Reflectorites
On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:53:28 -0600, Susan Cogan wrote:
[...]
SC>Huxter has made it abundantly clear that Wells and/or the Discovery
>Institute is dishonest about Wells's credentials.
Huxter has done no such thing. He quoted a couple of newspaper articles
which implied that Wells was a biologist at Berkeley. I pointed out that
journalists and editors often use old titles from their records, especially if it
helps their lay readership judge the credentials of the author.
I also pointed out that Wells currently signs himself as a fellow of the
Discovery Institute.
If Susan and Huxter and anyone else wants to dismiss Wells' as "dishonest"
as a pretext so they can ignore his book, they are free to do so. They do the
same to *everyone* that disagrees with them, so this currency is cheapened
by its overissue.
Their standard `shoot the messenger' response to criticism tells fair-minded
people that there is something seriously wrong with their position that they
need to so often resort to character assassinattion of their rivals, rather than
answer their arguments.
What matters in the end is not whether hard-line atheist evolutionists like
Susan and Huxter accept the evidence in Wells' book of the deceitful and
fraudulent practices of Darwinists in trying to prop up their shaky theory, but
whether John Q Public accepts it.
BTW, as part of my winding down my discussions on the Reflector, I have
terminated my current threads with Huxter. I am not prepared to wade
through all the `muck' in order to see if there are any genuine scientific
points in his posts. I assume there aren't otherwise why would Huxter
not have used them immediately *since this was precisely his field*?
Steve
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"In the final analysis, it is not any specific scientific evidence that convinces
me that Darwinism is a pseudoscience that will collapse once it becomes
possible for critics to get a fair hearing. It is the way the Darwinists argue
their case that makes it apparent that they are afraid to encounter the best
arguments against their theory. A real science does not employ propaganda
and legal barriers to prevent relevant questions from being asked, nor does
it rely on enforcing rules of reasoning that allow no alternative to the
official story. If the Darwinists had a good case to make, they would
welcome the critics to an academic forum for open debate, and they would
want to confront the best critical arguments rather than to caricature them
as straw men. Instead they have chosen to rely on the dishonorable
methods of power politics." (Johnson P.E., "The Wedge of Truth: Splitting
the Foundations of Naturalism," Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove IL.,
2000, p.141)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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