Phillip Johnson on the recent PBS Nova program on the Dover Trial – partial transcript
| November 14, 2007 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
A friend was kind enough to provide a transcript of a podcast of Phillip Johnson talking about the recent PBS Nova episode on the Dover Trial. The interviewer is Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute.
Here are points I thought particularly salient:
Johnson: … What’s going on here is a process of soothing. The scientific establishment has decided that the way to get a reluctant American public to put aside their doubts and believe what they’re being told in the mass media, and in the textbooks, and in the museums about evolution is absolutely true is to reassure them that it doesn’t threaten [their] religion. Then after they have been talked into accepting the theory, then the types like Richard Dawkins will come out and say, “Well actually now that you’ve accepted it, we have to tell you that it does destroy your religion.”
…
Luskin: And all this raises a question that I would be very interested in your answer in Professor Johnson, because you have followed this debate for many years. You’re aware that for decades the scientific community has been issuing statements to the effect of science and religion do not conflict. They may even say they’re totally different spheres that can’t even conflict in principle. And yet public skepticism of evolution remains very high. What does this say to you? Why are these attempts to, as you put it, soothe religious people regarding evolution, really seems like it is failing (at least) the public that is largely religious and is still very skeptical.
Johnson: Yes, they are still very skeptical, and they don’t believe the reassurances. They know in fact what’s going on. The fact is that the public is not as stupid as the experts wish them to be.
Um, no.
Here’s the whole of my friend’s partial transcript.
Also: And what if the Dover school board had just put an alternative text in the library?
42 Responses to Phillip Johnson on the recent PBS Nova program on the Dover Trial – partial transcript
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Joseph perhaps we should be working on organizing a group of ID supporters to run for public offices including school boards but also every level of the governemt all the way up to and including the president or even ambassadors to foreign nations!!! Surely if we can all co-ordinate this movement it will be more succesful. I wonder if the Discovery institute will help out?
Joseph, let us know when you do declare your candidacy. I am sure there are plenty of folks around here who would gladly support your campaign. It would be great to get someone who is knowledgeable about ID on the stand and in the face of the ACLU.
For me this has gotten personal. For example I think it is imbecilic to think one can either adjudicate or legislate what can and can’t be discussed in a public school’s science classroom.
But anyway, one of the first things I would do as a school board member is to get the other members to watch “The Privileged Planet”, “Unlocking the Mystery of Life”, and “The Incorrigible Mr Berlinski”.
That way they could see that ID is NOT a religious concept.
Then we formulate a plan to get these videos presented in our school system. I would even suggest to have a “parent night” so that they could see the videos and see that ID is not a religious concept.
For reference books I will see if we can get “The Privileged Planet”, “The Design of Life” and “Darwinism, Design and Public Education”.
(I still think that someone should bribe a teacher in Dover to discuss ID in the classroom. That is how Scopes got into the fray. Then ID gets back into the courtroom, this time without any religiously motivated school board.)
—ajl: “It seems Ross believes the portrayal of Behe. Sorry, but I think Behe would tear the Reasons folks to shreds in a debate on the “science” of things.”
What do other scientists think of Ross’s “full-blown model?” I would think that anyone who has an explanatory model of that scope would want his critics to evaluate it and pass judgment on it one way or the other.
Joseph – You said: “But anyway, one of the first things I would do as a school board member is to get the other members to watch “The Privileged Planet”, “Unlocking the Mystery of Life”, and “The Incorrigible Mr Berlinski”.
LOL – I don’t think it would work! Anyone with at least half a brain would know what you were trying to accomplish if they watched Privileged Planet.
Solcher, I would put the point somewhat differently. I tend to think of scientific theories in terms of correlation and postulation. The question is, what postulation is the best explanation for all observed correlations? Bearing in mind the correlations as observed in embryology, genetics, paleontology, biogeography, etc.
Along similar lines I would also want to distinguish between argument and explanation. Taking the textbook definitions, an argument attempts to show that something is the case; an explanation attempts to show how something is the case — how it works, how it came into existence.
Taken in those terms, a good postulation should explain — it should present us with a model of the causes of the observed correlations.
So I think it’s disingenuous, to be frank, when one accuses evolutionists of not providing the evidence for speciation or macroevolutionary processes. Except in extremely rare cases, speciation or other events aren’t observed nor are they claimed to have been observed. They are postulations to explain what has been observed — namely, massive convergences of lines of evidence from many different fields of study.
Having said that, it’s worth pointing out that the very question “what is a scientific explanation” remains an open one among philosophers of science; see here.
Fortunately I am counting on people with a full brain and IQ over 80 as they will understand “The Privileged Planet” is based on evidence, data and observation.
But it is true that people with 1/2 a brain- anti-IDists, for example- would try to twist TPP into something it isn’t.
But anyway Glarson, did you have a point?
Try addressing the following:
Guillermo Gonzalez, one of the authors of “The Privileged Planet” was a (Carl) Sagonite. However the book refutes Sagan.
It was Gonzalez’s paper “Wonderful Eclipses,” Astronomy & Geophysics 40, no. 3 (1999): 3.18- 3.20), that peaked the book’s co-author’s (Jay Richards) interest.
