From: Phillip E Johnson, INTERNET:philjohn@uclink.berkeley.edu
TO: John W. Burgeson, 73531,1501
DATE: 12/5/95 11:26 AM
RE: Week 9
Phillip E. Johnson November 21, 1995
Ninth Week: Eastern Seaboard
Although this is week 9 of the formal lecture schedule, by the
time I arrive home today and send this off into Cyberspace I will
have been gone from home just 2 days short of 10 weeks, and it will
be a welcome change not to be living out of a suitcase.
Sunday/Monday, Nov. 12/13. I begin the week with a full day at the
University of Delaware, staying at the home of IVCF staff members
Jim and Ande Thomas and conducted everywhere by the very personable
and enthusiastic CLM staff member Pattie Harris. The major events
were a Monday afternoon "reception" for faculty at which I gave my
"metaphysical story" lecture and took questions. Not quite as
large a group as expected from the RSVP's, maybe 50 or so, but
quite good in terms of questions and interest. The surprise was
that the evening lecture was so well attended; a hall holding
something over 600 was packed full, and I had a sense of a very
strongly interested audience with a mixture of views. A biology
faculty member of a naturalistic persuasion passed out copies of
UCLA Professor Richard Dickerson's essay from the *Journal of
Molecular Biology* title "The Game of Science," a defense of
methodological naturalism well know to me. I was delighted to be
handed such a convenient foil, and worked a critique of Dickerson's
logic into my lecture. "We make the rules of this game, and
decide who gets to play and on what terms, and it's the only game
in town. Whether you get to play or not, you are bound by the
outcome." With rule-making authority like that, Louis Farrakhan
could win the Nobel Peace Prize (and maybe he will). As a
consequence of this opportunity the lecture was almost completely
improvised on the spur of the moment, and so I was amused when the
reporter from the campus newspaper asked to borrow and copy the
text of my lecture for his story. This was one of the most
successful public lectures on the tour.
Tuesday, Nov. 14, University of Pennsylvania. With its inner city
location Penn isn't a very inviting place physically, and a day of
steady rain and chilly drafts didn't do anything to improve
matters. The good thing about the day was the faculty interaction
at lunch and then again at a late afternoon seminar. Penn has
several Christian faculty who are particularly involved in this
issue, including some whom I remember from previous occasions, such
as vertebrate paleontologist Peter Dodson, who is inclined to
theistic evolution and hence originally critical of DOT, but more
favorable to RITB and a delightful person. Also present were Tom
Connolly a Catholic Professor of Music who teaches a lot of
theological issues via the medium of opera, and Don Ewert, a cancer
researcher at Wistar Institute who has maintained an interest in my
work since my last visit to Penn 4 years ago. Those names occur to
me at the moment but I don't want to slight others from schools as
diverse as Business and Veterinary Medicine who made noteworthy
contributions. These sessions with interested faculty are the most
rewarding work for me. In contrast the lecture Tuesday evening to
a small audience was a bit of an anticlimax; just about all
undergrads, mainly the Campus Crusade group and their friends, and
I was weary and ready for bed before a long day to come. My local
host David De Huff was most sensitive to my weariness and made some
extra efforts to make sure I got plenty of sleep in comfort.
Wednesday, Nov. 15. The early event was a noon lecture at Ursinus
College, done with the support of Christian economics professor
Andrew Economopoulous and biology chairman Tom Dahlie, an
especially broad-minded and congenial Darwinist who had not
previously considered the difference between adaptive variations
and information-building mechanisms. The student turnout was large
because the biology classes were required to attend. This was an
excellent event because the chemistry with the faculty was so good
and the lecture was treated as part of the regular academic
program. Some of the faculty plan to hold another session with the
students a week later to go over the issues again. Just the kind
of impact I want to make, although of course there is only so much
that can be done in a single visit.
Subsequently I gave shortened afternoon and evening lectures
at Villanova University, a Catholic University with a fair number
of supportive and sponsoring faculty although the audiences were of
modest size. I got through everything all right, but my energy
level was decreasing as the long tour approached its end.
Thursday/Friday, Nov. 16-17, Princeton. Events here were under the
general direction of my old friend Scott Luley, with whom Kathie
and I travelled to Russia a couple of years ago. I gave noon
lectures Thursday and Friday at Rutgers, about an hour from
Princeton. These were not well-attended events and the audiences
did not seem particularly sophisticated; Scott and I agreed that
Rutgers did not really seem ready for our program. Thursday
evening was my main lecture, in historic McCosh Hall, with an
attendance of 300 or so which is said to be quite large for
Princeton. This lecture was particularly important because it was
being professionally videotaped for distribution by Access Research
Network, so I made an effort to use themes which would not
duplicate earlier lectures. We'll have to see the video to know
how well I did.
Friday afternoon I gave the Bouton Lecture under the
sponsorship of the Politics Department at Princeton. I was
introduced by Professor Andrew Koppelman of that Department, who
delighted me by telling the audience that he had used my criminal
law casebook when a law student at Yale and that it was the best
teaching casebook he had encountered. I hope he says the same
thing some day to a large audience of Criminal Law professors.
Another Princeton Politics Professor who turned up unexpectedly was
the well known natural law scholar Robert "Robbie" George, who was
supposed to be in Washington that day for some commission meeting
but was able to stay in Princeton due to the federal government
shutdown over the budget impasse. Scott Luley asked me to turn on
his tape recorder before I began speaking, and of course I forgot.
