My wife was originally a marine biology major at her prestigious college. At one point, she attended a lecture by a visiting proponent of Intelligent Design. When she later told a science professor that she didn't find the ID proponent's views entirely absurd, the professor said that such a response was "scary."
And so it is with the old guard of the scientific academy. They have sought for years to drive opposing viewpoints regarding origins from the intellectual sphere, only to find their own ideas more opening criticized than at any point in the past fifty years.
Philosophical Darwinism has come under attack from a variety of directions. Postmodern philosophy as a whole has proven particularly destructive. It has exposed the reality that facts to not appear in a vacuum, but are always viewed through the skewed lens of human perception. Everybody brings a wide array of faith assumptions and accompanying biases to the table.
A number of Christian scientists have also levied substantial critiques against philosophical Darwinism, but often somewhat unsuccessfully, as they tend try to make their case scientifically, rather than philosophically. As I will discuss in a moment, to engage modern "science" on its own terms it to engage an enterprise that is intrinsically flawed in its philosophy.
Recently, a number of substantial of books advocating ID have been put out by intellectual heavyweights within the scientific community (see, for example, this book review: http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/18/darwinism-and-materialism-they). In addition, I have read at least two articles in the normally vapid pages of the New York Times that have criticized philosophical Darwinism in the last two months alone (see opinion pieces by Trevin Wax and Ross Douthat).
Of course, what many of these writers argue regarding PD are merely reflections of a century old critique made my Christian philosophers: Before one engages any intellectual enterprise, they must first make an apriori (pre-conceived) decision to either place their faith in God's inspired revelation or in man's autonomous reason. In other words, all knowledge arises out of a worldview--one that either makes God the author of knowledge or man.
As the book review above rightly contends, Darwinist scientific claims are rooted first and foremost in a materialist philosophy (a philosophy that assumes the material world to be the whole of reality). Thus, the science that "proves" a Darwinist conception is skewed from the outset--eliminating potential data (i.e, metaphysical/supernatural data) from the investigatory process because of the apriori contention that such data does not exist. Do you see the circular argumentation of philosophical Darwinism? They rule out the metaphysical in their quest to explain origins, which in turn--surprise!--rules out the metaphysical as a possible explanation. To break it down further:
1) PD, before engaging in any scientific process, starts with the assumption the autonomous human mind is the ultimate arbiter of knowledge.
2) PD assumes, again from outset, that the mind is unaffected by sin and thus eliminates a serious consideration in terms of biasing a potential investigation.
3) PD assumes that the physical sciences, which typically are used to study physical things, have rightful claim to the metaphysical question of origins, which has long been understood to belong in the domain of theology and philosophy, which both seek to understand the physical within a larger framework.
4) PD, upon the outset of its investigation, immediately eliminates a crucial data set--the metaphysical realm.
5) PD only employs empirical (sensory) tools to study the study, since those are the only tools that exist.
Do you see how skewed the whole procedure is? The whole process begins with faith in the evolved human mind. This assumption then justifies itself with only the data and tools that are afforded by the evolved human mind. At the end of the process, initiated and governed by the evolved human mind, we find that we have an evolved human mind. We can have it no other way. If materialism is the governing philosophy, than the only possible scientific method available to us is that governed by Darwinism.
Of course, these attacks on PD, leveled from many different directions, do not begin to address the horrendous consequences of Darwinism, which removes all moral constraints from man. Thus, Hitler, in consistently employing Darwin's "survival of the fittest" paradigm through his own evolved mental processes, decided to wipe out millions of innocent men, women, and children. PD naturally leads to a utilitarian view of life and morality, with the ends of "the fittest" always justifying the means to perpetuate their survival.
And because PD is rooted in a materialist philosophy--with its all-encompassing worldview and set of religious claims about God, man, and the world--it would be natural then the the PD scholars who still dominate the scientific academy would throw a hissy whenever their claims are challenged. In fact, much of the venom shot at the authors above does not substantially take on their critiques, but relies on ridicule and ad hominem attacks. That's because it is not an objective scientific process and conclusion that is being attacked, but a religious Scientism that is feeling increasingly threatened.
