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Summary: Wedging the wedger.
Review: ...P>/*
...Introduction to Evolutionary Biology
Version 2
Copyright © 1996-1997 by Chris Colby
[Last Update: January 7, 1997] Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. It unites all the fields of biology under one theoretical umbrella. It is not a difficult concept, but very few people -- the majority of biologists included -- have a satisfactory grasp of it. One common mistake is believing that species can be arranged on an evolutionary ladder from bacteria through "lower" animals, to "higher" animals and, finally, up to man. Mistakes permeate popular science expositions of evolutionary biology. Mistakes even filter into biology journals and texts. For example, Lodish, et. al., in their cell biology text, proclaim, "It was Charles Darwin's great insight that organisms are all related in a great chain of being..." In fact, the idea of a great chain of being, which traces to Linnaeus, was overturned by Darwin's idea of common descent. Misunderstandings about evolution are damaging to the study of evolution and biology as a whole. People who have a general interest in science are likely to dismiss evolution as a soft science after absorbing the pop science nonsense that abounds. The impression of it being a soft science is reinforced when biologists in unrelated fields speculate publicly about evolution. This is a brief introduction to evolutionary biology. I attempt to explain basics of the theory of evolution and correct many of the misconceptions. What is Evolution? Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population. ... */
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Summary: The foundations will fall!
Review: Another wonderful dose of logic and common sense from Phillip Johnson. Johnson exposes the naturalistic philosophy with its biased distortion of the evidence and its commitment to silencing of the opposition. Naturalism is disguised as a objective science and creation as religous dogma. But in truth naturalism *IS* every bit of a biased interpretation of the evidence as they claim creation is. Noone has ever seen the kind of change required to turn a bacterium into a biologist. Cyclic variation in stable species is unjustifiably extrapolated as evidence of the kind of change to account for all the various forms of life that have inhabitied the earth throughout history. But this is the kind of change that is acting on existing information. To account for macro-evolution new information must be produced which has never been observed. Though science only deals with natural explanations that does not mean we can assume only natural causes have produced the universe and everything in it. The evidence MUST demonstrate that natural causes are sufficent to explain the origin of life and its various species not a philosophy that the supernatural doesn't exist so naturalism must have done somehow. Since evolution is a theory that supposedly only uses natural causes and its the best theory that naturalists have to account for all the various life forms on earth that doesn't mean we should just accept this as fact because science only deals with natural causes. As a result the status of evolution is the result of circular reasoning from the naturalists not the evidence. The naturalists argue since supernatural causes don't exist then evolution must be true even if we don't have the evidence to demonstrate it happened.
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Summary: The survival of the fittest: Darwinism won't survive
Review: As a law professor in Portugal, I have been deeply inspired by Phillip Johnson's life and work. He has made it clear to me that lawyers should take part in this debate and give their own contributions. Phillip Johnson's contribution has been outstanding, as even his adversaries concede. In this particular work, Phillip Johnson shows clearly that Darwinism (in a broad sense) cannot aspire to become a "total theory" or a "metanarrative" of reality. It's flaws on the methodological and scientific levels are more than enough to render it's metaphysical extrapolations as nothing less than a philosophical fraud. Richard Dawkins obsession with chance explanations for natural events, for instance, reminds me of someone who tries desperately to cause the "appearence of an accident" (planting, faking and explaining away the relevant evidence), just to collect the money from the insurance company. Men like Phillip Johnson, William Dembski and Michael Behe, among others, just won't let him get away with it. The Wedge of Truth allows us to see the "ideological design" (not a very intelligent one, by the way) that lies behind the whole naturalist project. Needless to say that this project has devastating effects on the realms of politics, law, human dignity, human rights, freedom and responsability,and so on. Everything would be about the purposeless life of amoral and selfish genes. This form of materialistic rationality, certainly a kind of absolutism or fundamentalism, would mean the end of reason as we know it. Fortunately this is too stupid to be true. The fact is that Darwinism tends to run away form competing ideias, maybe because it fears becoming a standard case of extinction as a result of competition. Phillip Johnson and Wedge show clearly that human reason is ultimately founded on some form of absolute Reason. The nature of this Reason seems to be far beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, but it's presence is palpable and overwhelming in nature's huge amounts of information, something both as immaterial and as real as "intellectual property" (original work of authorship in a tangible form). Information is detectable and measurable by falsefiable and scientifically sound criteria. Nature and life are not just about matter, mutations and selection. They are also about intelligence and information. Thus, the design argument has nothing (and I mean nothing!) to do with "miracles" of the "God of the Gaps", but with the intrinsic form and substance of nature (much like the original work of authorship in tangible form), something that we, as intelligent beeings have a natural capacity to recognize (v.g. intellectual property is not a monkey business)and to study. This explains the misterious continuity between the objective structure of reality and the working of our subjective reason (Darwinists just take it for granted, that which makes science both possible and meaningful. Please read The Wedge of Truth. As Immanuel Kant would put it: "Sapere aude!" (sorry for my "depleted" english)
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Summary: a lawyer explains science
Review: As a lawyer, Johnson knows that during trials a expert witness is queried to what his expert qualifications are. I want to know what Johnson's expert qualifications are in Bioliogy to argue for creationism. What meaursurable testable evidence does he have?
