SVMagazine EDITION: 1.9.00 The Search for Intelligent Design in the Universe The Search for Intelligent Design in the Universe By: Michelle Quinn -- Mercury News staff writer Photo: Patrick Tehan Phillip E. Johnson is a dangerous man. At least that's what his critics think. Certainly Johnson, 59, a tenured law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, is unconventional: A Christian intellectual, he is trying to bring God back into the scientific story of how life began and evolved. Johnson contends that the story of the beginning of life has been controlled by evolutionary theorists and accepted unquestioningly by the intellectual elite, including the media. He argues, in fact, that the theory of evolution is the foundation of the world view of the intellectual elite, who, he says, subscribe to a belief in a godless, meaningless, materialist world. Not that he shuns evolution entirely. Johnson is a new breed of creationist, one who uses books and articles rather than a pulpit to argue his position, and one who grants that some of what evolutionary theory says is probably true. He says even more should be taught about evolution- including its contradictions. Johnson, an evangelical Presbyterian, argues that, like him, most Americans believe in a mixture of evolution and creation theory but their opinions have been shut out of scientific and public debates. Instead, these debates have tended to be dominated by the extremes: Bible literalists, who believe that Earth was created by God about 10,000 years ago; and some evolutionary theorists, who believe the universe is developing without the help of a supreme being. Evolution, a cornerstone of biology, holds that some forms of animals and plants developed into other forms by a process of change through succeeding generations. In his books and articles-and in appearances on CNN-Johnson argues that evolution theory is suspect because it inadequately explains the most essential questions, such as "How did life begin?" and "How do complex systems develop from simple ones?" Indeed, scientists offer competing, contradictory explanations about how a species evolved an eye or a wing over time. They also debate the rate of evolution. Johnson uses these disagreements to question not how evolution took place, but whether it explains biological innovation at all. He says that the answers to life's origins and development, in fact, "point to intelligent design" and not just nature and chance as evolutionists purport. Critics have labeled him `dangerous' for tapping into Americans' fear that science and religion are incompatible. And he unfairly gives scientists a bad name by arguing that they ignore contrary information to promote their evolution agenda, says Eugenie Scott, human biologist and executive director at National Center for Science, a non-profit organization that supports the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Johnson, Scott added, employs his skills as a lawyer to use language to confuse people. "I think he is capable of generating a lot more anti-evolutionary feeling than the other creationists," she said. Johnson, who teaches criminal law and criminal procedure, is used to the hubbub. Affable and animated, he spoke about his campaign at his Berkeley home, where his wife runs a children's library, mostly for home-schooled kids. How do you think life started and evolved? My starting point is there is no scientific factual evidentiary basis to believe that the Darwinian mechanism-mutation and selection-has any creative power. It doesn't have the power to create genetic information. Can you explain that? The cell is a miniature chemical factory, which can be compared to a city or a supercomputer. It has a vast number of functions. They have to be directed, and this level of activity implies the existence of a program that directs the whole thing. The right question to me is: How does the program get written? Who or what writes the program and how is this done? Neither random mutation nor natural selection is an information-creating mechanism at all. You get a certain amount of change out of random mutation, but it doesn't grow anything more complicated. The reason evolutionary scientists believe mutation and selection can do and did do the job is not because of the evidence, it is in spite of the evidence. They believe that because they have identified science with materialist philosophy, that all that exists is matter and the laws of physics and chemistry. Those two had to do the creating because nothing else was available. And that being the case, a mindless, material, evolutionary process is a deductive logical necessity. If there's a process that turned a bacterium into a butterfly, it's unknown how it happened. It's a mystery. There is no such mechanism we can observe in nature or in the laboratory. Why can't we come up with a theory based on what we know? Isn't it somewhat unfair to say, "show me how evolution happens in a laboratory," given that this is a process that has taken millions of years? If you are a philosophic materialist, you don't need any evidence at all. It's got to be true as a matter of logic. If you are Christian, like I am, you might say: "Show me. I want to see it." That's a higher standard. But it's perfectly rational. Yet you've said that you accept some aspects of evolutionary theory, such as natural selection [the