What Has Darwin to Do with Shakespeare?
Oct 27, 2006
Author:Chuck Colson
"From BreakPoint, October 12, 2006, copyright year, posted with permission of Prison Fellowship, www.breakpoint.org.
A Meaningful World
Over
the years, you’ve heard me recommend many publications on the subject
of intelligent design. But I believe it is safe to say that I have
never before discussed one that featured two chapters on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The reasoning behind these chapters is that Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt’s new book, A Meaningful World,
is about so much more than the narrow concept that many people have of
“intelligent design.” Their book’s subtitle helps explain their idea: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. It’s an original and utterly fascinating approach to the subject.
Wiker and Witt are arguing against what they call the “poison” of
our time: reductionist materialism and the nihilism that stems from it.
To put it more simply, they are fighting against the idea that the
universe is without meaning. We’ve all heard this idea before, but we
don’t always realize just how much it has permeated our culture and our
lives.
Which brings me back to Shakespeare. Most of us have heard someone
say that “if a million monkeys banged away on typewriters for a million
years, eventually they would generate the entire works of Shakespeare.”
I have tended to laugh this off as most of us do, not aware that the
people who embrace reductionist materialism are really serious.
As Wiker and Witt explain it, “Reductionist materialism seeks to
give an entirely material explanation of human intelligence, one that
reduces it to a string of pointless material causes. It must kill the
soul, and in the process, reduce all the evident genius of humanity to
dust.”
And that, the authors show us, is exactly why materialists came up
with the “million monkeys” idea. Scientific reductionism—the view that
we all came into being by random chance—is closely linked to literary
reductionism—the desire to “force the beauties of [literature] into [a]
box.”
Thus, scientists came up with the “million monkeys” theory to show
that Shakespeare’s genius was nothing special, that his works could
have come about purely by chance. And, the theory goes, “If monkeys
could knock out a Shakespearean tragedy given enough time, then what
about creating Shakespeare himself? Couldn’t he be almost as easily
explained on Darwinian grounds?”
But do you know what happened when scientists tried to test their
theory? Obviously, they couldn’t test it for a million years, but they
thought they could get some idea about the truth of the theory by
testing it for a month. The monkeys pressed some random letters on the
keyboard, bashed the computer with stones, and—to put it as delicately
as possible—used it as a toilet. “Suffice it to say,” the authors
remark dryly, “their literary efforts fall a good deal short of the
Bard.” It’s difficult to see how extending this farce for a million
years would have made any difference at all. In fact, a scientist at
MIT used a computer simulation to prove that it could not have happened.
This is only the beginning of Witt and Wiker’s exploration of their
theme. Tomorrow, Mark Earley will be with you to take a look at their
argument that not only do the arts and culture point to a universe full
of meaning, but so do mathematics and the sciences.
| For Further Reading and Information |
Today’s BreakPoint offer: The Recommended Book List from Chuck Colson and the Wilberforce Forum.
Learn more about A Meaningful World by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt. Buy it today.
Jonathan Witt, “A Meaningful World Broadens Case for Intelligent Design,” ID the Future blog, 10 August 2006.
Dr. Benjamin Wiker, “A Meaningful World,” To the Source, 28 September 2006.
William Dembski, “For Your Fall Reading . . . ,” Uncommon Dissent blog, 27 July 2006.
Visit Jonathan and Amanda Witt’s blog Wittingshire.
“The Privileged Planet”
(DVD)—This hour-long documentary explores the scientific evidence for
intelligent design and purpose in the universe. Also available in VHS.
"From
BreakPoint, October 12, 2006,
copyright year, posted with permission of Prison Fellowship, www.breakpoint.org.
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