Aethari

Maybe this has been posted before, but this Johnson quote from 'Creator or Blind Watchmaker' warrented an

"The fossil record notoriously does not evidence any continuous progress of gradual change...That is why fossil experts from T.H. Huxley to Stephen Jay Gould have flirted with the heresy that biological transformations occured in great (and therefore scientifically inexpicable) jumps."

Is Johnson that out of it? Gould's work and ideas are now 'scientifically inexplicable' or nonscientific? ARrggh.

-Aethari

tgamble

Yes.

don't the two sort of go togather?

theyeti

Johnson simply rehashes every creationist argument in existence, regardless of quality, and then adds a few of his own to boot. He's behaving like a lawyer.

This is just the old PunkEek thing rehashed, which has been a favorite of creationist misrepresentation for years. PE is not about "great" jumps. This is the frequent (and for Gould, infuriating) attempt at confusing PE with saltation. PE is about the relatively rapid evolution of species followed by stasis, where as saltation, if anyone believed in it, would indeed be a case of "great transformations" within one or a few generations. Furthermore, PE is not "scientifically inexplicable" since Gould based it on known facts of population genetics. And then of course there's the irony about a creationist complaining about a mechanism being "scientifically inexplicable". If that were the case, it would make such a mechanism equal to creationism.

Oh yeah, Johnson's claim that, "The fossil record notoriously does not evidence any continuous progress of gradual change," is flat out wrong, regardless of whether you're talking about species or larger groups.

theyeti

simian

My opinion: no. Keep in mind this is the same Phillip Johnson who claimed that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. See this <a href="http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/pjohnson.htm" target="_blank">site</a>.

I have seen him speak, I have read some of what he writes. I think he is either trying to
a) make money off the wackos who believe him
b) make a lasting name for himself (lets face it, if he criticizes enough specific items, at least one will ultimately turn out in his favor - not that he is correct, but one of the items he criticized turned out to be wrong - people will remember the hit, not all the misses)
c) he is a standard creationist who thinks he knows biology better than biologists, geology better than geologists, etc, and believes what he is doing is right.

Given he is trying to bring in YECs, OECs, theistic evolutionists, and any number of other types of creationist together under the umbrella of "intelligent design," I would guess it is the name-building thing.

Simian

Grumpy

theyeti addressed "great jumps" and "scientifically inexplicable." The words that jump out at me are "flirted" and "heresy." Gould built his career on punctuated equilibrium; is that considered flirting? And while the concept is not universally embraced, calling it "heresy" is hyperbolic. (Well, considering Johnson, it would have to be.)

Skydancer

Johnson is a lawyer who seems to have the idea that courtroom tactics apply to scientific questions. (I will give him the benefit of the doubt here. He may just be an unscrupulous clown, but he does appear to honestly believe the rubbish he spouts.) He's one of those annoying specialists who is so good in his chosen field that he's incapable of recognizing that outside of that field he is a buffoon.

Unfortunately, since he's a lawyer, he's good at talking and making it sound good no matter how idiotic his statements actually are, and he spouts the usual 'reasonable doubt' and 'fairness' blithering that resonates with the American public even though it's completely inappropriate to biology.

GeoTheo

As a lawyer what he attempts to do is provide "reasonable doubt" toward evolution. Then I guess he believes the default position is some type of special creationism. I still think he is one of the best apologists for creationism, even though I don't agree with him. I also think it is plausible that materialists believe in evolution for metaphysical reasons. I don't think being right necessarily discounts that. Not everyone is a biologist. I think a lot of people appeal to experts opinions for their opinion on an issue.
Creationists consider Ken Ham an expert and some materialists may consider the greater part of the scientific community as being "authoritative" on the issue. I think it is possible for a metaphysical naturalist to "brush up on evolution"
in order to know how to give intelligent answers for their views on the subject, when they had the position all along out of logical neccesity and not knowledge of biology.
But just because some people believe in evolution for metaphysical reasons doesn't make it false. You still need to examine the scientific evidence. There is the flaw in Johnsons argument.

Doubting Didymus

I think GeoTheo is making some interesting points. As he says, not everyone is a biologist, so what do naturalists with no scientific knowledge accept evolution based on?

I think they do it based on exactly what I do when I accept big bang cosmology and quantum physics. They are deferring to the opinion of experts for areas they know absolutely zilch about. The question is: is this really a belief?

I don't think so. I can't say I 'believe' in the big bang. Accepting the concensus of experts is not a belief.

So are creationists alright to defer to ken ham and gish as experts? Well, yes, I think they would be fully justified in doing that. The problem is that gish and ham do not actually know what they are talking about. Their expert opinion is demonstratably incorrect.

The problem is not with people accepting expert opinions, it is with the actual data that their chosen experts present.

Albion

When people start on about heresy while talking about science, it's often an attempt to blur the line between science and religion. Creationists are getting very bold these days in rewriting the history of Professor Gould's career now he isn't around to defend himself.

Valentine Pontifex

Lets not forget the misquote by Johnson of Gould which is documented <a href="http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/johnson.html#part5b" target="_blank">here</a>.