Darwin’s House of Cards: A Journalist’s Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates by Tom Bethell (PDF)

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In this provocative history of contemporary debates over evolution, veteran journalist Tom Bethell depicts Darwin’s theory as a nineteenth-century idea past its prime, propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and empirical evidence that is all but disintegrating under an onslaught of new scientific discoveries. Bethell presents a concise yet wide-ranging tour of the flash points of modern evolutionary theory, investigating controversies over common descent, natural selection, the fossil record, biogeography, information theory, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, and the growing intelligent design movement. Bethell’s account is enriched by his own personal encounters with of some of our era’s leading scientists and thinkers, including Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin; British paleontologist Colin Patterson; and renowned philosopher of science Karl Popper.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Those who claim to live by science will eventually die by science.”Science depends on evidence/conclusions. What does all the current evidence – fossils, cells, DNA, information theory, atomic forces – drive us to conclude?”But, as I hope to show in the following chapters, the science of neo-Darwinism was poor all along, and supported by very few facts. I have become ever more convinced that, although Darwinism has been promoted as science, its unstated role has been to prop up a philosophy—the philosophy of materialism—and atheism along with it.”Why then were Darwin and Wallace so convinced?”Darwin found that Malthus (free market economist) had given him a theory “with which to work.” The doctrine of Malthus equally applied “to the animal and vegetable kingdoms,” where there could be “no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage,” Darwin wrote.”What! Darwin found inspiration from a ”free market economist”???”The philosopher Bertrand Russell was a little more careful: “Darwin’s theory was essentially an extension to the animal and vegetable world of laissez-faire economics.”Amazing!INTRODUCTION1 DARWINISM IN OUR TIME2 DARWIN’S MISTAKE3 DARWIN’S CURIA AT THE CENTENARY4 COMMON DESCENT: FACT OR THEORY?5 NATURAL SELECTION: A CLOSER LOOK6 WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE FOR NATURAL SELECTION?7 ON EXTINCTION8 IS VARIATION INDEFINITE OR LIMITED?9 HOMOLOGY AND ITS POSSIBLE CAUSES10 THE CONUNDRUM OF CONVERGENCE11 THE FOSSIL RECORD12 EVOLUTION AND SYSTEMATICS AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM13 INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND INFORMATION THEORY14 DARWIN AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MATERIALISM15 DNA: GOD IS IN THE DETAILS16 LENSKI’S EVOLVING BACTERIA17 THE SOCIOBIOLOGY WARS18 HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND ITS ENEMIES19 THE SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE20 BIOGEOGRAPHY AND DARWIN’S THEOLOGY21 THE RISE AND FALL OF PROGRESSENDNOTES”In his correspondence—often less inhibited than his books—Darwin was disposed to give theological reasons for rejecting the evidence of design. “There seems to me too much misery in the world,” he wrote to Asa Gray in 1860. “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the [digger wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”Karl Popper was a giant of twentieth century scientific proof. Popper made (in)famous condemnation of Darwinism as science. . .”In his autobiography, Karl Popper said he had come to the conclusion that “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program.””To say that a species now living is adapted to its environment “is almost tautological,” he wrote. “Adaptation or fitness is defined by modern evolutionists as survival value, and can be measured by actual success in survival. There is hardly any possibility of testing a theory as feeble as this.”A ”feeble theory”!”Further controversy ensued, for Popper—apparently under pressure in England—partially recanted in 1978. Later, in 1988, I had a chance to interview Popper myself, when he spent a week at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. I immediately brought up the issue of natural selection. He told me that his opinion had not changed.””He also said he thought that natural selection had in fact been falsified “by Darwin’s own theory.” Distortions introduced by sexual selection sometimes meant that offspring were not better adapted than their parents, he said.””When I mentioned that Darwinism had evidently benefited from the idea of Progress, widely accepted in the mid-nineteenth century but widely rejected in the late twentieth, Popper said that “I have been one of the people who have destroyed it.” He said he had “preached” along those lines in his book The Poverty of Historicism.”This ”faith” in progress is repeatedly presented as key reason for the speed of Darwin’s acceptance.For another analysis of evolution, the book (from 1925) is worth the time – ”The dogma of Evolution”, by Louis Trenchard More. He was a professor of physics, who also wrote biographies of Newton and Boyle. Outstanding!(See – ”From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution” by Etienne Gilson; this is an analysis by a leading scholar on the philosophical history of evolution from Aristotle to Darwin. Also, ”The Death of Humanity: and the Case for Life” by Richard Weikart; both add to this presentation.)

