Phillip E. Johnson

Tonight Stephen Meyer will be on Coast to Coast with George Noory. Dr. Meyer will be on from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am PT, and as an extra incentive for our readers who aren’t night owls, the show promises to “discuss recent discoveries in cell biology which support intelligent design and reveal that digital computers and living cells are operating on the same principles.”To find an affiliate station in your area and tune in, click here.

Recently Focus on the Family aired part one of a two-part series on evolution. Reaching back into the archives, they played selections from a 1994 debate between intelligent design advocate Phillip Johnson (U.C. Berkeley) and Darwin-defender William Provine (Cornell). One thing in particular struck me: ID advocates are often accused of wanting to push ID into the public high school classroom. Yet even in this early debate, Phillip Johnson clearly notes that ID advocates would be happy just to see Darwinism taught fairly with both its strengths and weaknesses made clear. And, more importantly, ID advocates would like to see the academy open up to discussion of intelligent design — not primarily the high school classroom.You can listen to part Read More ›

“Predicting is very difficult, especially when it is about the future,” Yogi Berra is reported to have said. Phillip Johnson, writing in May’s Touchstone, says I think of the great Yogi’s maxim whenever I hear theistic evolutionists warn intelligent design theorists against committing what they call the “God of the gaps” fallacy. Their point is that it is futile to rely on “gaps” that the theory of evolution has not yet explained as places where divine acts might be necessary, because those gaps will inevitably be filled as science progresses. Eventually, God will be squeezed out of these spaces, with consequent embarrassment to the cause of religion. But why think that these “gaps” will ever be filled? As Johnson muses, Read More ›

The Ames Tribune editorial today tries to make out that Discovery Institute is more interested in headlines than in truth. Ironic, coming from a news organization that hasn’t even reported all of the news on this story. The piece sounds like it was ghost-written by the press office at ISU (or at least is based on ISU’s talking points).
The news at the press conference this week was that a hostile work environment was created at ISU for Dr. Gonzalez — and then covered up by his colleagues, his department, the university, and now the Board of Regents. This thing stinks from top to bottom.

That’s a big story. They tried to cover up what amounts to a crime — viewpoint discrimination in a personnel and hiring issue. Dr. Gonzalez’s academic freedom was trampled, and now the news media in Iowa are largely ignoring it, along with the cover up. Instead they raise red herrings like the grant issue, which is old news.

Dear Human Events: If Mac Johnson is to be believed, intelligent design (ID) advocates are Neanderthals–their theory “dressed up in a lab coat and a mail order Ph.D.” [“Intelligent Design, and Other Dumb Ideas,” November 15] Mr. Johnson regurgitates the tired falsity of Darwinists everywhere. Leading ID advocates have reputable Ph.D.s, and avid readers of Human Events (HE) know as much. Michael Behe does biochemical research with his University of Pennsylvania Ph.D.; Jonathan Wells does biological research with his U.C. Berkeley Ph.D.; Stephen Meyer researches the history and philosophy of science with his Cambridge University Ph.D.; etc. This kind of argument is called “poisoning the well.” That is, HE readers are supposed to dismiss ID scientists because they are not Read More ›

In Think, a philosophy journal published by The Royal Institute of Philosophy, Phillip Johnson has published an article entitled “Intelligent Design in Biology: the Current Situation and Future Prospects” which assesses the current state of the debate over intelligent design. The full article may be read here. Johnson explains that, despite the advances of the 20th century, many Darwinists still use old arguments that merely reflect microevolution. Johnson writes regarding the Galapagos finches: To make the story look better, the National Academy of Sciences improved on some the facts in its 1998 booklet on Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. This version of the story omits the beaks’ return to normal and encourages teachers to speculate that a Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] In her Kitzmiller account, Barbara Forrest makes the strange argument that “Phillip Johnson had master-minded creationism’s transformation into ‘intelligent design’ after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed creationism in public schools in its 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard ruling.” This conspiracy theory sounds nice because Johnson is a lawyer, but it makes no sense. Paul Nelson’s story about Johnson, which Dr. Forrest cites, picks up with Johnson reading the Read More ›

Even as Antony Flew receives the Phillip E Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth, the Sacramento Bee reports about Johnson still on the speaking circuit. The short article quotes some of Johnson’s former colleagues at Boalt Hall, and is very clear on where Johnson stands on education policy in regards to teaching ID: Johnson said his intent never was to use public school education as the forum for his ideas. In fact, he said he opposed the efforts by the “well-intentioned but foolish” school board in Dover, Pa., to require teachers to present intelligent design as a viable scientific theory.Instead, he hoped to ignite a debate in universities and the higher echelon of scientific thinkers. This article comes just after Read More ›

Eighty years ago Thursday the famous Scopes Monkey Trial ended in Dayton, Tennessee. Time for a quiz:

History tells us that two great lawyers faced off. On the one side was (A) a progressive and a pacifist, an educated man who rejected the idea of a young earth and worried about efforts to peddle racism and eugenics in the South. On the other side was (B) a master orator who defended some flagrantly racist ideas long since discredited by science. Lawyer A sought a full and fair debate over the evidence. Lawyer B used a procedural tactic to shut down the debate so that only his position was heard.

Surely Mr. A would be the darling of any contemporary liberal journalist, right? But Mr. A was William Jennings Bryan, the creationist.