Humble origins?

“Science and Human Origins” is a small book published by the Discovery Institute (DI), a conservative and mostly Christian think tank in Seattle which promotes Intelligent Design (ID), often seen as a form of creationism. The book contains contributions by Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe and Casey Luskin. With the exception of Luskin's article “Human Origins and the Fossil Record”, which summarizes the creationist critique of the standard evolutionary interpretation of hominin fossils, the book strikes me as rather bland and boring.

Interestingly, “Science and Human Origins” seems to silently break with the DI's previous “broad tent strategy”. The articles explicitly argue in favor of Adam and Eve being real historical persons and claims that the theistic evolutionists of the BioLogos Foundation aren't good Christians. The book does claim that its arguments are compatible with goal-driven evolution, but this is probably an oblique reference to Michael Behe, a prominent supporter of the DI whose theistic "evolutionism” is very similar to old earth creationism.

The scientific merits, or otherwise, of Gauger-Axe-Luskin have been discussed elsewhere. Here, I will only make a few observations. The authors brush aside the genetic similarities between humans and chimpanzees very rashly. Yet, all studies confirm that humans (biologically speaking) really are “the third chimpanzee”. Humans and chimps are more closely related to each other, than any of them is to the gorilla. This, in turn, is connected to the entire notion of “nested hierarchies” in general, a fact not even mentioned in the book. The authors' claim that the missing link is still missing is also problematic. Most authorities agree that Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis really are roughly transitional between Australopithecus and Homo. Some of the book's arguments are frankly irrelevant, such as the claim that Homo habilis doesn't appear before Homo erectus in the fossil record, and therefore can't be transitional. Unless, of course, the fossil record is rather sketchy…which is Luskin's main argument against Darwinism in the rest of his article!

I happen to agree that our species is unique in its creative intelligence, and that this requires a different explanation than the strictly materialistic one (Alfred Russell Wallace would have agreed), but that is another proposition than the claim that the physical bodies of humans and chimps were created separately and ex nihilo. Besides, even a non-naturalistic consciousness can presumably evolve: chimpanzees *are* more clever than other non-human primates, once again suggesting an affinity to humans. I also agree that scientists should perhaps be more humble about what they know and what they don't know (witness the constant changes back and forth in the status of the Neanderthal), but the proposal for humbleness sounds a bit strange when coming from three authors most would consider Biblical fundamentalists. Presumably, Luskin *knows* the correct interpretation of, say, Daniel's 70 weeks or John's Revelation?

That being said, the main reason why I award “Science and Human Origins” two stars only, is that it's not particularly interesting or exciting to peruse…