process by which a species, over time, adapts to its environment by selecting genes that are more likely to help it survive] and mutation [an alteration in a cell's genetic material transmitted to the cell's offspring]. Most people get into this topic because they have a complete picture to sell. It happened the way the Book of Genesis said and here's how you defend that, etc. Or it happened the way Darwin said or Stephen Jay Gould (the American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist) said. I have an entirely different approach to the question. You talk about evidence proving an intelligent creator. What evidence? Here's the evidence. Think of the computer and the experience we all have with the computer. You understand that the computer is not just matter, not primarily. It contains silicon, plastic, but that's not what makes it a computer. It's the design, the software-it's why Bill Gates is so rich. And the software is the product of human intelligence. To arrange the letters into a meaningful set of instructions, you need the intelligence of the software designer. I think it's ironic that in the computer industry, people fail to recognize that it takes intelligence to write the software. Neither lawlike processes or chance or a combination of the two has that ability. Aren't you just substituting one belief system for another? People decide the big spiritual questions on other grounds. I do not argue that you can deductively prove the existence of the biblical god from science. When you understand what the genetic information is and what the need for intelligence is, that creates a science that's inherently God-friendly, rather than God-hostile. It doesn't prove the reality of a god who cares what I do. But on the other hand, it's consistent with such a being. It's not at all my project to prove God with science. Instead, you get rid of a stumbling block. Are you hoping to change people's minds? Most people in the intellectual world have been taught all their lives that the only basis for any objection to what the evolutionary scientists are saying is biblical literalism, what I call the "Inherit the Wind" stereotype. ["Inherit the Wind" is a 1955 play about the trial of John T. Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher who, in 1925, was charged with violating state law by teaching the theory of evolution.] People like yourself, maybe, or Stephen Jay Gould or the president will not change their minds. They will continue to be materialists. They have a deep unfalsifiable faith. Even where I am, people believe in Darwinian evolution because they have always been told that all educated people believe in it because they've been told you are an idiot if you don't. But this is a very shallow level of commitment. In August, the Kansas School Board ruled that the state's standards and examination would no longer include evolution theory, causing academics to fear that evolution would be taught less in the schools. What was your reaction to the decision? The reason why it's more significant than a regional high-school education issue is that we're sitting on a volcano in a sense. The public opinion polls show that only 10 percent of the public accepts the official scientific story that we're created by a mindless, material evolutionary process in which God played no part. Two-thirds of the public says teach both sides. That's the view of the presidential candidates on the Republican side. That's what Al Gore said on Monday and then repudiated on Wednesday [the week of the August decision]. Kansas created an overreaction. All the editorials could have come from the same pen: "The Catholic Church persecuted Galileo." "The Scopes trial." "The Bible is not a scientific textbook." "We'll lose the economic race to the Japanese." In 1991, you wrote "Darwin on Trial," and are now working on your fifth book on the subject of evolution theory. Why has this become your life's work? I was an establishment figure when I was young, but now I have become a cultural revolutionary. I grew tired of the nit-picking that is a law professor's natural lot, and decided to tackle the big issues. The biggest issue of all is the official creation story of our culture, the story that tells us how we come to exist and how we relate to ultimate reality. In our culture that is Darwinism, and I discovered that this idol had feet of clay. It governs not only science, but all aspects of intellectual work, including law. What has been the reaction at the law school to your books and media appearances? My colleagues at the law school are very decent and tolerant folk with whom I have an excellent relationship. Some of them agree with me. Some think it's crazy or quixotic. They are all quite cordial about the entire matter. In the legal culture, there's an inclination to believe there are two sides of every story, and that the experts are bluffing as much as not. It's rather easy to get legal people to see that there's another side to this question. What has been the reaction among your church members to your work in advocating intelligent design? There's a difference of opinion about how important this debate is. What I always say is that it's not just scientific theory. The question is best understood as: Is God real or imaginary? An imaginary god isn't the foundation of anything. (c) 1999 by the San Jose Mercury News. [...]