⭐My introduction to the author came in 1976 when I read his article in Harper’s Magazine titled, “Darwin’s Mistake”. I was captivated by the simple ideas he presented: 1. That “survival of the fittest” is a tautology since survival has no independent criteria for survival . . . you have to wait to see what survives. 2. That later evolution claims then contended that “fittest” meant nothing more than those which leave the most offspring . . . no way to explain new species. 3. That the background for Darwinian evolution was constructed and bolstered by the zeitgeist of belief in progress.”House of Cards” fills in all the details around the ideas he presented in 1976 and brings the arguments up to date with topics on DNA, information theory, and artificial intelligence. This is a comprehensive work with many references and material from interviews with well-known evolutionists.So now what is in the cards according to the author?He makes the argument that Darwinism blossomed only when materialism became the dominant scientific presupposition (faith). With the materialism of science came the hope of an ever expanding science and progressive society. He then points out that this hope for a better world created by science and culture faltered at the turn of the century largely fueled by the environmental movement. General consensus then changed from humans making a utopia to a world ruined by mankind. So he questions that with the foundation of the house shaken, will the rejection of both materialism and belief in progress finally bring the house down?Great resource book on the devolution of evolution and what it means for our time. I highly recommend it.

⭐Bethell systematically and dispassionately dismantles Darwinian arguments for origins based on natural selection, often pointing out that in a desperate attempt to protect their a priori commitment to materialism, Darwinists want to have it both ways: gradual modifications controlled by natural selection over a long period of time… so slow you can’t perceive or find any evidence for these changes AND often when necessary, large mutative jumps between species, happening so quickly that they leave no evidence.Bethell addresses all of the familiar arguments of natural selection, variation (indefinite or limited), common descent, homology, convergence and the fossil record and includes more than a few quotes from bold Darwinians who haven’t shied away from objective criticism of the same. One example: Sir Gavin de Beer, a Fellow of the Royal Society, asked ‘what mechanism could result in the production of the same patterns (homology), in spite of their not being controlled by the same genes?’In one volume, Bethell offers significant evidence and reasoning revealing the tenuous arguments for evolution. Given the paltry so-so evidence and so-so stories support for natural selection (which by the way only acts on what has already mutated and in no way influences genetic changes), only a complete commitment to materialism explains how one could support Darwinism with a straight face. Finally, like Meyers, Wells, Axe, Richards, Behe, Dembski, etc, I appreciated Bethell’s complete avoidance of mockery, sometimes present among those committed to creationism and ID. He simply presents the arguments for macro-evolution and lets them fall apart on their own.

⭐This book deals with the inherent contradictions in Darwinism and examines its philosophical underpinning which even today determines its advocacy. The final sentences of the book predict the decay of Darwinism due to the loss of faith in eternal progress and the increasing understanding of the complexity of biological processes despite the determination of those espousing a materialist outlook at all costs.

⭐A very nteresting book which describes the cracks in Darwinism now that science has moved on. One scienttist asks ‘why are we still teaching this in schools’.

⭐A good read. The author highlighted that if you reject God as an option then you are left with one option and a commitment that materialism is true, regardless of evidence, which summarised the theory of evolution very well.

⭐Very good in its overall content and thoroughly readable with points, that challenge the Darwinian theory to its very roots.

⭐Darwin’s House of Cards: A Journalist’s Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates

⭐For those of us watching the debate around the Neo-Darwin synthesis over the last ten years or so, this could be a pivotal book.Although the author is a journalist, he writes at a decent academic level in the relevant sciences. This book is a collation of all the evidenceagainst Darwinism where natural selection has been used to explain almost everything evolutionary in nature. The author Tom Bethell has severalanecdotes of working with some of the best of modern biologists such as Stephen Jay Gould and therefore has some decent some inside track information.This book will be most useful to those with genuine doubts about Darwinism. It probably won’t be enough for those who are committed evolutionists particularly if their tenure depends on it!This book clearly claims that Darwinism was a product of its times and which has been somewhat left behind by more recent scientific discoveries.Darwin’s house of cards may eventually help us develop an evidence-based paradigm for the origin of species. Bethell admits Darwin was very good in terms of the extinction of species, but not on origins!You will either love or hate it!

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