The Naked Emperor: Darwinism Exposed
Dr Antony Latham
Janus Publishing, London
2005, ISBN 1 85756 635 1
This is the first British book-length critique of Darwinism which has substantial interaction with the work of proponents of Intelligent Design by someone who is not a young earth creationist. Writing in an informal and personal style, Dr Anthony Latham outlines a broad range of scientific problems for Darwinism, and the idea that life and the universe could be due to purposeless natural processes. This book is “for anyone who genuinely wants another scientific view on nature.” The preface is explicitly Christian. Simon Conway Morris went through the whole manuscript, and Denis Alexander helped with the early chapters.
Contents
1. A Fine-tuned Universe
Draws on Our Cosmic Habitat by Martin Rees.
2. The First Life on Earth
Occurred very soon after right conditions were formed. Stanley Miller’s
experiment.
3. An Explosion of Life
Cambrian explosion. Stephen J. Gould.
4. The Fossil Record of Invertebrates
With technical section on Echinoderms.
5. The Fossil Record of the Vertebrates
Including bird and horse evolution
6. Human Origins
Molecular and fossil evidence etc.
7. The Genetics of Darwinism
Distinction between micro- and macro-evolution. Against junk DNA. Hox genes.
8. Irreducible Complexity
Of mouse trap, bacterial flagellum, and vision.
9. The Impotence of Natural Selection
It only selects
10. Human Nature and Darwinism
Altruism, appreciation of beauty
11. Darwinian Myths
Darwin’s Finches, Peppered Moths, Wilberforce v Huxley debate.
12. The Puzzle of Homology
Genetics, Embryology, Saltations
13. Convergence
Based on Life’s Solution by Simon Conway Morris
14. Darwin and His Time
Influences on Darwin’s thought
15. The Watchmaker
Chapter by chapter critique of The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
16. Conclusions
Darwinism has failed.
Extract:
God of the gaps?
I am well aware of arguments that many will line up against this reasoning.
One of the principal ones is the ‘God of the gaps’ idea. In this argument it
is stated that when there are gaps in our knowledge then Christians and
others will simply put God in there and say he did it – which is fine until
further knowledge reduces the gaps and God is gradually eased out
altogether.I get quite annoyed at this oft-repeated accusation because it is in fact
intellectually rather lazy. It is often put out by Christian scientists who
believe in ‘theistic evolution’. They accept all of Darwinism but say that
God sustains and works through the natural laws that drive evolution. No
Christian could disagree that he sustains all of nature but to say that he
has left no evidence whatever of his involvement in the process (as they
insist) does not seem to worry them or seem contradictory. Are they saying
that God deliberately made evolution appear accidental when it is not? They
rule out the supernatural in biology and are wedded, as much as any atheist,
to an absolutely, and exclusively, natural mechanism for the appearance of
life. As such they are very’ critical of the growing ‘intelligent design’
movement that is arising from increasing numbers of academic scientists and
philosophers. It would be dangerous to label the intelligent design movement
purely as a cranky movement from the United States.Our knowledge about molecular biology and the first organisms is growing all
the time – and is vastly greater than when Darwin lived. This greater
knowledge has done the very opposite of easing God out. The more we know and
understand, the greater are the mysteries and unexplained facts. The gaps do
not, in fact, go away but become more mysterious and the problems seem
insoluble on a purely random materialistic basis.