07AR12-28

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Apologia Report 12:28

August 1, 2007

Subject: DARWINISM: Discovery Institute releases new textbook

In this issue:

ISLAM - leading moderate Muslim academic concedes to Islamists

ORIGINS - new Discovery Institute textbook, Explore Evolution

+ further analysis of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution

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ISLAM

Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, by Akbar Ahmed [1] -- reviewer Tony Blankley explains that Ahmed is "former Pakistani high commissioner to Britain and member of the faculties of Harvard, Princeton and Cambridge, current chair of Islamic Studies at American University - and is in the front ranks of what we Westerners call the moderate Muslims, who we are counting on to win the hearts and minds of the others."

Blankley describes the book's background: "As a trained anthropologist, [Ahmed] took three of his students on a six-month journey around the Muslim world to investigate what Muslims are thinking.

"His conclusion: Due to both misjudgments by the United States and regrettable developments in Muslim attitudes, 'The poisons are spreading so rapidly that without immediate remedial action, no antidote may ever be found.' And Dr. Ahmed has always been an optimist.

"He divides Muslim attitudes into three categories named after Indian Muslim cities that have historically championed them: Ajmer, Aligarh and Deoband.

"Ajmer represents peaceful Sufi mysticism, Aligarth represents the instinct to modernize without corrupting Islam, Deoband represents non-fatalistic, practical, action-oriented orthodox Islam. It traces to Ibn Taymiyya, a 14th-Century thinker who lived when Islam was reeling from the Mongol invasions. He rejected Islam's prior easy, open acceptance of non-Muslims.

"In short, Dr. Ahmed is an Aligarth. ...

"Even one or two years ago, I think Dr. Ahmed was reasonably hopeful that his views had a fighting chance around the Islamic world. So, my jaw dropped when I got to page 192 of his new book and he described his thoughts while in Pakistan last year on his investigative journey: 'The progressive and active Aligarth model had become enfeebled and in danger of being overtaken by the Deoband model ... I felt like a warrior in the midst of the fray who knew the odds were against him but never quite realized that his side had already lost the war.'

"He likewise reported from Indonesia - invariably characterized as practicing a more moderate form of Islam. There, too, his report was crushingly negative. Meeting with people from presidents to cab drivers, from elite professors to students from modest schools, Dr. Ahmed ([who] holds a respected place in the Muslim firmament around the globe) reports that 50 percent want Shariah law, support the Bali terrorist bombing, oppose women in politics, support stoning adulterers to death. Indonesia's secular legal system and tolerant pluralist society is being 'infiltrated by Deoband thinking.... Dwindling moderates and growing extremists are a dangerous challenging development.'" realclearpolitics.com, Jun 20 '07, <http://tinyurl.com/2sc6ca>

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ORIGINS

"Teach the Controversy" by Mark Bergin -- World magazine's cover for this feature asks: "Will Darwinism fall? Critics of evolution keep chipping away." Without regard for that premature question, Bergin introduces "a new textbook from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute" <discovery.org>. Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism [2] "does not address alternative theories of origins but succinctly lays out the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the most critical elements of Darwinism. ...

"Explore Evolution encapsulates a 'teach the controversy' paradigm that the Discovery Institute has advocated for the better part of the past decade." The article's subtitle claims that this is "a balanced approach that - so far - is lawsuit proof." Bergin observes that the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania federal court decision "that Intelligent Design was religion, not science" could (and should) have been avoided, if only the school board had heeded the Institute's advice.

"Prior to the Dover case, [the textbook] Of Pandas and People [3] broke into public biology classrooms in 22 states over its two-decade run." The Panda book (which has been re-written and is scheduled to be released this fall under the title The Design of Life [4]) is described as the forerunner of Explore Evolution.

The Explore text has already received plenty of criticism from the Darwinist quarter. Bergin provides a brief summary. World, Jul 21 '07, pp13-14.

Another part of the cover feature, "Darwin Slayer" by Marvin Olasky, is an interview with Michael Behe on his new book, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism [5].

Olasky summarizes: "Behe's new work shows that Darwinism's random mutation and natural selection explain little about how one species has led to another.

"Behe's insistence that key mutations in the history of life must have been nonrandom, and that the universe is clearly designed for life, will infuriate Darwinian materialists. But he will also displease creationists, for he argues that 'the evidence for common descent seems compelling.' Modern DNA sequencing, he contends, shows that many creatures have common ancestors, and that God did not create man from dust."

Olasky asks: "Your [new book's] concluding section gives readers 'something to ponder long and hard: Malaria was intentionally designed,' and children die in a mother's arms 'because an intelligent agent deliberately made malaria, or at least something very similar to it.' Some of your conclusions seem deistic, and others suggest that we might be in the hands of a very angry God. After our research and pondering, where do you personally come out?

"Behe: I'm no deist. I'm a Christian who believes strongly in an active, loving God. Yet as C.S. Lewis insisted, Aslan is 'not a tame lion.' God answered Job's complaint of suffering not by denying it, but by His majesty and transcendence. God did not place us in a toy world, with all the sharp edges smoothed. ...

"We Christians especially should expect to suffer in this life and, much worse, to witness those dear to us suffer. Yet our faith assures us that through the mystery of suffering with Christ, God will draw out much good." World, Jul 21 '07, pp15-16.

A review of Edge of Evolution [5] by Ric Machuga in Books & Culture (Jul/Aug '07, pp38-39) is also if interest. "Prior to Darwin, all an atheist could do was to repeat with Hume that in an infinite amount of time anything is possible, including the complex design we see in nature. The Edge of Evolution makes it much more difficult for an atheist to find fulfillment in Darwin.

"Michael Behe's new book begins by distinguishing three issues that are commonly subsumed under the banner of 'Darwinism.' One is common descent. A second is natural selection. And the third is random mutation. Behe argues that though there is very strong evidence for common descent, and though natural selection certainly has an important place in the biological explanation of organic diversity, random mutations by themselves cannot explain the molecular foundation of life on earth. It is hard to think of a group in the current controversy over evolution that will not be angered by something Behe writes. This is good; no one can legitimately dismiss The Edge of Evolution as propaganda."

Machuga mentions a couple of these contentious opinions from Behe. "Behe is quite clear that he has no objection to the idea that species as distinct as mice and whales evolved from common ancestors." And, "Behe would agree: if it's alive and if it's big enough to be seen by the human eye, then it evolved."

Last, Machuga makes a point when he questions the wisdom of Behe's book title. "I'm afraid Behe's phrase might actually obscure the power of his argument. His argument is about how much pure chance is tolerable in biological explanations. But as Dawkins continually - and correctly - repeats, evolution is not about chance, it is about cumulative selection. Behe's title obscures the fact that his topic is the molecular foundations of life, where there is no cumulative selection to improve the odds." <http://tinyurl.com/24dn7l>

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Sources, Monographs:

1 - Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, by Akbar Ahmed (Brookings Inst, 2007, hardcover, 323 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0815701322/apologiareport>

2 - Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism, by the Discovery Institute <http://tinyurl.com/2kke4a>

3 - Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, by Percival Davis, Dean H. Kenyon (Foundation for Thought & Ethics, 1989, hardcover, 170 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0914513400/apologiareport>

4 - The Design of Life (due some time this fall; we have not found a description of it online - yet. It will likely first show up online here: <http://www.fteonline.com/publications-video.html>)

5 - The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, by Michael J. Behe (Free Press, June 2007, hardcover, 336 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743296206/apologiareport>

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