by Logan Gage

Phillip Johnson once remarked that if one were to take a high school biology textbook and replace every word that read "evolution" with "design" the content of the book would remain the same. That is, Darwinian evolution plays a largely narrative, rather than descriptive, function.

I've often thought the same about New York Times columns from David Brooks. Every once in a while, after a beautiful 700-word description of the frailty of the human condition, or after a Hayekian description of the limits of human knowledge, Brooks will slip in the word "evolution" in meta-narrative fashion. But if one were to insert instead more traditional, even theological words or phrases (say: "original sin" or "depravity," etc.) the content would remain largely the same.

For instance, his latest column, "The Behavioral Revolution." I believe that you will see what I mean in his description of the limits of human knowledge and his critique of modern social science. He writes, "Economic models and entire social science disciplines are premised on the assumption that people are mostly engaged in rationally calculating and maximizing their self-interest. But during this financial crisis, that way of thinking has failed spectacularly." With a more theological analysis, we would see that modern social science treats men like machines (The Abolition of Man, anyone?) when they are much more than that: they have immaterial souls and rather corrupt hearts which do not fit into the reductionist's analysis.

Brooks thinks that "sophisticated psychology" is showing us that the materialist analysis is not incorrect, that we do not perceive situations as Spock-like creatures. But the common man thinks this common sense. Brooks writes of a scholar who "believes that our brains evolved to suit a world much simpler than the one we now face." The scholar believes, among other things, that evolution explains "our tendency to spin concurring facts into a single causal narrative; our tendency to applaud our own supposed skill in circumstances when we've actually benefited from dumb luck."

But the evolutionary answer perpetuates the materialist's problem. If we are only matter in motion, merely the products of our environment, the social science models should work perfectly. If Brooks would only look to the older, common sense view he would find a more satisfying answer.

Brooks seems to have a very keen sense of the human condition, but the evolutionary meta-narrative doesn't really fit as well as the old theology. He reminds me of G.K. Chesterton who remarked that after spending years trying to come up with his own religion, after puting the finishing touches on it, ideas about humanity and God and the state of contemporary society, a curious thing happened: He took a step back only to realize that his syncretistic heresy was actually orthodoxy.

I suspect the same may happen to Mr. Brooks.