by both religious believers and scientists, Hunter's book carries admiring blurbs from three of the heavyweights of modern "scientific" creationism: Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe and William Dembski. Good because this displays the true intellectual poverty into which the Creationist camp has sunk; bad because one would hope that this trio of anti-evolutionists, clever and sophisticated as they are, would have the perception to see that Hunter's thesis is nothing less than a totally ad hoc approach to the scientific enterprise. Like Gosse's theory, it winds up explaining nothing by explaining everything. Despite my problems with this book, it easily deserves two stars. Like Omphalos, it is very well written and certainly provides food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: Evolution as theodicy an interesting idea, but...
Review: Mr. Hunter makes the argument that the theory of evolution is essentially a theodicy, a theological explanation for the existence of evil. This is an extremely interesting viewpoint, and I am indebted to Mr. Hunter for showing this to me. His main point was that Darwin's intention was not to replace God with evolution, but rather to distance God from his creation by interposing a set of natural laws. Thus, evolution would be merely acting out these natural laws, producing not only a vast array of organisms, but also the inefficiency, the carnage, and the downright nastiness that we observe in nature. For one who believed in an orderly and benevolent God, as Darwin did, it was impossible to reconcile this view with the brutal truth that he observed in nature. Mr. Hunter then goes on to claim that the theory of evolution has an underlying metaphysical basis. This basis could be summarized as "God would not have done it this way". The only theory preceding evolution that attempted to explain the existence of all species on this planet was a theological one (i.e. God created them). It therefore made sense to compare the predictions one would make using the two theories. However, as Mr. Hunter points out, this is not a simple undertaking, as the prediction one makes depends upon the view of God that one has. In essence, Mr. Hunter is replying "How do you know that God would not have done it this way?" And this point is well taken -- how, indeed, can we say what God would or would not consider as the "right" way to create a world? However, the consequence of this approach is that the way the world is should inform us about the way God is. This could have been an interesting point of departure, if Mr. Hunter had then explored what kind of God would have made the world the way it is today. However, he does not do this; he does not even attempt to do so. This is one of the many disappointments of this book. He also fails to recognize that resorting to the explanation of "because that's the way God made it" can be used to explain everything, but ultimately explains nothing. Evolution seeks to explain without invoking processes that we do not observe now. As such, it may succeed or it may ultimately fail. Whether or not evolutionary theory has presuppositions (and I agree with Mr. Hunter that they have always been present), the theory of evolution does make some clear predictions that can be tested. The theory that "God made it that way" makes no predictions at all. The other major disappointment was the fact that the insight of evolution as theodicy was really the only thing that this book has going for it. As such, although quite short, this book should have been even shorter. The same points are hammered home over and over again throughout; the repetition became tedious to me before I was even halfway through it. Perhaps realizing that he needed to "beef it up", Mr. Hunter inserts a chapter near the beginning in which he goes through the main arguments for evolution, and then devotes much more space to counter-arguments. He trots out the same old arguments that we've seen time and time again from the creationists. There is nothing new here, or very convincing for that matter. Mr. Hunter's point seems to be to show the reader that the scientific bases for evolution are not very convincing, so that one can see that the main reasons for accepting evolution are ultimately metaphysical rather than scientific. He did not convince me, perhaps because I have studied this subject for some time. I found it insulting, and more important, unnecessary for his main argument: that evolution can be considered a theodicy. This was the final disappointment with the book. Although it is framed as an objective examination of the metaphysical bases underpinning evolution, it still comes across as yet more ammunition in the ongoing struggle of creationists against evolution.
Rating:
Summary: Through a religious prism, darkly.
Review: The author's response to Dennis Littrell's review is quite revealing, perhaps unintentionally so. Littrell says, quite correctly, "What IS being said is that the report of our senses is better evidence than an arbitrary appeal to metaphysics, which is exactly the way science cannot work." Mr. Hunter calls this itself religious: "Once again, the evolutionist finds traction in religious pronouncements rather than scientific reasoning." In other words, the statement that the Omphalos (apparent age) argument is not scientific, or indeed any statement about the epistemology of science, becomes in Mr. Hunter's view a religious statement. This same religious prism pervasively underlies his analysis in the book, and is the reason that it is not a helpful guide to the actual motivations of evolutionary scientists through the generations. The numerous quotes he gives in the book of metaphysical musings by evolutionists, are, in the main, reflective of attempts to reconcile their own metaphysical views with the facts their investigations have uncovered, and are *not* the motivating principle behind their conclusions - which are based solidly on those facts. The quotes themselves, when separated from Mr. Hunter's analysis (and when he gives sufficient context) are valuable in themselves, and are the reason I rate this book a 2.
Rating:
Summary: Sophistry Cloaked in Reason's Garb
Review: The proponents of "scientific" creationism said their religion was really science, but It wasn't. It was religion. In the last few years a new approach has been to revive William Paley's thesis from almost 200 years ago under the title "intelligent design theory." But that effort to cloak religion in scientific garb is also running out of steam. Now Cornelius Hunter has written a book to advance a new thesis. The strategy this time is not to call religion science, but to reverse the order of things. Having failed to make a convincing argument that religion is science, it is now argued that science, in the form of Darwian evolution, is religion. Hunter claims that Darwin's observations were based more on metaphysics than natural phenomena. But he fails to explain this claim in any convincing manner. Whether you are religious, agnostic or atheist there is a high probability you will find the whole idea to be silly and a waste of time, and a waste of your money if you buy this book.
|