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Summary: "No One Walks on My Father's Moon"
Review: As a reviewer of another book put it, sometimes it helps if we consider the tension between received religion and scientific evidence within the context of someone else's religious tradition. Before you read this book and worry too deeply about the truth of its arguments, I recommend that you first read "No One Walks on My Father's Moon", by Chara M. Curtis, illustrated by Rebecca Hyland. It's a quick read, but deep.
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Summary: The Edge of Myth
Review: As British geneticist Steve Jones points out in his new book "Darwin's Ghost", Charles Darwin's lifetime of patient biological research provided much of the theoretical framework that has enabled the development of modern biology. But (as one reviewer has disparagingly pointed out here) Darwin didn't have access to the discoveries of the past 140 years or so, including the structure and function of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). This fact only makes Darwin's achievement in his 1859 masterpiece "On the Origin of Species" all the more remarkable. It also makes his contemporary Gregor Mendel's groundbreaking work in genetics equally remarkable, since Mendel also had no information on DNA and its role to guide his years of careful experimenting with varieties of peas. I recommend that you read "Darwin's Ghost", in which Steve Jones acts as Charles Darwin's ghostwriter and updates "On the Origin of Species", if you want to see how successfully modern biological science has built upon the work of these two intellectual giants. I don't recommend Phillip E. Johnson's new book at all. It's just another sop to the Billy Graham / Intervarsity crowd's insistence that science (and everybody else) conform to their pet view of Christianity--which has its deepest roots in the wave of millenarian revivals that swept through upstate New York in the 1820s and 1830s, of course. "The Edge of Myth" might be a better title for Johnson's book.
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Summary: This is about logic, not conclusions, but they are obvious.
Review: Contrary to what many reviewers have implied, this book is not about conclusions, but merely the logical path to get there. Those who fail to see that are blind to their own biases. Buy this book, it is outstanding.
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Summary: This is about logic, not conclusions, but they are obvious.
Review: Contrary to what many reviewers have implied, this book is not about conclusions, but merely the logical path to get there. Those who fail to see that are blind to their own biases. Buy this book, it is outstanding.
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Summary: Call It ID But It's Still Old-Time-Religion
Review: Every day science keeps advancing, but Johnson and his followers are stuck in 18th century philosophizing. Johnson's arguments in this latest book are a repeat of that discredited notion that God must certainly exist in the gaps that science has not yet illuminated. The recent completion of the Human Genome Project and the mapping of genetic material from a host of living organisms supports to the evolutionary paradigm and crushes Johnson's pseudo-philosophical arguments. Johnson attempts to appeal to the masses who need to have a God somehow involved in nature. What Johnson does not do, and cannot do, is overturn sound science with clever rhetoric and his book fails miserably in overturning evolution or supporting his fundamentalist creationist agenda. If you want to read a lawyers attempt at science with little knowledge of the scientific facts or reality, this is the book for you!
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Summary: A-L or A-Z its you choice
Review: First of all let the reader of these reviews beware. The majority of the writers have not read or simply do not have the cerebral quotient to conceive the thesis of the book. First lets delineate what this book is NOT about: It is NOT about trying to disprove Evolution. It is NOT about a lawyer trying to prove he knows more about science than true scientist do. It is NOT a treatise on Intelligent Design. But this is how the book has been characterized by many of the negative reviewers before me. SO WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? This book is about two different philosophical worldviews and how these two worldviews impact science and scientific theories. It delineates between the two opposing philosophies at hand. The book shows clearly how science and scientist are forced to accept dogmatically the philosophy of naturalism or be spurned from the scientific community. The sad part of naturalistic belief system is that it precludes the scientist from using all of the available empirical and verifiable data as his or her disposal. It insists that they sit in a box and are only allowed to view the items in their naturalistic box. Anything that falls outside the box, even if they know it is true and has been proven to be true has to be at best ignored or at worst falsified into a non-eventuality. The bottom line is that the naturalistic scientist cannot use all the evidence at his disposal so his theories or constructs are at best weak due to the inability to view the panoply of events around him. The most curious item about naturalistic scientist is their insistence that their philosophical presuppositions make them unbiased. When in reality they are being controlled by materialistic ideals and not allowed to venture out of there box. This in a nutshell is what this book is about, would you prefer a teacher who is teaching you child how to write to be constrained by a philosophy that the only letters in the alphabet are A-L and anything after L just doesn't exist. Or would you rather have a teacher that says balderdash; We have 26 letters and they are A-Z. Mr. Johnson is an A-Z person. What are you? A-L? OR A-Z?
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