On page 74, in his lick-and promise tour through the history of vertebrates, we learn than no intermediary has ever been discovered between rhipidistian fishes and early amphibians. A profession finds the very best evidence it could, in exactly the predicted form and time, and a lawyer still tries to impeach us by rhetorical trickery. No wonder lawyer jokes are so popular in our culture. Second, consider Johnson's false use of synecdoche. The art oh having an item or part stand for the whole is a noble trope in poetry and the classical, unfair trick of debate.
Professions are big, and everyone makes a stupid statement now and then.
As an honorable opponent, you cannot use a single dumb argument to characterize an entire field. Now both claims have been advanced, but they are held by tiny minorities and uncontained by any strong or enduring argument. The principal of natural selection does not collapse because a few individuals fall into fallacies from opposite sides of claiming too little or too much. Similarly, the consensus that science and religion are separate and equally valuable is not brought down by the fact that Julian Huxley unites them on one side, while Will Provine holds that science implies atheism on the other. As his third trick, Johnson continues to castigate evolutionists for old and acknowledged errors.