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Darwin Day In America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science

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To start with, I found this book to be highly researched with almost one hundred pages of footnotes. This, in and of itself, was an encouraging sign, although not a definitive assurance of quality. However, as I read through the book, its quality, interest and readability was clearly demonstrated and Mr. West should be proud of his accomplishment. Before continuing any further, it should be noted that I approached this book (and the many other books on similar subjects) as a lay person with a Masters of Arts and nothing more. Take that are what it is worth, but the caveat was needed prior to continuing.

The book is essentially 350 pages of well-cited and sourced examples (many horrific - like certain proponents of scientific sexual materialism stating that rape or child molestation are simply natural forms of sexual expression or that the severely mentally retarded, because of reduced higher brain function, should be regarded as already dead, even though living and breathing, and should be killed via lethal injection to be used as organ donors) that provide credence and substantiation for its conclusion, which, being the vital portion of the book, are that past and current scientific materialism and the social Darwinism from which it is stems and supports, when used as the only, final and unquestionable source for decision-making, leads to the following:

1. Technocracy: If scientific materialism is all there is, then clearly scientists know best and we should refer decision-making to them, regardless of the fact that they are just as capable of bias, error and human weakness. Essentially, we are replacing one type of preacher with another, regardless that science can and has been wrong in the past.

2. Forced Utopianism: Since materialism is the only truth and all can be reduced to its material essence, then science, through forced sterilization, euthanasia and eugenics can lead us to a Utopian paradise.

3. Dehumanization: If humans are simply material, then do we define person-hood through brain function? Higher brain function? If so, should we consider those that have no or lose higher brain function as no longer being persons? Should the severely mentally disabled or those in a vegetative state be no longer be considered persons and just slabs of meat to be harvested for their organs?

4. Relativism: As the only standard of morality from materialism is dictated by survival, then that which promotes survival for a society or person at a specific time and place is changeable to suit whatever that survivability may be believed to be required at during a certain time or place.

5. Stifling Free Speech: Those that unquestionably accept scientific materialism to the expense of all else argue with anyone that questions them to the point of fanaticism. No questioning or debate of the accepted theory is accepted, no matter how credible or relevant the question might be. And this, regardless of the fact that scientists are trained to debate, question and review new evidence or information.

Note: Some comments from other reviews have stated that the majority of the book concerns the arguments for Intelligent Design. This is not so. Intelligent Design arguments take up less then 30 pages of a 370 pg. book and deal primarily in the section of 'Schools and Scholars' - meaning, quite obviously, the debate of teaching evolution in schools. However, it should be noted that Mr. West's arguments are not that evolution or Intelligent Design should or should not be taught, but rather that the hard-line proponents of Darwinian evolution not only prevent any discussion on its weaknesses, but use character assassination and other non-relevant, low-blow tactics to discredit those that question their 'unquestionable' ideas. Thus, it is not so much a defence of Intelligent Design, but an example of how free of speech and free of ideas by other credible scientists can be suppressed by those that disagree with their different conclusions. This, in turn, shows just how much these scientists, that are meant to question, debate and explore ideas, can be just as closed-minded, biased, adversarial and dangerous as the less-enlightened masses (politicians, religious leaders, common person, etc.) even though they are supposed to be trained in just the opposite and maintain an open mind.

The main point that I took from this book is that anyone, scientists or not, that are absolutely and unquestionably certain of their beliefs are a danger to society just as assuredly as religious zealots are. In the end, scientific theories are exactly that - theories that can shift, change and adapt as we learn more and more.

In summary, I will end with what I found to be the most chilling quote from the book (pg. 366, Para. 1):

"America's experience with the dehumanizing effects of scientific materialism was far from exceptional. The three regimes of the twentieth century best known for being founded explicitly on the principles of scientific materialism - Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Communist China - are all remembered for their horrific brutality rather than any advancement of human dignity."

If you have any questions or comments about my review, please let me know. Thank you.

RD Miksa

***I apologize for any grammatical errors or omissions.

`Social Darwinism' is a term which refers to the social and political ramifications of biological Darwinism and the materialism which it is imbedded in. Darwin regarded humans as basically higher animals, and as the social sciences became more and more tinged by the Darwinian outlook, humans increasingly began to be treated as mere animals, or machines.

This volume looks at how the materialistic worldview of Darwinism has impacted on a wide range of fields. As academics, scientists and politicians apply the Darwinian view of man to various social sciences, some very negative outcomes have ensued. We have steadily become dehumanised and depersonalised as we have taken on board the logical implications of evolutionary materialism.

West offers a far-reaching and profound look at numerous areas clouded by the Darwinist mindset. He examines the fields of law, education, business, economics, sociology and ethics to see how the revolutionary ideas of Darwin have penetrated every aspect of Western culture. Scientific materialism, flowing forth from Darwin and the Neo-Darwinists, today underpins much of public policy in the West.

Consider how extensive scientific materialism has become in public life. The title of this book refers to the move to make February 12 Darwin Day in the US, a date usually associated with the birth of Abraham Lincoln. But so great has the influence and impact of Darwin's ideas become that he has now risen to the status of a secular saint in many quarters.

West is certainly right to argue just how far and deep the influence of Darwin has been. Consider the issue of crime and punishment. For much of human history crime was about punishment and restitution, based on the belief that humans had free will and were morally responsible for their actions.

But with the advent of Darwin - in part - academics and elites increasingly began to view humans as simply animals who needed treatment, not punishment. After all, if we are simply the products of our biology, how can we be held accountable for our actions? Such thinking flows directly out of Darwin's materialistic account of evolution.

Thus Clarence Darrow, for example, took materialistic Darwinism to its logical conclusion and argued that criminals are basically programmed by material forces. If men are simply machines, powerfully determined by their heredity and background, then crime and punishment must be radically redefined.

Crime began to be studied not only in terms of one's biology, but also in psychosocial terms. Crime was seen as a mental illness, not wilful immorality. Criminals came to be seen as victims, and punishment was replaced with rehabilitation and therapy. If crime is just an illness, then cure, not punishment, was required.

West also reminds us that the ugly eugenics movement also flowed very nicely out of the Darwinian worldview. Eugenics was the idea that man could "take control of his own evolution by breeding a better race". The father of the eugenics movement, Francis Galton, happened to be a cousin of Darwin, and was inspired by The Origin of the Species to "improve" the human race.

Of course the rest of the title of that book reads, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. People like Margaret Sanger - who founded Planned Parenthood - simply took all this to its logical conclusion. Compulsory sterilisation of the "unfit", lobotomies, electric shock treatments and other coercive measures were all features of the eugenics movement. And it found its fullest and most ghastly expression in the Nazi death camps.

West shows how the materialism of Darwinism leads to the Nazi worldview. Hitler argued that eugenics had a scientific basis, and that race betterment was a result of the biological principles articulated by Darwin. Indeed, the three great genocidal regimes of last century - Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Communist China - were all firmly grounded on the principles of scientific materialism.

Mention can also be made of Alfred Kinsey and the radical sex education movement which also finds its roots in the Darwinian view of humanity. West covers this in sordid detail, along with other contentious social issues of the day. For example, some evolutionary psychologists are now arguing that rape and adultery can be fully explained, if not excused, on a biological basis. All sexually deviant behaviour is simply the outworking of our evolutionary adaptation and programming. Kinsey sought to scientifically justify all sexualities, including bestiality and paedophilia.

West makes a solid case for how all such ugly social and cultural radicalism finds solid ideological grounding in the ideas of Darwin. For too long there have been apologists for Darwin who have sought to argue that a large gulf looms between the biological ideas of Darwin and Social Darwinism. West very capably demonstrates that there is in fact very little distance between the two.

Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have bad consequences. West superbly makes the case that Darwin had plenty of bad ideas, and we are seeing plenty of ugly consequences today as a result. This very important book deserves to be widely read and discussed.

This new book by Professor John West is, in my judgment, his best by far. His theme is, if Neo-Darwinism is true, this has profound implications for not only society but all human activities from the obvious one, religion, to sexual norms, economics and even corrections. Neo-Darwinism is defined as progression from molecules to humans by way of the living world caused by natural selection selecting genetic variety ultimately produced by mutations (copying errors). West carefully, and with almost 100 paged of footnotes in small print (page 377-472), documents his conclusions. West has shown the critically important influence of the ideas of Darwin's cousin Sir Francis Galton F.R.S. (1822-1911), especially the idea of eugenics (conclusions that Darwin stated he agreed with, not because he wanted to keep the family peace (he strongly disagreed with Galton on topics such as the core mechanism of evolution), but because, as is clear from his own writings, he sincerely believed Galton was correct. Fundamentalist Darwinists may go spastic over the material on eugenics in West's book, but dozens of books and peer reviewed journal articles have well documented this event of history and West's conclusions cannot be denied. West also covers the infamous and irresponsible Kinsey sex research in a well done chapter titled Junk Science in the Bedroom, documenting how critical Darwinism was in Kinsey's work and conclusions. One example is on page 180 of Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is a section that today would land the perpetuators in jail. This chapter shows just how much negative influence that Darwinism has had in our society. This book will create much controversy, but cannot be ignored. I see West as a reporter, documenting the facts to help scholars and the public to understand the nefarious influence of Darwinism on society. As Francisco J. Ayala Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697, wrote in his May 15, 2007 PNAS article titled "Darwin's greatest discovery: Design without Designer", the theory of evolution is a result, not of intelligence, but of chance and necessity, randomness and determinism that jointly enmeshed to produce the stuff of all life and all life. This conclusion, besides not being science but religion, has profound implications for all of society.

In Darwin Day in America, Dr. John West brings into sharp focus the manipulation of our political and cultural institutions by metaphysical materialist ideology. A superb work of scholarship, Darwin Day in America chronicles how some of the top scientific, medical and elite thinkers of the 20th and 21st Centuries pushed an ardent materialist agenda into our hospitals, courtrooms, schools, and bedrooms. Ideas really do have consequences, and the consequences of materialism's junk science culture have often been severe.

Essential to West's study of such materialist ideology is the view of man espoused by Charles Darwin in his second major work, The Descent of Man. Darwin argued that the purposeless processes of natural selection and random variation implies a humankind whose actions are wholly reducible to natural impulses. Banished is any set of moral truths for man to look to as a basis for sound judgment. Morality is reduced to an instinctual or environmental set of behavior that furthers human survival. In fact, Darwin--and sociobiologists who have followed in his footsteps--have either doubted or outright denied the existence human free will. This view of man leads to a moral relativism that could reasonably justify all sorts of ideas and actions--be it eugenics, polygamy, or the like.

A trained political scientist, West is careful to make clear that there is no logical *necessity* between, say, neo-Darwinism and eugenics. But through numerous historical examples and careful citation, West shows how scientific, medical and other elites have explicitly and repeatedly advanced such ideas and programs in the name of Darwinian evolution or "science."

In particular, chapters 3-5 chronicle the calculated efforts of metaphysical materialists to radically alter our criminal justice system. The materialists have tried to undermine our respect for free will and moral responsibility in order to bring about a hyper-rehabilitationist system. The materialists have not been nearly as successful as they would have liked--at least not yet. But the pushback is surely no consolation to the victims and the victims' families in those individual cases where criminals were exonerated solely because of supposed biological & environmental factors. Nor is it any consolation to the victims and their families in those cases where innocent victims themselves were dehumanized because of their supposed lack of biological fitness. Hyper-rehabilitiationism also led to criminals avoiding due punishment, instead facing inhumane medical "treatments" that run contrary to the Constitution's prohibition of cruel treatment.

Subsequent chapters address the impact of ardent metaphysical materialism (including neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory) on business, architecture, and bioethics. The chapters on Alfred Kinsey and sex education are not for the squeamish.

