From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Johnson part 2 of 2
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Aug 21 1992
Date: 15 Sep 92  11:27:32

     further criticism, and I hope you are not afraid to
     present your readers with both sides of the question.
          I look forward to hearing from you at your
     earliest convenience.
          Sincerely yours, Phillip Johnson
     
 
It will come as no surprise that the magazine that fired the
popular science writer Forest Mims, for daring to merely think
(not write) critical thoughts about Darwinian dogma, refused to
publish a reply essay from Johnson.  And still, evolutionists
criticize creationists for not publishing their scientific
criticisms of Darwinism in peer reviewed scientific literature!
     In an effort to get Johnson's rebuttal as widely distributed
as possible, Tom Woodward, Director of the C.S. Lewis Fellowship,
has distributed the following document by Dr. Phillip Johnson:
 
=================================================================
 
THE RELIGION OF THE BLIND WATCHMAKER
by Phillip E. Johnson
 
(Stephen Jay Gould published a 3-page attack on Phillip E.
Johnson and his book "Darwin on Trial" in the July, 1992 issue of
"Scientific American," Editor Jonathan Piel refused to publish
this response.)
 
     "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the
appearance of having been designed for a purpose."  So writes
Richard Dawkins, author of "The Blind Watchmaker."  As a
Darwinist, Dawkins maintains that the appearance is deceptive,
and that living organisms are actually the product of natural
selection.  This "blind watchmaker thesis" is the most important
claim of evolutionary biology.  If scientists were able to say
only that primitive fish "somehow" became amphibians, and then
mammals, and finally humans, nobody would be very impressed.
Absent a credible mechanism, the transformation of a fish into a
human being is nearly as miraculous as the creation of man from
the dust of the earth.  What makes the story of evolution
impressive is that Darwinist scientists think that they know how
such transformations occurred, through natural processes
requiring no divine guidance or non-material orienting force.
     The blind watchmaker thesis has enormous religious
significance because it purports to explain the history of life
without leaving any role to a supernatural Creator.  "Before
Darwin," writes Stephen Jay Gould, "we thought that a benevolent
God had created us."  After the acceptance of Darwinism, that
belief became intellectually untenable.  According to Gould: "No
intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature
(though Newton's clock- winding god might have set up the
machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run.)  No
vital forces propel evolutionary change.  And whatever we think
of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature."
     God as a remote First Cause thus remains a possibility, but
God as an active creator is absolutely ruled out by the blind
watchmaker thesis.  That is why Richard Dawkins exults that
"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled
atheist."  That doesn't mean that Darwin made it impossible to be
anything but an atheist.  For example, Darwinism and theism can
easily be reconciled by those who, like Asa Gray and Charles D.
Walcott, misunderstand Darwinian evolution as a benevolent
process divinely ordained for the purpose of creating humans.
(Gould himself has been particularly emphatic in correcting that
sort of misunderstanding.)  On the other hand, Darwinism does
give atheists and agnostics a decisive advantage to the extent
that belief in God's existence is a matter of logic and evidence.
Those who really understand Darwinism, but still have spiritual
inclinations, have the option of making a religion out of
evolution.  Theodosius Dobzhansky -- Gould's prime example of a
Christian evolutionist -- actually exemplified the religious
dimension of Darwinism.  Dobzhansky discarded the traditional
Christian conception of God, followed Teilhard de Chardin in
spiritualizing the evolutionary process, and worshipped the
glorious future of evolution.
     Gould writes that religion and science should not conflict,
"because science treats factual reality, while religion struggles
with human morality."  But this statement implies a distinction
between morality and reality which does not exist, and which
Gould himself would never observe in practice.  Does the morality
of racial discrimination, for example, have nothing to do with
the factual reality of human equality?  The author of "The
Mismeasure of Man" didn't seem to think so.  And what gives Gould
the authority to proclaim that religion may not concern itself
with the factual reality of God?  God can't have any moral
authority unless He really exists, and if God really exists He
might take a hand in creation.  When a scientific elite claims
exclusive authority to decide what is `real," it is asserting
control over science, religion, philosophy, and every other area
of thought.
     Religion, like science, starts with assumptions or
conclusions about reality.  If we were created by God for a
purpose, that is one starting point.  If we are the accidental
product of blind natural forces, that is a very different
starting point.  In the former case we try to learn the will of
our creator, and in the latter case we discard the "intervening
spirit" as an illusion and proceed to chart our own course.  Thus
Gould himself, in the concluding sentence of "Wonderful Life,"

--- Maximus 2.00