Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (Paperback)

"If one wants to believe in Creationism, the picture can easily lull critical faculties. Yet, if we think about it, it is bizarre. Surely we should not imagine the Creator contemplating a wingless bat, recognizing that it would be defective, and so equipping it with the wings it needs. Rather, if we take the idea of a single creative event seriously, we must view it as the origination of an entire system of kinds of organisms, whose needs themselves arise in large measure from the character of the system. Why were bats created at all? Why were any defenses against predation needed? Why did the Creator form this system of organisms, with their interrelated needs, needs that are met in such diverse and complicated ways?

Invocation of the word "design," or the passing reference to the satisfaction of "need," explains nothing. The needs are not given in advance of the design structures to accomodate them, but are themselves encompassed in the design. Nor do we achieve any understanding of the adaptations and relationships of organisms until we see, at least in outline, what the Grand Plan of Creation might have been. This point has been clear at least since the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the Discourse on Metaphysics, Leibniz gave a beautiful exposition of it. He recognized that unless there are independent criteria of design, then praise of the Creator's design is worthless: "In saying, therefore, that things are not good according to any standard of goodness, but simply by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroys, without realizing it, all the love of God and all his glory, for why praise him for what he has done, if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing the contrary?" (Discourse on Metaphysics; G. F. W. Leibniz; 1686) For Leibniz, to invoke "design" without saying what counts as good design is not only vacuous but blasphemous. Later in the same work, Leibniz developed the theme with a striking analogy. Any world can be conceived as regular ("designed") just as any array of points can be joined by a curve with some algebraic formula.

[...] So we encounter the strategy exemplified by Morris: Talk generally about design, pattern, purpose, and beauty in nature. There are many examples of adaptations that can be used - the wings of bats or "the amazing circulatory system," for example. But what happens if we press some more difficult cases? Well, if there seems to be no design or purpose to a feature (and its presence cannot be understood as a modification of ancestral characters), one can always point out that some parts of the Creator's plan may be too vast for human understanding. We do not see what the design is, but there is design, nonetheless.

Since no plan of design has been specified, Creationists have available another all-purpose escape clause. But it is precisely this feature of Creation "science" that impugns its scientific credentials. To mumble that "the ways of the Creator are many and mysterious" may excuse one from identifying design in unlikely places. It is not to do science."

Written in 1982, this is a fine rebuttal to creation theories which were popular at the time- those of Morris, Gish, and Wysong. Creationists have switched to a new set of sheep's clothing, however, under the intelligent design movement.

This is not to say that any of the "intelligent designers" (with the possible exception of Micheal Behe) have anything new to say- their defense of intelligent design is still nothing but an attack on Darwinism, but their names are popular and the fact that they aren't addressed here will look like an omission if you don't look at the publication date.

Read this book if you have been pondering creationism based on the claims of intelligent sounding people and want to hear a lucid direct response to those people.