Reflectorites
On Thu, 24 Feb 2000 14:22:21 -0500, Ed.Babinski@furman.edu wrote:
EB>Forwarded from a friend of mine, Tod Montgomery:
Thanks to Ed for posting this. It is a good example of the near total lack of
understanding of what Johnson is arguing by those whose minds have been
taken captive by the hollow and deceptive philosophy (Col 2:8) of
materialism-naturalism.
EB>I arrived at UNCA with my copies of two of Johnson's books
>hoping for some autographs (I figured that in my future run-ins
>with Christians who push Johnson's books on me would be more
>fun if I could not only pull out my copies, but SIGNED copies,
>although to me the autographs actually lower the value of the
>b ooks--but that's another story.)
This sounds a bit puerile. How old is this Tod Montgomery?
EB>As I walked into Lipinsky Auditorium I was overwhelmed by the
>number of people there. I (somewhat pessimistically) hoped that
>some of the people there would be non-Christians like me. There
>may have been a few, but the majority of the people there were
>obviously there to support Johnson.?
Another strange comment. What did Montgomery expect?
EB>They probably heard about it in church. I perused the very
>large selection of books available for sale, and not one jot or tittle
>of skeptical or critical literature was to be found. (Veritas Forum
>my ass, I thought).
More strange comments. Maybe Montgomery should check out the
next Richard Dawkins lecture and report back on how many books
"skeptical or critical" of evolution are on sale there?
EB>Suddenly I felt like the mythical Daniel in the lion's den. It took
>ll I had not to simply walk out, but I felt that at least one dissenting
>person should be there, and hey, maybe I could even say a few
>things, who knows? I was about to inquire as to whether they had a
>copy of the Age of Reason or the Origin of Species, when it was
>time to go inside and see the circus.
What makes Montgomery think he was the only dissenter? He sounds a bit
`paranoid' here. I am sure that no one would eat Montgomery if he
expresses a dissenting opinion! I have a number of tapes of Phil Johnson's
public lectures and he often gets dissenting questions and opinions from the
floor and he treats them courteously.
EB>Johnson's presentation was typical, with the ad-hominem, post
>hoc, straw man, fallacies abounding.
It is a pity Montgomery doesn't say what these were, so we can judge for
ourselves.
EB>And the audience seemed to
>swallow the whole thing hook line and sinker. It's quite a strange
>and profoundly sad feeling when you are in a room with 1200
>people the majority of whom have not done the first thing to
>educate themselves about the issues at hand beyond reading
>Christian propaganda.
Again, how does Montgomery actually *know* that?
Montgomery reveals a smug and superior `village atheist' mentality here.
He might be surprised how well-read in evolutionist literature many
Christians are who are interested in the Creation/Evolution debate.
From my experience those Christians involved in the Creation/Evolution
debate generally know a lot more about the evolution position from its own
literature than the evolutionists know about the Christian or creationist
positions from their literature.
EB>During Philip Johnson's talk, I took a few notes, and chuckled
>and sighed a lot. I also made sure the couple sitting next to me
>could see what I was writing.
If Montgomery is not a juvenile, he sure acts like one. Why would he want
to make sure that those sitting next to him could see what he was writing?
EB>My first page was sketchy and consisted of trying to
>encapsulate a few boners he committed, but Christ, I can only
>write so fast. Among those things, he put forth the proposition that
>what is true is what is good.
I doubt it was as simple as that. But Montgomery doesn't quote exactly
what Johnson said and nor does he say what he thinks is wrong with that
proposition.
Indeed, if Montgomery does not think the truth is good, why is he saying it
is bad that Johnson is (in Montgomery's eyes), not speaking the truth?
EB> I
>thought "If you only would explore that and take it to its logical
>conclusion, we could all go home", but no such luck. He quoted Thomas
>Jefferson (I don't remember the quote now--damn it)
Which doesn't say much for Montgomery's note-taking ability. Maybe if he
was less concerned at showing off to the people next to him, he might have
actually written more down?
EB> but forgot to point out that Jefferson was a Deist and would
>seem simply like an atheist when compared to virtually anyone on
>the room. !
This is the Genetic Fallacy. It is irrelevant what Jefferson was. What is
important is the *truth* of what he said.
EB>Johnson said that he hoped that his talk would speak to the
>HEARTS of those present first and to their MINDS second--a
>surprisingly candid statement not lost on me, to be sure.
