At 09:05 PM 06/08/2000, you wrote:
>Reflectorites
>
>Here is an Amazon.com listing on Phil Johnson's latest book, "The Wedge
>of Truth," which is due out in July.
>
>The review of the book states:
>
> "More important, while we may learn a great deal from science, it
> does not offer us unlimited knowledge. In fact, most scientists
> readily acknowledge that it cannot deal with ultimate purposes and
> meaning in life. So to what authority will we turn for these?
Chris
Why do we need an *authority* other than reason? We don't use authorities
as the final arbiter in science, so why should there be any in any other field?
> The deficiencies in science and naturalism call for a cognitive
> revolution, a fundamental change in our worldview and thinking
> habits. And it all begins with a wedge of truth.
Chris
Ah, yes, cognition is now to be replaced with "truth" that is achieved by
some non-cognitive means.
> The wedge of truth does not abandon a foundation of rational
> thought but acknowledges that reason encompasses more than
> science can provide.
Chris
If this is true, it's a radical departure from his other books.
> Johnson wants to put back on the table for
> public debate issues that have often been ruled out of court. In
> splitting the foundations of naturalism, Johnson analyzes the latest
> debates about science and evolution. He incisively pinpoints
> philosophical assumptions and counters the objections to intelligent
> design raised by its most recent critics."
Chris
Again, if this last sentence is true, it's a radical departure from his
other books. Is he *finally* going to pickup the burden of proof for
non-naturalism and for design theory? Or is he going to rehash his previous
arguments and reformulate his previous misrepresentations of evolutionary
theory and naturalism, in order to give himself theories that can be easily
refuted (while *claiming* to have refuted the real thing, of course)?
>With the increasingly high profile that Johnson has gained in the 9 years
>since "Darwin on Trial", this book will probably be *very* influential. Its
>Amazon.com sales rank is already 7,997, which is quite high, considering it
>is not even out yet.
>
>When the book comes out and if it sells well, the scientific materialists
>will
>face an agonising dilemma. If they ignore the book it will look like they
>cannot answer it. But if they review it in a "hatchet job" manner (as
>happened with Darwin on Trial),
Chris
I've read "Darwin on Trial." Perhaps you should read it too. Reviewers
hardly needed to do a hatchet job on it, since Johnson pretty much did that
himself, right in the book. It does not take a genius to see how bad the
arguments in that book are.
>they will provoke a flood of letters to the
>editor from Johnson's many supporters and provole counter articles in the
>media and on the Web which will only publicise the book further.
Chris
This may be true, but it won't improve the quality of Johnson's arguments
any. Johnson has so many supporters because so many people are ignorant of
both rational philosophy and naturalistic evolutionary theory, and because
so many people have a deep psychological vested interest in supporting some
version of creationism. The philosophical views of the Dark Ages (the views
that *made* them the Dark Ages) are still very popular. Both actual
superstition (such as Christianity) and superstitious ways of thinking
still dominate our culture.
>Their best bet probably is to review it as briefly and as low-key as possible
>and hope that most of their readers won't notice. But the problem then
>would be that a weak review would be unacceptable to the more hard-core
>scientific materialists among their readers, and they would get floods of
>letters to the editor anyway!
>
>I am glad it is their problem, and not mine! :-)
Chris
I'm not sure that it's anyone's problem -- yet. If it makes the *topic*
more popular, it may provide a market for my own work on naturalism and
non-naturalism, showing how absolutely empty non-naturalism is, how
cognitively *pointless* it is, how non-naturalistic theories, both in
philosophy and in science, provide nothing that's not more parsimoniously
available in naturalism. Non-naturalism's functions are *not* cognitive.
They are *psychological*. They provide thought-free pseudo-solutions to
various kinds of intellectual problems, such as whether and how the
Universe came to be, what life is and how it came to be, the meaning of
life, etc.
In fact, *so* deep is the avoidance of thought in non-naturalistic theories
that many non-naturalists argue that without their non-naturalism, there
*is* no meaning to life, no basis for morality, etc. But this does not
prove anything except that they have not bothered to think deeply about
these and similar questions. They are like children who say that there
*must* be a Santa Claus, because there *cannot* be any other means by which
toys could get under the tree during the night before Christmas. Such
children would be wrong, and these types of claims about naturalism are
wrong for the same reasons.
<snip>
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