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Les Sleeth
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In a paper entitled Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism, Philip Johnson criticizes dogmatic practices of those in power, in this case the advocates of Darwinism. He does so not as a Biblical creationist, but as someone who thinks Darwinist theory has serious problems, and who is open to some sort of creationary force/consciousness being part of what brought about creation.
The article is interesting to me because it says so many things I myself think, and have argued here at PF over the years, except I think Johnson says it better than I ever have.
This link http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/pjdogma1.htm has the article, responses from five critics, and Johnson’s answers to the critics. In total (article, critics, response) it’s about 10,000 words.
I was hoping some PF members would read all of it and critique his reasoning and facts, both in the original article and how he responded to the critics, as well as offer any new arguments or facts you see as relevant (either for or against Johnson’s position).
Below are few samples of what you’ll find. In this first quote Johnson criticizes “extravagant” extrapolation, a complaint I have made many times (e.g., extrapolating from the Urey-Miller experiment that chemistry can self-organize into a living system):
In this next quote Johnson criticizes the failure to present a fair picture of what’s known and what isn’t:
Here Johnson criticizes dogmatic methods:
Finally, Johnson asks for a fair appraisal of Darwinist theory:
The article is interesting to me because it says so many things I myself think, and have argued here at PF over the years, except I think Johnson says it better than I ever have.
This link http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/pjdogma1.htm has the article, responses from five critics, and Johnson’s answers to the critics. In total (article, critics, response) it’s about 10,000 words.
I was hoping some PF members would read all of it and critique his reasoning and facts, both in the original article and how he responded to the critics, as well as offer any new arguments or facts you see as relevant (either for or against Johnson’s position).
Below are few samples of what you’ll find. In this first quote Johnson criticizes “extravagant” extrapolation, a complaint I have made many times (e.g., extrapolating from the Urey-Miller experiment that chemistry can self-organize into a living system):
"Evolution" also designates some relatively modest modifications in biological populations that result from environmental pressures. Bacterial populations evolve resistance to antibiotics: evolution causes dark moths to preponderate over light moths when the background trees are darkened by smoke. These examples have nothing to do with whatever creative process formed bacteria and insects in the first place, but since the same word is used to designate both limited adaptive modification with fixed boundaries and the whole naturalistic metaphysical system, it is easy to give the impression that naturalistic evolution (all the way from microorganism to man) is a "fact."
Examples of this kind allow Darwinists to assert as beyond question that "evolution is a fact," and that natural selection is an important directing force in evolution. If they mean only that evolution of a sort has been known to occur, and that natural selection has observable effects upon the distribution of characteristics in a population, then there really is nothing to dispute. The important claim of "evolution," however, is not that limited changes occur in populations due to differences in survival rates. It is that we can extrapolate from the very modest amount of evolution that can actually be observed to a grand theory that explains how moths, trees, and scientific observers came to exist in the first place. (bold emphasis added)
In this next quote Johnson criticizes the failure to present a fair picture of what’s known and what isn’t:
Because the claims of Darwinism are presented to the public as "science" most people are under the impression that they are supported by direct evidence such as experiments and fossil record studies. This impression is seriously misleading. Scientists cannot observe complex biological structures being created by random mutations and selection in a laboratory or elsewhere. The fossil record, as we have seen, is so unhelpful that the important steps in evolution must be assumed to have occurred within its "gaps." Darwinists believe that the mutation-selection mechanism accomplishes wonders of creativity not because the wonders can be demonstrated, but because they cannot think of a more plausible explanation for the existence of wonders that does not involve an unacceptable creator, i.e., a being or force outside the world of nature. According to Gareth Nelson, "evidence, or proof, of origins of the universe, of life, of all the major groups of life, of all the minor groups of life, indeed of all the species-is weak or nonexistent when measured on an absolute scale." Nelson, a senior zoologist at the American Museum of Natural History, wrote that statement in the preface to a recent book by Wendell Bird, the leading attorney for the creationist organizations. Nelson himself is no creationist, but he is sufficiently disgusted with Darwinist dogmatism that he looks benignly upon unorthodox challengers.
Here Johnson criticizes dogmatic methods:
The project requires that the scientific establishment commit itself to a strategy of indoctrination, in which the teachers first tell students what they are supposed to believe and then inform them about any difficulties only later, when it is deemed safe to do so. The weakness that requires such dogmatism is evident in Philip Kitcher's explanation of why it is "insidious" to propose that the creationists be allowed to present their negative case in the classroom . . . A few centuries ago, the defenders of orthodoxy used the same logic to explain why the common people needed to be protected from exposure to the spurious heresies of Galileo. In fairness, the creationists Kitcher had in mind are biblical fundamentalists who want to attack orthodox scientific doctrine on a broad front I do not myself think that such advocacy groups should be given a platform in the classroom. In my experience, however, Darwinists apply the same contemptuous dismissal to any suggestion, however well-informed and modestly stated, that in constructing their huge theoretical edifice upon a blind commitment to naturalism, they may have been building upon the sand. As long as the media and the courts are quiescent, they may retain the power to marginalize dissent and establish their philosophy as orthodoxy. What they do not have the power to do is to make it true.
Finally, Johnson asks for a fair appraisal of Darwinist theory:
The real danger to science is that it is being linked to a dogma that can't stand close examination in order to further an ideological agenda that goes way beyond the proper concerns of science. The worst kind of science education is the kind that tells students it is wrong to question the pronouncements of authority. The corrective doesn't require giving a place in science class to the biblical literalist. To borrow Irving Kristol's prescription, "Our goal should be to have biology and evolution taught in a way that points to what we don't know as well as what we do." I would only add that it would help if we could get the science educators to define that word "evolution" precisely and use it consistently.
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