A later chapter goes on to discuss the theory of intelligent design (i.e., certain aspects of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, rather than undirected processes). But the book is not a defense of the theory of intelligent design per se. Instead, West places his discussion of the theory intelligent design primarily in the context of academic freedom. That freedom is under attack by too many in today's Darwinian establishment. West understands better than anyone the hostility and recriminations that scientists and other scholars have been subjected to in academic circles for taking interest in the theory of intelligent design--or for simply raising doubts about the scientific evidence for neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Darwin Day in America is an excellent book. It receives my highest recommendation.

Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest

Darwin Day in America is an excellent book. The book was both eye opening and challenging and is clearly the result of a lot of good research. It is well organized and well written, giving a readable account of the results of materialism on society both in the past and present. Anyone who is studying social sciences ought to read this book. In fact, I would say that anyone at all concerned with the world we live in should read this in order to educate themselves more fully on where society has been and where it could go.

Researcher John West has completed an excellent review of tons of literature in an attempt to assess the enormous influence of Darwinism in society today. No one doubts this fact. The only question is the level of positive and negative influence. West does not make unsupported claims and carefully documents each chapter in an effort to add to the debate about Darwin now circling the globe. It seems that this topic is now of sufficient importance that it has come up several times in the American presidential debates. One original contribution was chapter 11 titled Banned in Burlington that covered the opposition to those who have the audacity to question Darwinism in public schools and colleges. West cites case after case of such irresponsible behavior supported by 218 footnotes. I read this chapter not long after I learned about Ben Stein's new film titled Expelled, which covers the same problem. An example is the attempt to label Intelligent Design (ID) Biblical Creationism, which West shows is a pathetic attempt to smear ID. ID philosophy and conclusions dates back to ancient Greece and Rome (something I learned in my Introduction to Philosophy class in college) and the term ID to refer to the modern concept of ID was first used in modern times, accordingly to West, in the 1890s (see page 232). He covers the problems at Baylor University, George Mason University, and other schools plus the discrimination Beckwith, Sternberg, Guillermo, Wells, and other ID supporters have experienced, documenting the fact that ID is a career killer even if one publishes in the leading scientific journals. Of course, after one is outed, that is the end of such publications for many, if not most, Darwin doubters as West documents and is well documented in other sources. In West's words "When it comes to public discussions of evolutionary theory, however, the freedom for scientists to raise hard questions evaporates" Page 248. Well put.

_Darwin Day in America: How our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of science_ (2007, by ISI Press) by John G. West of the Discovery Institute is an interesting book which reveals the dehumanizing process undertaken by modern materialistic science. This book explains how since the nineteenth century, scientists and intellectuals came to believe that science could provide answers to all the intractable problems of human existence. In particular, the theory of Darwinian evolution has been seen as a great scientific achievement and explanatory principle. However, as the author fully reveals, the Darwinian theory has had an ugly history with some very ugly consequences, particularly as applied to society in the form of "Social Darwinism". The author shows how in modern times, a caste of scientific "experts" has sought to reduce the status of man to that of the lesser animals or to that of a mere mechanism. In the process, scientific ethics have been abandoned, as have principles of morality and belief in a divine principle at work in the universe. The author shows how as science pushes further and further towards its limits it destroys society. The author promotes the concept of Intelligent Design as an alternative to the Darwinian account of evolution through randomness. However, the conclusions of this book really do not depend on the author's particular version of ID nor on some of the author's political conclusions.

This book considers some of the consequences of the worldview of scientific materialism in such areas as criminal justice (in which belief in "free will" and moral accountability are denied), welfare (in which the poor and "unfit" have been sterilized through a system of eugenics), in business (where racist policies have been implemented in accord with social Darwinism), in human sexuality (where sexual morality has been discarded in favor of a libertine ethic with drastic consequences for society), etc.

The book explains such issues as:

The Origins of Scientific Materialism - in its development from the atomism of Greece and Rome (in the philosophy of Democritus and Lucretius), to the materialism of the 16th and 17th centuries in Pascal, Hobbes, Locke, and Descartes, culminating the Newtonian worldview), and in the materialism of the Enlightenment (from the materialism expressed by Mary Shelley in her novels, to the theories of La Mettrie and d'Holbach - who came to view man as nothing but a machine, and culminating in the views of Laplace - who saw the scientist as eventually achieving God-like power). The book also considers "Darwin's Revolution" in that it examines Darwin's views on the theory of evolution as random process, their supplanting earlier views of design in nature, and their culmination in Darwin's views of man. The book further explains how Darwin came to be a "reluctant materialist" in the Victorian era, but contrasts this to the views of his friend Alfred Wallace.

