Intelligent Design?     This booklet on the Intelligent Design theory of evolution was prompted by the front-page report which The New York Times devoted to that theory in three consecutive days this past August. Those reports and other cover stories surely exposed an aspect of that theory which is its at least indirect connection with biblical fundamentalism. But that theory has in its armor other and far more serious chinks about which Christians, who take seriously Saint Paul’s warning in the Romans that their service is a “reasoned service,” should be fully aware. On no account should they espouse the fallacy of the “biblical” doctrine of the special creation of each species. This notion flies in the face of sound exegesis and sane theology.  The shortcomings, often very serious, of Darwinian theory cannot be remedied with Intelligent Design theory, which philosophically cannot cope with design and purpose. Moreover, it is a subtle rehash of the doctrine of special creation. Even worse, as it claims to be a “scientific” theory of evolution, it implies that design, insofar as it means purpose (and indeed divine purpose) can be the object of measurements, which is the touchstone of truth in science. By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki ISBN 0-9774826-0-X  •  32 pages  •  soft cover  •  $3

Darwin's Designs     This booklet contains the lecture delivered on February 8, 2006, in Shreswbury, Darwin’s birthplace, in the context of the annual celebrations there in Darwin’s honor. The lecture aims at giving a balanced view of Darwin, who failed to keep his science separate from his ideology. Three days after this lecture was delivered, Richard Dawkins, the well-known professor of biology at Oxford and also the notorious village atheist there, spoke in Shrewsbury’s Music Hall, and declared Darwin to be the greatest man who has ever walked on earth. This claim is a verbal acrobatics that one would try in vain to unmask for the benefit of those who revel in mental somersaults. To keep one’s sanity about Darwinism, one has to have a clear idea about Darwin’s various designs, some distinctly scientific, some brazenly ideological.     This was overlooked by Darwin’s first prominent critique, Samuel Butler, also a famous son of Shrewsbury, best known for his posthumous The Way of All Flesh. The Erehwon (“nowhere” read backward), or the best remembered among Butler’s anti-Darwin books, is a case of jumping into vitalism, which is to abandon science. This booklet also outlines the “somewhere” to which one has to go in order to do justice to Darwin, the scientist, and to remain free of the tidal wave of ideological confusion his work triggered. By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki ISBN 0-9774826-5-0  •  16 pages  •  soft cover  •  $3