From the evidence of what he writes, I suspect the distinction was lost on
Montgomery. But Montgomery's own post, especially what follows where
he gets so worked up he can't even ask his question, and then tries to
engage Johnson in an argument after the lecture, shows that for
Montgomery it is not merely an intellectual issue.
EB>He went on to debunk some of the myths about the Scopes
>Trial (and in this he basically did a good job) but focused on
>debunking Inherit the Wind, which is the only source most of these
>people had ever encountered. Of course if they had read the intro,
>they would realize that the play and (therefore the movie) were
>admitted by the writers to be works of fiction and that Inherit the
>Wind has little or nothing to do with the facts or influence of the
>Scopes case.
It is the fact that "Inherit the Wind" was a work of fiction, yet because it is
the only source of information about the Scopes Trial that most people had
ever encountered, that most people think it is what really happened.
Johnson's claim in "Defeating Darwinism" is that it is the lens through
which most people today see the Creation/Evolution debate:
"If you speak out about the teaching of evolution at a public hearing,
audience and reporters will be placing your words in the context of Inherit
the Wind. Whether you know it or not, you are playing a role in a play. The
question is, which role in the story will be yours?" (Johnson P.E.,
"Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds", 1997, p25)
EB>Of course he went on to say that the liberal media and whatnot
>have "held on to this lie" for some time, as if that had any bearing
>on the scientific merit of evolution, (or creationism for that matter).
If the media's perpetuation of the "Inherit the Wind" stereotype has no
"bearing on the scientific merit of evolution" then why does the Darwinist
scientific establishment keep perpetuating it?
The point is that the media's perpetuation of the "Inherit the Wind"
stereotype is enormously influential in maintaining the control of
Darwinism in public life by marginalising its main rival: creationists.
EB>He even made the egregious error that scientists believe we
>are descended from monkeys. I leaned over to my companions
>and whispered "no scientist believes that".
No doubt Johnson was speaking popularly for the benefit of the less
technically literate members of the audience (later in this same post,
Montgomery writes of trying to word a question "in such a way that it
wouldn't go over the heads of the audience"). For a more technical
audience Johnson would no doubt have said the more technically correct:
"share a common ancestor with monkeys". But it is hardly an "egregious
error".
Indeed, as co-founder of the Neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis, George
Gaylord Simpson pointed out that to say that "man cannot be a descendant
of any living ape" is "obvious to the verge of imbecility", man's "earlier
ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by
anyone who saw it", and "It is pusillanimous if not dishonest for an
informed investigator to say otherwise":
"On this subject, by the way, there has been too much pussyfooting.
Apologists emphasize that man cannot be a descendant of any living ape-a
statement that is obvious to the verge of imbecility-and go on to state or
imply that man is not really descended from an ape or monkey at all, but
from an earlier common ancestor. In fact, that earlier ancestor would
certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw
it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man's
ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous
if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise." (Simpson
G.G., "The Word into which Darwin Led us", Science, Vol. 131, No.
3405, 1 April 1960, p. 969).
EB>I got no reaction.
What did Montgomery expect? That they were as bad mannered as him?
EB>He called evolution a pseudoscience
Johnson was probably referring to *Darwinian* evolution. In that case he
would not be the only one who has said that. Pierre Grasse, former Chair
of Evolution of Evolution, Sorbonne University, ex-president of the French
Academie des Sciences and editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie",
said that Darwinism is a pseudoscience:
"Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded
extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the
very heart of biology and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists,
who sincerely believe that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been
demonstrated, which is not the case." (Grasse P.-P., "Evolution of Living
Organisms", 1977, p6)
EB>and claimed the fossil record did not support evolution. )
Well it doesn't. As Gould pointed out, the "trade secret of paleontology"
was that the main features of the fossil record were "sudden appearance"
and "stasis", the complete *opposite(of evolutionary expectations:
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the
trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our
textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is
inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils...The history of
most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with
gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during
their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the
same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and
directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not
arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all
at once and `fully formed.'" (Gould S.J., "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural
History, Vol. 86, No. 5, May 1977, p14)
As the former graduate student and friend of arch-Darwinist Richard
Dawkins, Oxford zoologist Mark Ridley admitted "no real evolutionist,
whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in
favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation":
"However, the gradual change of fossil species has never been part of the
evidence for evolution. In the chapters on the fossil record in the Origin of
Species. Darwin showed that the record was useless for testing between
evolution and special creation because it has great gaps in it. The same
argument still applies. Eldredge and Gould pointed out the fossil record
might be even less complete than Darwin had thought. Populations in the
process of speciating are probably small and geographically separated from
their ancestral population, so the full course of speciation would not be
preserved at any one site of fossil deposition. What we would see is a series
replaced by another, obviously related and yet with no gradual intermediate
forms. In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or
punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of
evolution as opposed to special creation." (Ridley M., "Who doubts
evolution?" New Scientist, Vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p831).
EB>He got into irreducible complexity and Behe's book.
And...?
EB>He ridiculed the finch beak variation studies from the Galapagos.
And...?
EB>However, the main thrust of his talk
>was that science is blind to the wonders of creation because it simply
>assumes that there is no supernatural and goes from there.
Well isn't this true?
EB>He went on and
>on and on about this, telling many half-truths and many more outright lies
Again, Montgomery does not say what these alleged "half-truths and ...
outright lies" were. From my experience on this Reflector, ardent
evolutionists consider any criticism of evolution to be "lies".
EB>and I spent the rest of the time writing down some questions of my own, as
>we were going to get a chance at the end to ask some. Here are some of
>those that came to me during the presentation.
Well, at least Montgomery was able to write down his own questions!
EB>Here are some of them: (note-I'm fleshing these out as if I actually had
>picked each one to ask. My notes are more sketchy--more on this later)
>here goes...
>
>Dr. Johnson, why do you believe that supernatural explanations
>are better than natural ones. ".
Johnson does not necessarily claim that "supernatural explanations are
better than natural ones". What he does claim is that "supernatural
explanations" are *legitimate*. Montgomery, OTOH, would presumably
rule out supernatural explanations, no matter how good the evidence was
for them and how weak the evidence was for natural explanations.
EB>After all, we had supernatural
>explanations for thousands of years for countless natural
>phenomena, including lightning, volcanoes, reproduction, growth,
>fire, stars, planets, earthquakes, diseases etc. Why are you so
>sure that your supernatural explanations of the world around us
>are any more credible than those of the ancients who knew
>nothing about these things?
This is a fallacy. That the ancients may have been wrong on ascribing
supernatural explanations to some phenomena which later turned out to be
natural does not necessarily mean that supernatural explanations are
*always* wrong and natural explanations are *always* right.
Besides, most of the above are examples of *ongoing* process operations
of the cosmos, not unique *origins* events, where natural explanations
start to break down:
"...it is far from clear that "God" is being used as a supernatural concept in
any way inappropriate to science. It is possible to distinguish operation
science (which focuses on the regular, recurrent operation of the universe
or, in theological terms, secondary causes) from origin science (which
focuses on singular events [the origin of the universe, life on earth] which,
in theological terms, are primary causes which are not regular)...See the
excellent work by Norman L. Geisler and J. Kerby Anderson, Origin
Science: A Proposal for the Creation-Evolution Controversy, ..., 1987)"
(Moreland J.P., "Scaling the Secular City", 1987, pp210-211)
EB>Furthermore, if naturalism is so faulty, why has so much been
>successfully explained by it, not to mention the eradication of
>smallpox, cholera, polio and many other diseases and the deep
>understanding of fundamental principles of the universe Also why
>do so many different disciplines point to the veracity of evolution,
>including molecular biology, comparative anatomy, genetics,
>embryology, anthropology, among many others.
Naturalism has indeed had some success in explaining the natural world.
But a theist would say that that is because the ongoing processes of the
cosmos are regular and orderly.
But naturalism is not having much success in explaining the unique
*origins* events of the cosmos.
Theism in fact can account for Naturalism's limited success better than
Naturalism can.
[continued in part 2/2]
Steve
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"A plot of the sun's course through our galactic locale shows that the sun has been
traveling through the Gould's Belt interior in a region of very low average
interstellar density for several million years. The sun is unlikely to have
encountered a large, dense interstellar cloud in this relatively benign region during
this time. Although our solar system is in the process of emerging from the Local
Bubble, the sun's trajectory suggests that it will probably not encounter a large,
dense cloud for at least several more million years. The consequences of such an
encounter for the earth's climate are unclear; however, one wonders whether it is a
coincidence that Homo sapiens appeared while the sun was traversing a region of
space virtually devoid of interstellar matter." (Frisch P.C., "The Galactic
Environment of the Sun", American Scientist, Vol. 88, No. 1, January-February
2000, pp53-54).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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