>He is a Senior Professor of Law at
>a major American University. His specialty is "analyzing the logic of
>arguments":
As we go through the whale business remember that the first rule of logic
is that the facts must be correct. If they aren't, then the argument is
false. If Johnson is so expert in analyzing argumentation, he should know
this.
At 07:24 PM 6/11/98 +0800, Stephen Jones wrote:
>GM>Stanley is not saying that whales came from rodents in spite of how you
>>read this. He is saying that the ORDERS of mammals came from .
>
>This is just hair-splitting. If all orders of mammals came from animals
resembling
>rodents, and whales are mammals, then whales came from animals resembling
rodents!
>
>GM>The word *resembling* is important here. If I say
>>you resemble Pres. Bill Clinton, that doesn't mean you ARE Bill Clinton.
>>Similarly an animal that 'resembles' a rodent isn't necessarily a rodent.
>>A case in point is the marsupial mouse from Australia which *resembles* a
>>rodent but isn't one.
>
>More hair-splitting. In your program of destructive critcicism of Johnson,
>you fail to point out that he also uses the term "rodent like":
>
>"A chain of ten or fifteen of these might move us from one small RODENT
>LIKE form to a slightly different one, perhaps representing a new genus,
>but not to a bat or a whale!' " ((Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, p51,
>quoting Stanley S.M, "The New Evolutionary Timetable". 1981, p71).
Wait a minute Stephen, What you cite is Johnson quoting Stanley. STANLEY
uses the term 'rodent-like'. Johnson uses the word RODENT.
"A Darwinist can imagine that a mutant rodent might appear with a web
between its toes, and thereby gain some advantage in the struggle for
survival, with the result that the new characteristic could spread through
the population to await the arrival of further mutations leading eventually
to winged flight." ~ Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 2nd ed. (Downer's
Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), p. 104
"Did rodent forelimbs transform themselves by gradual adaptive stages into
whale flippers? We hear nothing of the difficulties because to Darwinists
unsolvable problems are not important." ~ Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on
Trial, 2nd ed. (Downer's Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), p. 87
Not so hairsplitting after all. Please get your facts correct, Stephen.
Johnson says rodent, not rodent like.
>
>"It isn't merely that grand-scale Darwinism can't be confirmed. The
>evidence is positively against the theory. For example, if Darwinism is
>true then the bat, monkey, pig, seal, and whale all evolved in gradual
>adaptive stages from a primitive RODENT-LIKE predecessor."
>(Johnson P.E. "Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of
>Naturalism", 1990, p35).
And this is not what I am gripping about. Here Johnson is absolutely
correct and I have no quarrel with him. (see, I said something good about him)
>Neither Stanley nor Johnson "believes that rodents" (in a technical sense)
>"gave rise to whales." You are being over-literal as part of your campaign
>to discredit such a fine Christian apologist like Johnson who argue against
>evolution.
>
See Johnson's statements above. Stephen, you are simply incorrect.
>Deltatherium looks just like a rat! Indeed, the Encyclopaedia Britannica
>says that insectivores can only be distingushed from similarly built
>rodents by their teeth:
Distinguished in this context means that one can tell them apart. That
means that Deltatherium is not a rodent.
>Your hair-splitting on this point, in order to find some fault in Johnson
>reminds me of those Darwinist apologists who claimed that man was
>not descended from apes, playing on the word "apes" in
>a highly specialised sense.
I will clearly state that we are related to the apes.
>GM>I don't have this book so I can't check the quotation (you are very
good at
>>getting the quotation correct so I believe you that this is what he wrote).
>
>Thanks. But why raise the subject of the accuracy of my quotations at all?
Stephen, are you so suspicious of me that you can't even recognize a
complement? You need a vacation.
Yours is the strategy of the quisling:
>
>"quisling ...Person cooperating with an enemy who has occupied his
country...."
>(Coulson J., et al, eds., "The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary", 1980, p694)
>
>You seem to think that you can appease the atheists by joining in their
attacks
>on leading Christian apologists like Johnson. But all you do is confirm
them in
>their atheism, and cut off a lifeline that God throws to them, through the
teachers
>like Johnson and Ross whom He has sent (Eph 4:11). You will bear a heavy
>responsibility for your actions on this score.
>
Well I give you an A for your creativity, but not such a good grade on
niceness.
>I don't believe it was a "joke" - you got that explanation second hand.
yes I did. I got it from a very good friend of his whom I asked to discuss
this issue with Johnson. Why did I do that? Because Johnson wouldn't
discuss it with me. Our mutual friend does beleive that Johnson should
change it but he won't go talk to johnson about the second example I found.
>
>But it wouldn't matter if Johnson did "fix" this slight inaccuracy. The
atheists
>would not be appeased, and nor would TEs like yourself.
It is not about appeasing anyone, Stephen, it is about being rigourously
correct because we are working for the Lord.
>"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented."
>--- Dr. William Provine, Professor of History and Biology, Cornell
University.
I agree with what Provine says because Christians help make it that way.
We teach that if the evidence fits evolution then the Bible is false. Well
when students learn that much of what they were taught isn't true, then
they draw the conclusion their parents taught them,---the Bible is false in
their eyes. So they do become atheists. Why is this surprising?
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm