An important quote from Phillip Johnson...

[EvoDan]

Johnson responds to Gould's criticism in the epilogue to Darwin On Trial. You would know this if you had actually read the book.

Wait, I'm confused.

Is this a debate forum, or a book club?

 

[[serious]]

You can rely on second-hand information or you can read the book yourself. Do whatever whatever is the most open-minded.

Many people on these forums are not going to have the time to read every book that someone sees fit to post about. If no synopsis of his key points is available, the thread will quickly die from lack of discussion. If you like the book, sell it to us. What makes this book different from any of the countless other anti-evolution arguments that have been debunked in the past?

Even in journal articles the authors provide an abstract to let you know the key points.

 

[I_Love_Cheese]

I recently read the first two chapters, and returned the book to the library. As someone else stated Johnson confuses ontological naturalism with methodological naturalism. That is the first chapter as I remember, in the second, he gets down to attacking his strawman.

We writes like a lawyer talking to an uneducated jury, which I suppose doesn't really surprise me.

If you have a particular point he brings up, then bring it up, otherwise, the book read like a Pratt list and I can't recomend anyone read it.

 

[sfs]

Punchy,
(And if you want to know how lawyers approach science you should really try doing a science experiment based on a patent some time. Really, try it. If you want to see how not to write science or how science and law differ dramatically in their overall approach compare a peer reviewed science publication to a patent.)

I (and several more important people) have a patent based on a scientific experiment (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP1423535.html). Does that count?

 

[Mallon]

Whoa, whoa, whoa... If Johnson doesn't have an axe to grind, then why in the world did he help found the Wedge Strategy???

 

[Baggins]

Johnson responds to Gould's criticism in the epilogue to Darwin On Trial. You would know this if you had actually read the book.

Have you read the reviews/rebuttals of the book that I posted?

 

[fromdownunder]

One part of my problem with Johnson, apart from the point that he does not know what he is talking about, (and I have read two of his books, plus discussions between him and biologists) is that IN PRINT, he has utterly refused to say what he accepts.

He says Evolution is incorrect, but does not offer an alternative, except the inference, without biological evidence, that if Evolution is wrong, well God must be right....

This is a lawyers argument, not a scientists! I know that Behe supports him, so that may make him a creationist, but outside of that, he simply tries, rather badly, to demolish evolution, and does not even attempt to put anything in it's place (as a lawyer would - simply refute the defence/prosecution argument, depending upon which side of the game that you are playing)

OK, he may be a good lawyer, but would even a YEC hire Hovind or Behe to defend them in a courtroom?

Norm

 

[Morcova]

Again, to answer your questions, it's best to read the text itself. Darwin on Trial is a brief read and definitely worth the effort. Some things written are strikingly accurate, others should be taken with a grain of salt, but it is an all around good book.

Peace.

If all you were going to do is refuse to answer question about the op that you posted why did you make this thread?

Are you just trying to sell the book?

 

[thaumaturgy]

I (and several more important people) have a patent based on a scientific experiment (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP1423535.html). Does that count?

I was more going for the fact that once you handed your data over to the lawyers the science you did had to be shoe-horned into legalese and I am sure you had to battle with the patent lawyers who wanted to expand ranges and obsessed over "comprised" versus "composed of" rather than the fact that if you did expand the range that far to keep it patentable you'd likely make something unknown. Not to mention the lawyers want to keep the option open that maybe in the future someone could get priority over you by adding in some inert ingredient and you are screwed unless you used the word "comprising" rather than "composed of".

All of my patents are predicated on scientific experiments but once it falls into the hands of lawyers enough padding is put on it that I begin to wonder if that was what I was really making. And patents just are easy to read, they aren't made to be. They are made as legal documents, and not science per se.

Patents have to be "praciticable" otherwise they may suffer a Section 112 rejection, if I recall correctly, but, that doesn't mean they have to be easy to figure out.

"A formulation comprising of a plurality of nanoparticles of composition...."

And patents don't even have to have a rationale for inclusion of components, just an anecdotal assurance that it worked at some time.

This is why I could never be a patent lawyer. It hurts my tiny brain just to carry on a regular conversation with them!

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I (and several more important people) have a patent based on a scientific experiment (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP1423535.html). Does that count?

I have patents and I have also tried to reproduce data in patents. While a patent is supposedly to be reproducible by someone skilled in the art is is often not easy to do and with chemical patents claimed compositions are often so broad that is a bit difficult to know where to start even with "preferred compositions" so I see where thaumaturgy is coming from.

On a subject more related to this thread one of my former Ph.D. student recently became a lawyer and her main frustration is that "winning" has little to do with actually being correct and nearly everything to do with making the best argument no matter how distorted. She has found it to be diametrically opposed to what she learned studying science. The fact that Johnson is first and foremost a lawyer is thus relevant to the (lack of) credibility of his claims regarding science.

F.B.

 

[Dale]

Punchy,


For a different take on Phillip Johnson, see my thread given below. As for Johnson supposedly not being involved with Creationists or creation science, the quote below from him happened at a conference of Creationists, ID advocates and those pushing creation science.


Darwin Too Impersonal, Johnson Says - Christian Forums

http://www.christianforums.com/t4596445


Or if clicking a link is too much trouble:

Darwin Too Impersonal, Johnson Says


A Creationist/ID site contains a most incredible quote from Phillip Johnson. He said this in 1996 at a conference in Los Angeles.

"'The real enemy is naturalistic, impersonal Darwinism that deliberately and consciously seeks to set God on the sideline of our culture.' Mr. Johnson suggests there will be time enough for settling the details of creation once Darwinism has been denied its century-old dominance."

Phillip Johnson is a law professor who has criticized evolutionary theory in at least two books. Here Johnson admits that he is repelled by Darwin because it leads to an "impersonal" world view. He goes on to admit that "details of creation" are completely up in the air and can remain so indefinitely as far as he is concerned.

One wonders if Johnson is simply out of his depth dealing with scientific matters. Lawyers are used to being able to sweep mountains of fact under the rug with a rhetorical flourish. Scientists do their best to avoid this.

So Johnson dislikes the impersonal. Yet a lot of things in the world are impersonal. Economics is impersonal, weather and climate are impersonal, disease is impersonal. The law of the land that Johnson is an expert on is impersonal. It doesn't much matter whether we like it, many objective facts about the world are impersonal.


Source of quote:

World Magazine Article

http://www.origins.org/mc/resources/world2.html

copyright (c) 1996, World Magazine (http://www.worldmag.com)