Crime and Punishment - examination of "criminal science", in the excuse made by attorney Clarence Darrow for the brutal crimes of Leopold and Loeb (in terms of the nurture excuse and the denial of free will), the views of Cesare Lombroso (in which criminals were seen as born bad, and criminality a consequence of biology), and various psychosocial views of crime. The book examines the view of crime as mental illness, the rise of the insanity and "addiction" defense, the treatment of criminals as victims, the use of torture, castration, psychosurgery, or eugenics on criminals, and the change in the role of justice from "restorative justice" based on atonement, to rehabilitation and behavior control. Finally, the author considers the increasing prevalence of psychotropic drugs as a means to control behavior.

Wealth and Poverty - the author considers the "survival of the fittest" and "law of the jungle" view of social darwinism as applied towards the accumulation of wealth and ruthless business practices (though the author maintains that true American capitalism is non-exploitative and is improperly understood in terms of this view, I believe that is somewhat of an over-simplification), the idea that one can "breed oneself out of poverty" as it applied to eugenics (as espoused even by Margaret Sanger, a hero to progressives), sterilization, forced abortion, and the issues of race and class (the author shows some of the horrendous consequences of this view in which those deemed "feeble-minded" were sterilized by fiat of the Supreme Court often when they had no apparent defect), the author explains how the ideas of eugenics came to decline and the disingenuousness of modern Darwinians in their denial of the past, the rise of a new business ethics in which ruthless practises were applied to hiring (often based on race or biology), selling, and advertising, and the role of architecture (in which a new biologically based architecture gave birth to the ugliness of modern cities and slums).

Schools and Scholars - the author considers the importance that Darwinian theory has come to take on in modern education, the insanity of Darwin supporters in their promotion of "Darwin Day", "randomness", and other ridiculousness, the conflict between Darwin and "fundamentalism" at the Scopes trial (noting that the original text-book material creating the controversy surrounding this trial actually contains problematic assertions justifying social darwinism and eugenics), the promotion of Darwinian metaphysics and the battle over text-books, and finally the banning of ID and the nastiness of the battle over ID (I believe however that the author goes too far in playing their game and gives in to some of the excesses of the Darwinian fundamentalists). The author also considers the role of sexual science, examining the pseudo-science of the Kinsey study (revealing Kinsey himself to be involved in controversies over bestiality and pedophilia), and the battle over sex education (noting the role of SIECUS and its original promotion of a morality in the 1970s that could only be described as soft on these issues to a more traditional morality in the 1990s). The book promotes abstinence-only sex education, but I think that sex education should be abolished completely and become the right of the parents alone and not the state.

Life and Death - the author considers the re-definition of life (in which life originally defined as beginning at conception came to be seen as justifiably extinguished through the practice of abortion), an examination of the issues surrounding abortion and "research" on aborted fetuses and stem cells as well as "defective" infants, re-definition of death (examining for example the plight of Terri Schiavo, the issue of "brain-death", the issues of an expansive concept of death versus a restrictive one, the issue of abuse of those deemed "defective" and "vegetables" - life at its weakest, and finally the battle over euthanasia).

In conclusion, the author explains how man has been abolished. In particular, the author considers such issues as the rise of technocracy - rule by scientific "experts" rather than ordinary citizens, politicians, clergy, or ethicists, the goal of scientific utopianism and its apparent answer to skeptical claims made by clergy, the religious, traditionalists, and conservatives, the process of dehumanization, the rise of relativism, and the stifling of the free speech of all those who speak out against these evils. The author considers the apparent victory of scientific materialism but notes how new discoveries have opened up the possibility of an alternative worldview (quantum mechanics). The author explains the battles that will be fought over genetic engineering and neuro-science. Finally, the author notes how the victory of either side will shape the politics and culture of the future.

