> At the ASA meeting at Bethel in 1996, Mike Behe told some of us
>at lunch that he was pushing ID for apologetic reasons. He may have
>changed his mind by now. When I told Phil Johnson this in Minneapolis
>in October, he couldn't believe me.
Now I'm confused. What could Johnson not believe? Did he just think
Behe was coming from a different direction, or was Johnson himself
rejecting an apologetic role for ID? This report makes it sound like the
latter, but that seems hardly possible.
In some messages from Johnson relayed to the ASA list a couple of months
ago, he seemed to see the ID movement as primarily apologetic. For
example, I have a message archived in which he says his approach is more
successful than theistic evolution "in converting unbelievers and in
keeping Christian college students from sliding into naturalistic
thinking." And in interviews with Johnson such as recent stories in
Radix and Christianity Today, he is portrayed as a defender of the faith
rather than somebody trying to improve science, and he seems to accept
this characterization. So if Phil Johnson thinks pushing ID for
apologetic reasons is wrong, he had better track down that evil twin who
is writing in his name.
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| Dr. Allan H. Harvey | aharvey@boulder.nist.gov |
| Physical and Chemical Properties Division | "Don't blame the |
| National Institute of Standards & Technology | government for what I |
| 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303 | say, or vice versa." |
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