Phillip E. Johnson — father of ID — lax, unpersuasive and simply wrong

I'm now up to chapter 13 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, which is approximately one-eighth of the way through its "50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science". As I feared, it's proving a tedious affair. Given that this is a recent book I'd hoped it might contain some really good up-to-date arguments, or at least a challenge of some sort. So far, however, it's been disappointing. The first section, The Question of Philosophy, should have been challenging, but seems to comprise what I (a non-philosopher) can only describe as philosophically bankrupt arguments. The current section, The Question of Science, appears to be all over the place; some of its chapters don't offer an argument at all, so I fail to see how they count towards the "50 Arguments".

Nor do I understand why every one of the first 13 chapters is either identical or very similar to an article on 4truth.net. That website doesn't reference the book, and the book only briefly references the website (in the introduction) as a place to find "still more articles". Shouldn't there be at least an acknowledgement that the book contains reprints? Or that the website does? (At this stage I'll not be surprised to discover that the whole book is available on the website, which could explain why there's nothing new.)

Curious though that is, what of chapter 13? It's titled "Darwin's Battleship — Status Report on the Leaks This Ship Has Sprung" and is by Discovery Institute co-founder and major intelligent design proponent Phillip E. Johnson. He begins by citing his 1993 book Darwin on Trial, quoting the epilogue in which he predicts that ID will win out over evolution. He then goes on to list how he perceives progress in this regard. It's actually a bit comical:

Science organizations regularly mischaracterize ID, calling it "creationism in a cheap tuxedo." They dream up conspiracies and make false accusations. They try to make sure that no one who is friendly to ID is allowed to publish articles in the peer-reviewed literature and then use the lack of such articles to prove that ID is not science. They try to prevent ID-friendly scientists from attaining research or teaching positions. They enter into local school district decision-making processes to make sure that Darwinism is not allowed to be questioned in any way, bringing in the ACLU if there is any attempt to offer an even-handed approach to the teaching of evolution. (p. 74)

Who's "dreaming up conspiracies and making false accusations" here? I seem to remember a somewhat disreputable film (that's putting it mildly) called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed that was chock-full of conspiracy theories, every one of which was promptly debunked by people who actually investigated the facts.

Johnson goes on to state that the "Darwinian mechanism of evolution" has no explanation of how the complex living world came about. This is just plain false. Anyone who reads Richard Dawkins' latest, beautifully illustrated book, The Greatest Show on Earth, cannot fail to understand the stunning simplicity and elegance of Darwin's idea. As for explaining "how life came into being from chemicals" — Johnson must surely know that evolutionary theory has practically nothing to say on the subject because that's not what it's about. He complains that Edward O. Wilson gives no concrete examples of evolution in an article in Harvard magazine, while providing no examples himself — nor does he provide a reference to Wilson's article. In fact the only reference Johnson gives is to his own book. His final paragraph is telling:

Recently, Harvard opened a new major research project, especially to study the origin of life. This may be in response to the criticisms of the Intelligent Design movement. Other recent articles suggest that scientists in the biological establishment are doing research specifically to answer the challenges raised by ID. If this is the case, it should be seen as a good thing by everyone. We in the ID movement are proponents of good science. If our criticisms and questions lead to better research, we are unafraid of the results. In the meantime, our current concern is to keep evolutionary scientists honest about the current state of the evidence and to allow young people to understand why there is a controversy about the subject of evolution. (p. 75)

It sounds entirely reasonable, until the last sentence. In evolutionary science — the kind supported by peer-reviewed research — there isn't a controversy about the subject of evolution. The controversy is entirely in the minds of ID proponents who want biological science to be based on a religious idea.

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4truth.net
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952913

A case of explanatory impotence

In chapter 6 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, David Wood gave us "three approaches theists can take when responding to the argument from evil." I found them unconvincing, and the fact that Wood added some other unrelated arguments for the existence of God made me wonder if despite the confident bravura of his assertions, he nevertheless harbours doubts as to their cogency.

The very next chapter tends to reinforce this suspicion, as it too is by David Wood and is once again about the argument from evil. The chapter's title, "God, Suffering and Santa Claus — An Examination of the Explanatory Power of Theism and Atheism" should ring alarm bells, as any time a theist talks about the "explanatory power" of theism you know you're unlikely to get any such thing.

Wood contends that it's illogical to dismiss theism solely on the basis of its difficulty with explaining the existence of suffering in the world, when theism is so good at explaining everything else. Yes, that's right: not only is he half admitting that suffering is a problem, he's claiming that it's pretty much the only one, and that theism explains the following:

• Why we have a world at all
• Why our world is finely tuned for life
• Accounts for the origin of life as well as the diversity and complexity of life we see around us
• The rise of consciousness
• Objective moral values
• Miracles

And the explanation of all these things is ... Goddidit. Unfortunately Goddidit is about as far from an explanation as it's possible to be. I'll offer an alternative explanation, that "explains" the six things listed above, and the explanation is ... magic pixies did it. I'll go further, paraphrasing David Wood:

"Thus, when atheists say that magic pixieism fails to account for suffering, we shouldn't forget that, even if they're right, magic pixieism accounts for just about everything else."

Honestly, I'd expected something more substantial than this — something with a measure of philosophically persuasive force, given that this is the final chapter in the book's first section, headed "The Question of Philosophy". The next (much larger) section is called "The Question of Science" and includes chapters by Phillip E. Johnson and William A. Dembski. Let's hope they make a better fist of things than the sorry collection so far.

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Surprise, surprise! — there's a version of this chapter at 4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbgod.aspx?pageid=8589952714