This book offers a significant challenge to the prevailing view of scientific materialism. The author explains some of the horrendous consequences that have resulted from application of Darwinian theory to the social realm. Whether or not one agrees with the author's viewpoint, such challenges cannot be ignored despite the scientific establishment's attempts to reject all criticism.

The author has two objectives. In the first place he gives us a history of evolution thought, starting with Darwin and ending with current sex education. Emphasis is exclusively on all the bad, evil things that derived from such thinking: eugenics, racism, crime as mental illness, and most of all scientific materialism which denies god a role in nature. It is a thorough and, as far as my limited knowledge goes, an accurate history. Evolution surely has a lot to account for, but so would a history of medicine or nuclear power show a great deal of evil and destruction. West does leave out all positive consequences of evolution thinking in medicine, agriculture, and other technologies. Still, I would be willing to give the author four or five stars for this history.

The second objective is to promote intelligent design as an alternative theory in biology, with due consideration given to spirit, soul and god. Unfortunately, the author does what all creation believer do, they criticize science, poke holes into it where they can find them, and generally assume there is something wrong with evolution. Missing is any evidence for his own belief, philosophy, or science. What I would like to see, is some evidence for an alternate theory, some evidence of the intelligence, how the design proceeded, and where his god is hiding. Yes, it is difficult to keep god in the picture drawn by evolutionary scientific materialism. The author himself describes the difficulties Ken Miller in his <Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution,> has to preserve his belief in God (p. 225 ff).

Ultimately, the only question is whether the materialist view of nature is true or false. There is nothing in this book to convince any reader to change the scientific view of the universe.

This book is written by and for the paranoid, ultraconservative escapist. If you want to believe that mankind has no responsibility for their own future - buy this book. If you want to blame everything that has gone wrong with society on Darwin instead of placing it on man where it belongs - buy this book.

Science in America is under assault from Fundamentalist Right and Left. For West's "Darwin Day In America", Creationists on the Right are getting better at what they do. West's book may be diced in any number of ways but this reader sees it as five-pronged. 1) establish Darwin's theory as ultimately immoral, 2) claim immorality of scientists practicing materialistic, non-directed science (i.e. not directed by God), the fruits of their practice destroying civilization, 3) breed doubt about evolution and science in general, 4) portray the "truth" of Creationism as underdog against massive institutional odds, 5) offer the solution of Intelligent Design with instructions on "teach-the-controversy" approach (because they have no evidence against evolution). Ground the reader, inspire them, call for action.

First, it's important to recognize who writes this book. West is a Creationist for the Discovery Institute - promoters of teaching religion in science class. However, this alone does not make what West claims as incorrect. A careful reading finds West is right about same matters, wrong about others. Mixing them makes the wrong appear right. He's close to spot on when it comes to materialistic perspectives humans have applied to themselves in the modern era much as Romanticism did in response to Enlightenment. West elaborates this in his sections on Crime And Punishment and the oddities of Alfred Kinsey's sexual perspectives. The black eye delivered science by eugenics straddling the last two centuries is noted throughout the book, over and over, to make sure we didn't miss the 100th time. (Recall, Sparta killed what they considered weak infants. Neither Darwin nor his followers invented the concept as West tells it - nor can this moral issue refute evolution as a scientific matter.) A sizable fraction of that which West is right about is not so much an indictment of science as it is of scientific illiteracy, including his own. As a religious Conservative, West is unaware how like Postmodernist Liberals he is in his opposition to science. While West and team target science as a source of moral evil, Postmodernists target science secondarily as a source of power for the moral evils of Western Civilization (their primary aim). After all the agendas science is about describing nature as it is, not how we want it to be. Sociology, psychology, cultural studies, Creationism, Intelligent Design, Critical Analysis (of evolution) are not science though they pretend to be. Both sides want the cachet of modern science as their defender, but to do so they must transform it into something else, as both Creationists (in high schools) and Postmoderns (in university humanities departments) have done to varying degrees of success. In the end though, neither side is able to refute science, so on the Creationist side West is forced - as Creationists must always be - to satisfy themselves with fabricating controversy which becomes real in the public mind with their marketing and media machine. West's book goes far in furthering that project.

