Johnson's view of his role in defeating darwinism.
Keith
>P Johnson at Northshore Church in Everett, WA. 04/19/2001
>
>Question/Answer period
>
>The last question is more personal, "You're a lawyer. How did you
>personally start into this journey of bringing the Darwinian Theory to the
>table and analyzing the support?
>
>Johnson: How did a lawyer get involved in this, a law professor? You know
>my enemies always say, 'That lawyer from California', like I'm an ambulance
>chaser. The never say, the Jefferson E. Pfizer, distinguished professor of
>Jurisprudence. You know that sounds (?)
>
>You know, the thing is, this was a lawyers job.
>
>When I took up the study of evolution in England in 1987-88 what I
>discovered was that this isn't really about science. It's about thinking.
>It's about logical thinking and illogical thinking. It's about given
>assumptions and definitions. You define the terms so you get the answer you
>want.
>
>In our legal system when we teach people how to argue cases before a court
>we have a brief. A written argument to the court. The first section is the
>question to be presented. What is the question? And you always tell them,
>if you can get the court to accept your carefully drafted statement of the
>question presented, they will give the answer you want. Get the question
>right, it's likely the answer follows. So there is a target that leads to a
>plan in the question. So, since the Darwinists insist on defining the
>question asked, "How did creating get done without God?' The rules of the
>game are that you cannot bring God into the courtroom. I recognize that.
>
>Now biologists are not trained to recognize that court sort of thing.
>They're trying to do what other biologists do. Good thinking is thinking
>like other biologists do. They would never question things that are
>fundamental knowledge, the way I did. So it was a matter of finding the
>tricks. The definitions. The way in which the argument was skewed by tricky
>words and changing definitions. The very tricks of logic and arguing.
>
>Who knows more about dirty tricks, I ask?
>
>There's only one thing lower than a lawyer. Lawyers like to tell lawyer
>jokes. There's only one thing worse than a lawyer and that's somebody who
>teaches other people to become one. So that's what I do. So what I teach in
>them is good thinking which is to say how to spot bad arguments. So I feel
>right at home in this deal in the beginning.
>
>The other thing that was different about my approach from the scientists
>view, lots of people made arguments against Darwinism and they made good
>arguments. The same kind of ones I made in 'Darwin on Trial." Theres a lot
>of antecedents for every point. But, they couldn't win. They couldn't win
>the argument. Why not? They were caught in the "Inherit the Wind"
>stereotype. They were caught in the stereotype of the argument. They were
>trying to argue about the evidence and the real problem was the whole game
>was stacked. It had to come out with the answer 'nature did the creating.'
>So it was futile to make a specific argument.
>
>I understood that and understood how to craft a winning strategy. And
>that's why I immediately became the leader of the whole movement. That's
>what everybody wanted. A strategy that would win in the sense of getting
>the right questions on the table and having a fair debate in which case the
>proposition that you really do need a creator would tend to prevail because
>thats what the evidence supports. So that is how we have been able to come
>in ten years or a dozen from nowhere to the front page of the New York Times.
>
>It was a job for someone who understood logic. Who understood how people
>argue and how they think. And then if you are thinking of becoming, and
>the point of law school, that, that is the most valuable thing you learn
>there, if you do learn something. Is, how people think. How they argue. And
>how illogical and badly reasoned ideas can become powerful by the use of
>power. Now that is a knowledge can be used for good or evil. But used
>rightly, it is a powerful way to bring out the truth. And to free peoples
>minds and that is why I titled one of my books, "Defeating Darwinism by
>opening Minds." Thats always been my objective. To free people to think
>their own way to the right answers.
Keith B. Miller
Department of Geology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
kbmill@ksu.edu
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
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