Afterwards Scott rushed up to get the tape because he said it was
the best lecture he had ever heard me give. Good or not, it seems
to be lost to history because 3 days later I can't much remember
what I said. Because this was an official lecture, there was a
sumptuous dinner with grad students and faculty at the best
restaurant in town afterwards. Koppelman, who is dedicated to the
cause of gaining approval for gay marriage, pressed me throughout
the meal mainly on his Kantian view of reality, according to which
mere facts like the existence or non-existence of God have nothing
to do with anything important to philosophers or to morality. It's
about as impenetrable a position in its way as theistic evolution,
and on the whole some other subject would be more conducive to
digestion. If God spoke to some people out of the whirlwind, they
would ask him to submit a c.v. and would promise resignedly to take
up his claims at some forthcoming committee meeting. After dinner
I gave a brief informal talk to the Campus Crusade student group
and their friends, and then off to bed.
Saturday/Sunday/Monday, Nov. 18-20. Saturday morning began with a
quiet seminar at Princeton on the Christian scholar in the secular
university. Bill Dembski and Jay Richards from Princeton Seminary
were particularly welcome participants, and a group of 4 grad
students came to attend all the way from the CUNY Graduate School
in midtown Manhattan. This group was also a very welcome addition,
because they are sponsoring interesting programs with their
adviser, Slavic Studies Professor Amy Mandelker, and because they
offered me a ride into New York after the seminar where I was to
meet my daughter Emily in front of the American Museum of Natural
History (busman's holiday). Emily, for those who do not know, is
a graduate student in Slavic Studies at Columbia, and she at once
confirmed that Amy Mandelker is one of the brightest younger stars
in the discipline. I hope to introduce Emily and Amy to each other
the next time I come to New York.
Emily and I saw some of the exhibits at the Museum and then
had a good dinner together after which she accompanied me to Penn
Station to put me on the train back to Princeton. Sunday morning
Scott picked me up early to catch the (crowded) train from Trenton
to Washington DC, where I was met by my host Frank Kifer. Frank
and Judy Kifer are 35-year veterans of Campus Crusade (Frank had a
colorful youth that led him to the Communist Party and to jail
before finding Christ). They have lived a lot in Europe and have
had a ministry to diplomats, so they know a lot of interesting
people and have a wealth of experience with the spiritual side of
world issues. They were my hosts while I was in Washington for the
final event of the tour, an NPR talk show Monday morning with Diane
Rehm. I hadn't heard of the this show and don't think it is
broadcast in Northern California, but apparently it is a big deal
in much of the rest of the country. Calls came in from everywhere.
Unfortunately, Diane felt she had to do it as a debate, with Will
Provine on the phone line from Cornell, and that meant we just went
round on the same old issues without my having the opportunity to
develop any thought beyond the sound byte level. However, it must
have been shocking to this NPR audience to hear Provine and me
agree that the creation issue is one that deserves to be debated
openly in the scientific community. If that occurs, I think
Provine will be very surprised by what develops, as the suppressed
scientific issues come to the surface.
The rest of Monday was a restful afternoon and Monday evening
football game, in which the 49ers satisfyingly thrashed Miami.
This report was mostly finished on the plane to California Tuesday,
as the very long tour finally came to its end. What of enduring
value was accomplished by all this effort? Not the reaching of a
mass audience, but the bringing of the theistic realism agenda to
faculty and other influential thinkers in a lot of diverse
locations and disciplines. Networks are being formed, and
intellectual approaches are being prepared. At the end of the
Diane Rehm show, Will Provine and I agreed that the long suppressed
debate between the theism of the popular culture and the naturalism
of the elite culture would be a major issue of the coming years.
There is plenty of independent evidence for this prediction.
At lectures the last few days I have quoted a Nov. 11, 1995 article
from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution about a recent academic
conference at Vanderbilt (occasioned by the 75th anniversary of the
Scopes trial) attended by a diverse group of scholars from Kurt
Wise to Ron Numbers to William Provine. According to the article,
the participants all agreed that it is deplorable that we cannot
put the issue of creation out in the open for consideration in the
educational world. "Public schools have become the last place where
a serious discussion of science, religion and moral values can take
place," lamented Michael Lienesch, a University of North Carolina
political science professor. "If anybody wants to use a postulate
of creationism, however it's defined, it could be a great teaching
example," Ira Glasser, director of the American Civil Liberties
Union, told the conference. The newspaper story ended with a
section subtitled "Ultimate victory for Bryan," which deserves to
be quoted in full:
And Bryan's final victory may be emerging only now.
Bryan argued, following a position of Thomas Jefferson,
that tax-supported schools should maintain true neutrality in
the area of religion, and that attacking religion "in the
guise of philosophy or science" violates this. This point was
lost in the hubbub of the "Monkey Trial."
But it is increasingly recognized as a dilemma today, when
science "is more aware of its limitations" and religion "more
self-assertive," as the University of North Carolina's
Lienesch put it.
Panelists at the conference offered various approaches to
this problem, from encouraging a civil conversation about
religion and science within the schools to having a robust
fight in which science delivers a final, fair knockout punch
to the pseudoscientific claims of the creationists.
Still debatable
Across their differences, though, the panelists all seemed
to agree that the evolution-creation debate is an unresolved
anxiety that lies at the heart of the First Amendment
requirement of religious neutrality and needs thoughtful
airing.
The conference summoned up voices from the past. Among
those who came to the microphone unbidden were a 78-year-old
man who vividly recalled hearing the entire trial on WSM radio
out of Nashville, the grandson of the state representative who
authored the anti-evolution law in Tennessee in 1925, and the
daughter of the Dayton drugstore owner who decided that it
would be a boost to the local economy to drum up a test case
for the ACLU.
But in the end, it was America's present need for a new,
more civil Monkey Trial that dominated the conference. "We've
managed to avoid discussion," said Lienesch. "And so our
science and religion are weaker, our politics poorer and our
lives seen as increasingly beyond our control." [End of quote]
Amen.