Friday, August 31, 2012

Johnson, Phillip


Phillip Johnson, has been a professor of law at Berkeley University for 26 years, and is one of the world’s most important critics of Darwinism. In Darwin on Trial, Johnson states that the philosophy behind the theory of evolution was based on naturalism, and that evolution is supported for ideological reasons:
 . . . the leaders of science see themselves as locked in a desperate battle against religious fundamentalists, a label which they tend to apply broadly to anyone who believes in a Creator who plays an active role in worldly affairs. These fundamentalists are seen as a threat to liberal freedom, and especially as a threat to public support for scientific research. As the creation myth of scientific naturalism, Darwinism plays an indispensable ideological role in the war against fundamentalism. For that reason, the scientific organizations are devoted to protecting Darwinism rather than testing it, and the rules of scientific investigation have been shaped to help them succeed.  231
In his following words, Johnson clarifies why the origin of mind cannot be explained with theory of evolution:
A theory that is the product of a mind can never adequately explain the mind that produced the theory. The story of the great scientific mind that discovers absolute truth is satisfying only so long as we accept the mind itself as a given. Once we try to explain the mind as a product of its own discoveries, we are in a hall of mirrors with no exit232
231 Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, p. 155.
232 Phillip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education, Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1995, p. 62.

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