The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism: - Well, any honest guide to Darwinism today would be politically incorrect

Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution has just published The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism, updating the intelligent design controversy.

He offers a thoughtful and often ironic look at this curious moment in Western history when a culture that was not founded on materialism has recently become completely obsessed with protecting it from inevitable disconfirmation. Darwinism, the creation story of materialism, has become the flashpoint of the battle to save materialism in a universe that, in the words of physicist Sir James Jeans, is more like a great thought thought than a machine. Not surprisingly - most people actually sense that, and the committed Darwinists intellectual establishment simply cannot make North Americans accept their most fundamental ideas, such as evolution as an "unsupervised" and "impersonal" process, humans as mere animals, and concern for others simply a way to spread "selfish genes."

Wells, of course, had a front row seat for such recent controversies as the Smithsonian uproars (both the persecution of scientist Rick Sternberg and The Privileged Planet showing), and his style is easy and uncluttered. But what really makes the book both fascinating and funny is the frantic quotes from obsessed Darwinists who make quite clear that they will stop at nothing in their attempts to impose materialism on an unbelieving public. And yet they attempt to portray their victims as "horribly frightening" (a quote).

The ID guys are "horribly frightening"? Yes, but not because they wish or do any harm. But rather because more and more people are beginning to figure out what is going on. There will be an accounting. For the Darwinists, given the number of careers of honest, thoughtful scientists that they have wrecked, that will be something like what happens when the judge hears the victim impact statement.

Two things about Wells' book unsettle me, however:

Read more here.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

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