The Problem of Evolution: A Study of the Philosophical Repercussions of Evolutionary Science by J. N. Deely, R. J. Nogar (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Problem of Evolution: A Study of the Philosophical Repercussions of Evolutionary Science. By J. N. DEELY and R. J. NoGAR. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1973. Pp. 486. $Hl.95 Over-all this is a good book, but it does not seem to have much of a place in modern North American intellectual life. By this I mean that it is either too long and diffuse or not long and diffuse enough. For those already convinced of the book's main thesis the work gives the impression of beating a dead horse. For those not so convinced the introductory essay and the various readings, all more or less in the same vein !n that they assume the truth of the thesis, are hardly sufficient to win the day. The book is divided into three main parts: An historical-doctrinal introduction by Deely of about 80 pages, six groups of readings totaling about 3~0 pages, and about 30 pages of bibliography. There is also a 7 page Retrospect recalling the unfortunate and untimely death of Fr. Nogar, 0. P. The six groups of readings center around six themes, namely, the animal background to man, the cultural foreground to man, the moral consequences of accepting the evolutionary vision, some " metaphysical " issues, some aspects of evolution and Christian thought, and the evolutionary world-view. The readings are taken from fifteen different people, four of whom appear twice: Dobzhansky (~), White (~), Deely (~), Steward, Bidney, Adler, Ayala, Dewey, Ashley, Waddington, Dubarle, Chardin, Nogar (~), J. Huxley, and Eiseley. The 10 page general conclusion , which begins on page 393, emphasizes the differences between the static, picture, eternity-minded outlook and the dynamic, drama, changeminded outlook. The latter accepts the " bitter truth " that the natural world is a mess in which man, left with nothing but his freedom, must thrash around while working and hoping for the best. The work was in the main complete in late 1968 and, although the bibliography is somewhat updated to 197~, the main text still remains early in date. From time to time this shows up in the text as, for example, on page ~11 where Adler's The Difference of Man and The Difference It Makes is called his most recent book. The reader, however, is assured (p. 441) that during the several year delay in publication nothing of any great importance has transpired that would make several of the contributors change what they had to say. As for as the content of the work is concerned, one main theme and several sub-themes stand out. The main point of the book seems to be to continue the work of Chardin and complete the task of convincing the 611 61~ BOOK REVIEWS world, and especially old-fashioned philosophers and conservative churchmen , of the promiscuous and ever-changing, ever-ongoing, process-nature of the world. A world of constant, endless, and radical change is the central fact of evolution regardless of exactly how particular events are explained. This is the postulatory, "as if," mythos, "vision" of evolution (see pp. 27-29, 77). It represents a "mentality" which soars up, beyond, and around the lack or presence of facts of the moment. In agreement with Nogar and Crespy, Deely asks us to keep our eye on the donut (the continuity) and not on the hole (the gaps) and thus experience the evolutionary world-view at first hand. (p. 22) All the readings were chosen to reinforce and develop this outlook on life. Concerning the book as a whole, " The point most worthy of note is that the time for theologians and philosophers to question whether evolution is a fact now demonstrated has gone. " (p. 403) The problem of reconciling being and becoming, eternity and time, stability and change, in the same world is certainly a real and serious one. But is the removal of a part of a problem a serious solution? Under pressure to get-with-it and get-modern, this seems the tendency of the present volume. As modern men " it is high time that we begin to take seriously what scientific experience has long since testified, but what has only just begun to be acknowledged in philosophy...