Gonzalez was part of a team of scientists working for NASA on a project trying to determine whether or not there is life “out there”.
At least one peer-reviewed paper (G. Gonzalez, D. Brownlee, and P.D. Ward, “The Galactic Habitable Zone: Galactic Chemical Evolution”, Icarus 152 (2001):185-200) came from that scientific research.
The authors make predictions. For example if/ when we discover other complex life is found elsewhere in the universe, the many factors observed here will also be present there. And that life will be carbon based.
>
Other G. Gonzalez papers that were the basis of the book (just skimming through the references):
“Stars, Planets, and Metals”, Reviews of Modern Physics 75 (2003)101-120
“Rummaging Through Earth’s Attic for Remains of Ancient Life”, Icarus 160 (2002) 183-196
“Is the Sun Anomalous?”, Astronomy and Geophysics 40, no. 5 (1999):5.25-5.29
“Are Stars with Planets Anomalous?”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 308 (1999): 447-458
“Impact Reseeding During the Late Heavy Bombardment”, Icarus 162 (2003):38-46
“Parent Stars of Extrasolar Planets III: p Cancri Revisited”, Astronomy and Astrophysics 339 (1998): L29-L32
“Stellar Atmospheres of Nearby Young Solar Analogs”, New Astronomy 7 (2002): 211-226
IOW his inference is based on scientific evidence, data and observations. The only other explanation for the evidence, data, and observations is sheer dumb luck. And only people with 1/2 a brain think that scenario is scientific- and again that would be all anti-ID materialists.
—-Carl Sach writes, “Solcher, I would put the point somewhat differently. I tend to think of scientific theories in terms of correlation and postulation. The question is, what postulation is the best explanation for all observed correlations? Bearing in mind the correlations as observed in embryology, genetics, paleontology, biogeography, etc.
Along similar lines I would also want to distinguish between argument and explanation. Taking the textbook definitions, an argument attempts to show that something is the case; an explanation attempts to show how something is the case — how it works, how it came into existence.”
Aren’t you muddying the waters here a little bit? He is making the following argument:
1) He who defines the standards for debate has an unfair advange.
2) Darwinists have defined the standards for the scientific debate.
3) Darwinists cannot meet their own standard .
4) Since they established an arbitrary rule solely for the purpose of eliminating the competition, why should be give them any slack when they fail to meet their own standard?
I’m more than ready to admit that there are severe problems with the postulations currently entertained among evolutionary theorists. So to that extent I’m in agreement with MacNeill, who recently opined that we simply do not yet have a good theory of macroevolutionary processes — although we have a lot of converging lines of evidence that are crying out for an explanation.
But that aside, I also think that
(a) simply saying, “therefore a designer must have done it” is not an explanation at all, let alone a superior one, and
(b) problems with evolutionary theory aren’t by themselves signs of either its imminent demise or of design theory’s imminent victory.
That said, I have no problems with anyone wanting to work on design theory. Far be it for me to block the way of inquiry!
In general, I can respect someone who simply isn’t convinced that variation and selection are sufficient to explain observed biological diversity of the past and present. It is pretty remarkable! But my attitude towards such a person is much like my attitude towards someone who says, “what do you mean, “electrons“? you can’t see them, can you?” He and I are simply operating on the bases of radically different epistemological assumptions.
Carl,
You seem to have a charitable attitude toward design — something that is lacking among many skeptics. Your thoughtful comments are appreciated.
That said I think you mischaracterize design.
Design provides an inference to the best explanation, given all observable data.
If we take biological machines out of the equation for a moment: 1) there are no known stochastic and undirected phenomena that can produce complex machinery; 2) intelligence is capable of designing and manufacturing complex machinery.
Considering 1 and 2 above, when we take into account biological machines again, they fit very well with both 1 and 2, where NDE violates both. This puts the burden of proof very highly upon NDE proponents; design has met the burden by default. It fits with everything we know, evolution does not.
Since evolutionary theory is failing to meet the burden of proof, it would me more consistent for you to say,
The information content of DNA is another place where the design inference is warranted by default, and MET has failed to account for it. We know of one way, absolutely and unequivocally, in which information can be infused into arrangements of matter: as the product of a mind.
Until the arrangement of specification can be accounted for by chance plus necessity, the burden of proof logically needs to shift toward NDE.
The difference is, you can stick a paper clip into a light socket and witness first-hand the effects of electrons. We have yet to witness the spontaneous generation of specified complexity ex-nihilo.
I can see I am in over my head, already. I have had to retreat to the dictionary several times.
However, I do understand the words “explanation” and “argument”. My issue is that Darwinists are claiming that only they have the right to provide explanations for the data they have assembled.
It would take a great deal of “faith” to simply buy their explanations, as no living person has ever observed a single species evolve into another, let alone all the species on the the Earth.
Maybe, but what we don’t have is any data that demonstrates the range of change required (for universal common descent) is even possible.
And simply saying “it evolved” without even knowing if such a thing is genetically possible, is not an explanation.
on another note:
My wanting to show the video “The Privileged Planet”, is so no one can say that I was singling out the theory of evolution and to show that ID extends beyond biology.