Barr also accuses me (and other anti-Darwinians) of not being very nice. First, let me say that I think the concept of Emma-ization is funny and pointed, but then again, I made it up, so I am biased on that score. Second, those of us critical of Darwinism have had to develop very, very thick skin in the academy. I have been accused of every name in the book just because I don’t believe that orthodox Darwinism is a sufficient, adequate, complete, or comprehensive account of biological change. My crime? I agree with Aristotle and Kant that purpose language cannot be eliminated from our descriptions of living things!

Look, the science faculty at Wabash College, where I teach, came close to voting to censure me because I was teaching a course on evolution and theology, and this was before I had even posted a syllabus, so nobody knew what I was teaching. And two scientists intervened with my department chair to try to get my course cancelled and get me disciplined. And that is only one story I will mention here. Watch the movie Expelled for more. When that movie came up in conversation at Wabash, a colleague (needless to say, a liberal colleague, yes a Christian colleague!) said that discrimination against anti-Darwinians could never happen at Wabash. I almost fell out of my chair. People see what they want to see, and ignore anything that conflicts with their conviction that liberals are tolerant and anti-Darinians are evil.

Barr’s strategy in defending Darwinism in his post, anyway, was clear: First, argue that scientific theories do not have predictable philosophical implications, and second, bring up good Christian scientists who believe in Darwinism. My response was equally clear: Darwinism is deeply embedded in naturalistic presuppositions, deeply committed to draining telos from our descriptions of nature, deeply immmersed in a pagan view of nature, deeply committed to overturning the Christian view of evil, and so on. (Actually, I didn’t say all of that in my post, but hey, you’ll have to read my book.) Moreover, I also said that I was not surprised that good people can believe in bad things.

I also want to defend my comment about scientists not knowing much philosophy: I have found in conversations with biologists and other scientists that they are, unsurprisingly, victims of specialization and compartmentalization. Most scientists just don’t have the time, energy, talent, or inclination to immmerse themselves in philosophical, theological, and historical debates about Darwinism. YET the number of books by scientists “explaining” how Darwinism fits with religion (Barr names two notable represenatives) are legion. Somehow, when a scientist tells us that Darwinism is good for religion, that’s a bestseller. When a theologian or philosopher (like Stove, whose work is brilliant) tells us that Darwinism is full of holes and leaks bad metaphysical assumptions all over the place, that is a sin against reason.

Scientists tend to be very self-serving when it comes to defining the boundaries of scientific theories. When philosophers interfere, or when their theories have bad consequences, they insist that their theories are being abused or misunderstood. Then they write books about how their theories really demonstrate new ways of looking at the world and represent crucial cultural transformations and have all sorts of implications for everyday beliefs.

In other words, they want it both ways. Look at how cognitive evolutionary psychology is not only becoming dominant in psychology programs but is also becoming very influential in religious studies. By the way, there are cultural and historical reasons why Darwinism eventually created a scientific consensus in the twentieth century, and it has to do not so much with the evidence for Darwinism but the secularization of the sciences, the widening gap between science and philosophy, and the abandonment of a purpose-filled universe.