I showed Chris Cogan's comments on Johnson's book to a friend and she
replied (see notes following the ****************'s)
Allen
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: The Wedge of Truth : Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism by
Phillip E. Johnson
> A couple of notes aimed at CC and others of his/her ilk:
> > Original book review:
> > > 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.
> > CC says
> > Ah, yes, cognition is now to be replaced with "truth" that is achieved
by
> > some non-cognitive means.
>
> *********** If absolute truth depends on cognition, then it is nothing
more
> than an opinion and not truth per se at all. Which leaves us with a
> cognitive dilemma: where did we get the concept of an absolute truth?
Not
> what is it, but where did the concept itself come from?
>
> > > 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."
> > CC says
> > 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?
>
> ************** Design needs no proof other than CC himself. He recognized
> the design of the letters he was reading in the review, picked up the
> meaning behind the design and then designed his own response which he
> assumed someone else would recognized as design behind the scrambled
letters
> and read. Please note I did not add the "intelligent" part to the
"design"
> argument here. That was not an accident.
>
> > 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)?
>
> ************** Some of the men associated with Dr. Johnson are world class
> scientists. He has not only learned from them but has read voluminously
> himself from the evolutionary material. What CC is really saying is that
he
> does not like what Dr. Johnson has learned, and disagrees with his
> conclusions. In CC's mind this then makes Dr. Johnson (take your pick or
> choose all...) stupid, ignorant, deceitful, deceived.
> >
> > >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),
> > CC says
> > 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.
>
> ************** And it takes even less of a genius to be too afraid or
vague
> to even mention one of those terrible arguments. Why is my baloney
detecter
> working overtime here?
>
> > CC says
> > 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.
>
> ************* If naturalism is all there is, then Dr. Johnson evolved
quite
> naturally and CC has absolutely no philosophical or cognitive reason to
bash
> the man or his work. It is all quite natural and the most CC could say
> about it, if he were busy being true to what he claims is truth (which is,
> after all, only his opinion, so it only holds true for him anyway) is that
> Johnson is an interesting variation or mutation from the better variety,
> which is, of course, CC himself.
>
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