Anarchy, Evolution, Faith, Science and Bad Religion in a World Without God —
By Greg Graffin and Steve Olson. HarperCollins, 290 pp, $22.90,
Adding to the proliferating roster of works that challenge readers to abandon blind faith and the God delusion, and opt, instead, for critical thinking based on reason and evidence, the main thrust of this treatise focuses on the impossibility of any intersection between religion and science.
However, the dual roles in the life of Greg Graffin confirm a very potent nexus between art and science. The “Bad Religion” part of the title refers to the wildly successful punk band he launched as lead singer in 1980 and whose logo displays a cross with a red circle-slash “no” sign over it. Additionally, he formerly served on the science faculty at UCLA after receiving a Ph.D. in zoology from Cornell. When he composes a new punk band song, his lyrics never tell others what to think but he always challenges them how to think. And he has always followed that same precept as an educator.
In his role as an evolutionary biologist, he unequivocally insists that evolution represents the greatest achievement in science ever because it has changed and even revolutionized the way we think about ourselves, the world around us, and Darwin's masterwork that unmasked an anarchic exuberance of life as it comprised a book-length argument for natural selection. Examination of the fossil record reveals that life persists in a state of constant change as radical transformations beset every living organism.
All science requires observation, experimentation and verification, three criteria impossible to apply to any belief system inherently based on faith. True believers of the world's major religions, therefore, ignore the conflict between religion and science. Unfortunately, if they have their way, we are catastrophically headed for a new era of intolerance and sectarian factionalism.
The author underscores the maxim that the evolutionary record is not only incomplete, but unlikely ever to be finished because it can only offer a purely mechanical explanation for the biodiversity that most biologists had previously attributed solely to God's handiwork. Nevertheless, some evolutionary scientists still subscribe to a teleological account in which they merely replace God the designer with Nature the designer. Graffin explains this failing as basic human fallibility.
In “The False Idol of Atheism,” the writer devotes (detractors might contend “squanders”) some of that entire chapter on the persistent and pesky roundelay about the propriety of employing the much-maligned A-word as suitable nomenclature for nonbelief since he personally far prefers the term “naturalist.” He harshly criticizes those skeptics and freethinkers who fiercely denounce proselytizing evangelicals for their missionary zeal just as they match or even surpass that ardor with their militant activism.
This tome covers much familiar ground; yet it is interesting and enlightening to view The Big Picture from the vantage point of someone who, as a lifelong staunch doubter, happily never had to rebel against a wrathful god or risk the terrors of everlasting fire and brimstone.
Although Steve Olson is billed as co-author, his name appears only once in the entire narrative so that the volume essentially becomes Greg Graffin's own autobiography in his double careers as a musician (and now affectionately known as the elder statesman of punk rock) and as an esteemed science pedagogue.
Mr. Akerley, a resident of Culver City, may be contacted at benakerley@aol.com
