<<I think that we're getting a bit rancorous here in this thread. Perhaps I
can contribute to some reconcilation.>>
As if!
You're right, though. We've been hearing about "lazy duffs" and the like
lately, and that's unnecessary.
Anyway, your post was GREAT! You don't ramble on about "primary and
secondary," you don't accuse anyone of "intellectual deceit," you don't don
the priestly robes.
No, you actually went to the merits of the case. Gadzooks, what a concept!
The only thing I'd encourage you to do in the future is cite specific pages of
what you're criticizing. That would make it easier to respond.
Are you surprised that I don't entirely agree with you?
You say:
<<Let's look at Johnson's discussion of natural selection. He focuses on
natural selection as tautology--and certainly, natural selection can be
formulated as a tautology. He leads the reader through this criticism,
trashing this argument from a LOGICAL and PHILOSOPHICAL perspective, only
to say at the end of the chapter that, of course, natural selection can be
formulated in a non-tautologous fashion, which he accepts, but pooh-pooh's
as offering no solution to solving the evolutionary questions that HE is
interested in. The careless reader goes away thinking that natural
selection is a vacuous idea and that a key plank in the evolutionary
argument has be destroyed.>>
Your characterization is faulty on several counts. First, Johnson does NOT
focus on the tautological aspect of natural selection. His chapter is 16 pages
long; his section on tautology is 3 pages. Second, he admits other arguments
re: natural selection are "not so easily dismissed" [DOT p. 23], which is far
from "destroying" anything. Third, his point is much more humble than you
propose. He is merely pointing out that even the accepted "proofs" of natural
selection do not persuasively demonstrate "that natural selection can produce
new species, new organs, or other major changes, or even minor changes that
are permanent." [DOT, p. 27]
Finally, his conclusion, with which I agree: The Darwinist's best defense is a
good offense, driven by a "philosophical preconception in blinding an
intelligent Darwinist to the existence of a counterexample....On that basis
the theory has nothing to fear from the evidence." [p. 31]
I therefore disagree with how you've summed up this section of DOT.
<<Let's look at the discussion of punctuated equilibrium vs. neo-Darwinism.
Phil plays these two views off each other in such a way that they appear to
be a irresolvable odds. But certainly Niles Eldredge doesn't see it this
way. In fact, punctuated equilibrium has been fished out of the some of
the early neo-Darwinian's own writings.>>
<<Let's look at the discussion of punctuated equilibrium vs. neo-Darwinism.
Phil plays these two views off each other in such a way that they appear to
be a irresolvable odds. But certainly Niles Eldredge doesn't see it this
way. In fact, punctuated equilibrium has been fished out of the some of
the early neo-Darwinian's own writings.>>
Actually, Eldredge said right there at Calvin that Johnson has raised
significant issues. "Phil's got our attention and that's why I'm here
tonight. We need an expanded discourse."
It would help once again if you cited passages. If you read his discussion in
RITB, Phil calls "Gould-style" evolution "empirical evoltuion," because it is
derived primarily from observation. [RITB p. 86] "Blind Watchmaker" evolution,
OTOH, is not. That's an incompatibility.
He brings up the stark example of the Cambrian explosion to demonstrate the
incompatibility further, and concludes, "The differing evolutionary theories
of Gould and Dawkins cannot be resolved, because the observations that
scientists have been making are at odds with the presuppositions of the blind
watchmaker thesis." [RITB pg. 88] How is this incorrect?
Another question for you, which might help at this point: Where are the
pre-Cambrian fossils? I think how you answer will in some way point to a
conflict with one theory or the other. Let's find out.
<<Like it not folks, science is a much messier enterprise than we often are
taught.>>
And that is a point with which Phil would agree! So if it is, indeed, messy,
how can Darwinian evolution be taught as "fact"? This is where the theistic
rubber meets the secular road, and why Phil is driving the way he is, and why
I'm in the car with him.
Jim