Under the first prong of "Darwin's evil", the tactic of taking remarks out of context is employed. "We are nothing but a big fruit fly", "We're more like worms than we ever imagined", "The worm represents a very simple human". Are we to believe those quoted actually mean this? Does West? The Bible says we are like worms (Micah 7:17), foxes (Job 13:4), wolves (Ezekiel 22.27). Does it literally mean that? Perhaps West should assign guilt to the Bible as it far precedes Darwin in materialist thinking. On the other hand, if genome findings show "we share 99% of our genes with mice and we even have genes that could make a tail", it's West who then says we are mice, not Jane Rogers who published the mouse genome. But if the genome in fact shows this compliance, what are we to do with such data, classify it because it might make some people squeamish? West blames Darwin for perversions in his name long after his death much as Jesus gets associated with the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition and witch burning. Darwin is blamed even for modern art.

For the second prong of immorality throughout science, West quotes Neal Gillespie, noting that scientists have used materialistic models of causality, rejecting supernatural and theological factors. Yes! That very core basis of science - only explainable causes are allowed. West notes that evolution (like fusion, oxidation, or the spontaneous emission of photons) is "purposeless and non-directed", and that this materialistic perspective makes science immoral. Instead of the strength it is, this is a cold and heartless fact to West. If indeed all things are part of God's plan then others are free to have faith in this idea but since such a faith cannot be submitted to the rigors of science what does West expect science to do? Should there be Christian science in America, Hindu science in India, Buddhist science in Nepal?

Brewing doubt West spends most of his calories on the tactic of elucidating real or invented inconsistencies in evolution - as there remain shortcomings in Newtonian mechanics, Einstein's Relativity, and quantum mechanics. Yet these "theories" work well enough to create GPS, semiconductors and every machine humankind ever built. Are these accurate models of nature or not? No scientific theory is born fully grown. For West and the Postmoderns this is an indictment of science, "proving" how flawed something that begins incomplete must be. Given the myriad disagreements about the nature and life of Jesus resulting in the many denominations in existence today, would West and his Creationists comrades then assert that Jesus did not exist? Or that he did live but his teachings were incorrect? Outside Discovery Institute / Michael Behe's offering that the intelligent designer may be a space alien, West never once provides a scientific argument opposing evolution. No testable model, no measurements, no data on anything. And for good reason. Creationists know full well that such an approach glazes the eyes of our TV generation. Better to market their message with slick campaigns and sound bite logic.

Finally we get to Intelligent Design (ID) where we find West is not without humor as he tries to convince us ID goes all the back to Greece and Rome, i.e. "We didn't just make this up to circumvent Supreme Court decisions." While West claims apparently complex systems in nature are "best explained as products of an intelligent cause", can he test that? He might as well say complex systems are best explained by Scientology's King Xenu, but can he test it? (Retreat from ID can be seen from the bacterial flagellum to the helicobacter pylori in Holmes and Randerson, "A Skeptic's Guide To Intelligent Design", New Scientist, 9 July 2005, p. 10.) But this has all been done before, when in the 16th century natural theology created a "God of the gaps". For everything as yet not understood, God was assigned responsibility. The problem being that God - by man's doing - was forced to retreat from each knowledge gap eventually filled by science. That there remain systems too complex for us to yet fully understand proves one thing, that our knowledge remains incomplete. Hardly does it prove there is an intelligent force behind nature.

No matter how much West slander's Darwin, evolution has been found to be a fact of nature in everything from astronomy to zoology, remaining one of the great achievements in human discovery. But the future of science in America remains as uncertain as it was for the Islamic Empire when it turned away from rational thought for zealotry and fundamentalism, condemning themselves to the dustbin of history. In an era when China embraces science as America retreats, West and his Creationist comrades in unexpected concert with their enemies, the Fundamentalist Left, threaten to wreck those great hopes of our Founders, those men with Enlightenment science in their bones. As Hayek said of freedom, so too for science in the modern era, it must be fought for and won over and over again in the same place.