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Re: Intelligent Design
> > That's not science, though. In fact, they deliberately *avoid*
> > science, by which I mean they avoid proposing specific scientific
> > theories and testing them, because they want to build a broad,
> > political coalition opposed to "naturalism". It's philosophy
> > masquerading as science.
>
> I would agree that Johnson approaches the broader subject of naturalism.
> He often writes about how evolutionary thinking impacts all of society.
And that's putting the cart before the horse. Moreover, he consistently
confuses methodological naturalism with metaphysical naturalism. As Loren
Wilkinson points out in that Regent book I referred to earlier, Christians
constantly thank God for their meals (metaphysical supernaturalism) even
though we can explain how we bought and prepared the food, and how the
supermarket acquired it, and how the farmer grew it, and so on, and so on
(methodological naturalism). We thank God for children (metaphysical
supernaturalism) even though there is absolutely zero mystery about how
they are conceived, gestated, and born (methodological naturalism). If
Johnson is right, and the only miracles are those in which God directly
"intervenes" (which is a troublesome concept in and of itself), then God
had nothing to do with the creation of any of us, and we are all
purposeless beings brought about by random, chaotic forces in the womb.
If Johnson is right, and there is no point in seeing the hand of God in
objects and events that can be explained purely through natural forces,
then we might as well say grace the way Bart Simpson did, and tell God
that, since we made our meals ourselves, we thank him for nothing.
As I write this, it occurs to me that this may not be all *that* off-topic
for this list. Doesn't Over the Rhine tend to dwell on our need to see
the inscrutable hand of God working in dark and mysterious places? I
don't say this as an ad hoc justification for my off-topic thoughts here;
I sincerely found myself thinking of OTR's music as I wrote those words.
But this just shows that Johnson's assertion is correct even when you flip
it around -- anti-evolutionary thinking can impact the way we think, too.
> I don't know if Behe, Johnson, or Dembski would say that they're trying
> to build a "political coalition." I get the sense that they're trying
> to engage the debate. When you use the words "political coalition" it
> comes across as an attempt to discredit their motivations.
But what debate are they engaging? The point of the "intelligent design"
movement, as I see it, is to avoid getting bogged down in specific
scientific theories, and thus to appeal to young-earth and old-earth
creationists alike, and anybody else who has issues with "naturalism".
The "intelligent design" movement essentially amounts to just a new
version of the old God-of-the-gaps movement, because it proposes that an
intelligent designer *must* have been involved in those areas where
current naturalistic theories cannot account for the evidence. If the
evidence *is* accounted for further down the road, then a gap has been
filled and there is less place for God, or an "intelligent designer", at
least the way the "intelligent design" movement has envisioned him.
When I heard Johnson speak at Cornerstone, he said he wanted to get kids
going into the colleges asking questions that would confound their
professors. But I still haven't got a clue how he expects these kids to
*learn* science, or how he expects them to *contribute* to science, or how
he expects them try to *answer* those questions. His ideas sounds like a
political move, not something one would do if one was engaged in the
honest pursuit of knowledge. And the way Johnson wrote off evolutionist
Christians, by comparing us with Bill Clinton, also smacks of politics.
> If I recall correctly, Behe is a Professor of Science.
He is a professor of biochemistry, not evolutionary biology, IIRC.
> I often get the sense that when someone outside a field critiques the
> dominant ideas of a subject those within that field will try to write
> him off by saying "he's not a scientist, what does he Know?" In
> Johnson's case, as a Professor of law at Cal Berkley he seems qualified
> to weed through people's arguments.
It would help, though, if Johnson knew what the arguments *are*. In his
essays in that Regent Press book, Denis Lamoureux asks Johnson repeatedly
*where* he got the idea that evolutionists believe that whales evolved
from rodents, and Johnson never gets around to answering that question.
FWIW, in his *first* essay, Lamoureux uses Johnson's device, the "baloney
detector", and turns it on Johnson's own book, and points out several ways
in which Johnson himself relies on straw-man arguments, ad hominem
arguments, and appeals to authority -- all tactics that Johnson accuses
evolutionists of using. Johnson's arguments need weeding, too.
> As a whole we do need to be more open to having our ideas critiqued and
> poked at.
Yup. Which is why it's a shame Johnson does such a poor job of answering
Lamoureux's critiques, in that Regent Press book.
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
"I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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