in August 1984. In Jamestown, Pennsylvanianin 1985 the intercom systemnannounced a Soviet attack on annAmerican ship, a civics lesson “tonmake the kids consider the implicationnof an international crisis in a morenrealistic way,” John Chancellor ofnNBC commented.n”Experts” blame this fear on thensituation, not on activist groups. RobertnJ. Lifton of Yale came close to relatingnteenage suicide to fear of nuclear war.nA psychoanalytically-oriented historian,nan associate of Lifton, found youngnmen haunted by the unreality of nuclearnweapons, the unpredictability of existence,nthe bland vocabulary of annihilation,nand the world’s insanity —n”not at all surprising fears” of scenariosnpresented out of historical context,nLondon writes, and fears incidentallynthat flourished long before nuclearnweapons. One result of this education:nthe White House received in 1983nmore than 100 letters a day “fromnfrightened, ill-informed children, whonin writing to the President, are fulfillingnclassroom assignments” (according tonSenator Orrin Hatch in the CongressionalnRecord).nThis mobilizing of children, a classicntotalitarian technique, assumes childrenncan face realities adults cannot —nadults “not yet civilized enough tonallow a child to lead us.” Londonncorrectly writes that “the young havenbeen made pawns in a political movementnthey did not create and cannotnpossibly understand.” But there arenindications that some of the youngnhave more sense than the organizationsnseeking to manipulate them. JohnnMack of Harvard Medical School andnanother “researcher” betrayed impatience-withnmany high-school studentsnwho offered grimly to “go to war” ton”fight the Russians” after the Sovietninvasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Tonput some good sense into his colleagues,nRobert Coles argued that nuclearnfears existed largely among thenaffluent children exposed to campaignsnand with fearful parents, not amongn”workers [who] resent being toldnthey’re dumb and numb by upscalenpreachers of nuclear doom andngloom.”nWhy do schools, especially schoolnadministrators, yield so readily to thenpressures of these activist organizationsnthat make them uncomfortable? Whyn40/CHRONICLESnare they not able to say that nuclearneducation is not an academic subject,nas Roger Scruton and Caroline Coxnargued in Encounter in 1985, and thatnmanuals like Choices are “notneducation . . . but political indoctrination,”nas The Washington Post wrote?nThis is the real question this booknraises.nLeo Raditsa teaches at St. John’s.nUpdating Paleynby Bryce J. ChristensennThe New Biology: Discoveringnthe Wisdom in Naturenby Robert Augrosnand George StanciunBoston: New Science Library/nShambala; $22.50nLike many Englishmen of his generation,nCharles Darwin in hisnyouth was an avid reader of WilliamnPaley’s The Evidences of Christianityn(1794). As Darwin formulated his theorynof evolution, he lost his faith innPaley’s argument that nature manifestsnCod’s wisdom and foresight. “The oldnargument from design in nature,” henwrote in his’ Autobiography, “as givennby Paley, which formerly seemed tonme so conclusive, fails, now that thenlaw of natural selection has been discovered.nWe can no longer argue that,nfor instance, the beautiful hinge of anbivalve shell must have been made likenthe hinge of a door by man. Therenseems to be no more design in thenvariability of organic beings and in thenaction of natural selection, than in thencourse which the wind blows.” Most ofnDarwin’s readers have agreed, relegatingnPaley’s work to the dustbin ofnhistory.nBut Paley’s line of argument hasnbeen revived by Robert Augros andnGeorge Stanciu in The New Biology.nBefore proceeding to outline their ownnparadigm for interpreting nature, thenauthors (one a philosopher, the other anphysicist) attempt to dismantle thenDarwinian theory of evolution thatnhas for so long paralyzed thought onnthe metaphysical issues they raise.nGrounded in the latest research innpaleontology, ecology, and genetics.nnnthis critique of Darwinian orthodoxynexposes some key weaknesses. For instance,nDarwinism predicts slow andngradual accumulating adaptations, butnthe fossil record is punctuated withnsharp discontinuities that gave rise tonMiles Eldridge’s “punctuated equilibrium.”nMore radically, Augros andnStanciu dispute the materialistic premisesnunthinkingly embraced by mostnevolutionists. Originally borrowednfrom physics, these premises remainnessential to evolutionary biology, evennthough theoretical physics has nownabandoned them as too narrow andnmechanistic. Materialistic evolutionnfails most visibly when asked to accountnfor human consciousness, butnthe theory stretches credibility even innits explanations for the appearance ofnintelligence, purpose, and design innnonhuman species. The origin of lifenitself still remains a dark mystery,nwhich so far refuses to unravel itself innspontaneous-generation experiments.nAs they contemplate the beauties ofnnature, many of which have no discerniblen”survival value,” the authorsnposit the necessary existence of a supernaturalnArtist. “This Artist is God,”nthey urge, “and nature is God’s handiwork.”nThe argument advanced mustnnot be mistaken for creationism, whichnthey repudiate as pseudoscience. Rather,nin arguing for the evolution ofnspecies through divinely directednchanges in regulatory genes, the authorsnoffer a sophisticated version ofn”orthogenesis,” refurbished with allnof the latest discoveries in molecularnbiology.nAn important book that deservesnwide attention. The New Biology willnstimulate an overdue debate over thenfirst principles of evolutionary biology.nChristian biologists, long cowed bynorthodox materialists, should particularlynwelcome a serious-reconsiderationnof a theistic approach. Still, readersnshould assess this new synthesis withncaution. In the first place, it must benremembered that scientific theories,neven good ones, do not last forever, butnare eventually supplanted. Anyonenwho embraces a scientific theory as andefinitive bulwark for faith runs the risknof eventually imitating the churchmennwho rejected Copernicus’s theory becausenof its incompatibility with theirndogmatic synthesis of Aristotle andnScripture. Nor can Christians ignoren