Phillip Johnson, speaking at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary June 27
--from Bapt Press
http://www.bpnews.net
July 19, 2001
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Philip Johnson: Evolution battles at Baylor, Kan. could have been won
By Michael Foust
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Phillip E. Johnson has a message for evolution
opponents bewildered by a series of losses in recent years:
The problem wasn't the argument. It was the strategy.
Johnson, speaking at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary June 27, said
that separate battles involving the faculty of Baylor University and the
Kansas State Board of Education went the way of pro-evolution forces
because opponents lacked a key element in their strategy. At Baylor University, the problem
was the absence of a political movement. In Kansas, the problem was the
absence of an academic movement.
To succeed in defeating Darwinian evolution, Johnson said, a movement
needs support from both political and academic forces.
"You have to have a joint popular movement and academic movement," said
Johnson, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and
author of several books, including "Darwin on Trial."
"You have to have both of them -- the popular movement to back up the
academics."
At Baylor University last year, the faculty succeeded in pressuring the
administration to remove intelligent design proponent William Dembski from
a campus-based research center. In Kansas last fall, conservatives lost
three seats on the Kansas State Board of Education, resulting in evolution
language
being reinserted in state tests. It had been removed the year before.
A popular movement opposing Darwinian evolution, Johnson said, is what
media members and university professors fear.
"If it should get out there among the politicians and the people's
representatives, they're really worried because they know that the Gallup
polls that have been taken regularly over the past 30 years show that only
about 10 percent of the American public actually believes in the
naturalist story that is taught as fact as Darwinian evolution," he said.
"The rest of the public is largely divided between creationists and
theistic evolution.
"There is a great deal of worry that this would get out in the public and
in public debate, and then they know that they're in big trouble."
Johnson, who was on campus for a three-day event titled "Equipping for
Ministry in Today's University Culture," explained how the proper strategy could
have won the day in both instances.
At Baylor, a Baptist-related university in Waco, Texas, a research center
was set up on campus in 1999 to explore problems in Darwinian evolution.
Named the Michael Polanyi Center for Complexity, Information and Design,
the center was headed by Dembski. The center's purpose statement, in fact,
affirmed that "science, philosophy and religion make claims of mutual
relevance."
The majority of Baylor's faculty opposed the center, and in April 2000 the
faculty senate voted 26-2 in favor of asking the administration to
dissolve the center. The center was kept, but Dembski was eventually
replaced. Dembski's removal took place after an external review committee
recommended that the center be kept. In a bulk e-mail, Dembski praised the
report and criticized his opponents. The e-mail, administrators said, was
the reason he was removed.
Johnson called the current center a "toothless program" and the Baylor
faculty "downright hostile to Christianity."
"What was missing from this situation was a political movement on the
Baylor campus to counter" the faculty's claims, Johnson said. The faculty
did "all the politicking. They're implacable. They hate anything that
suggests the possibility that God might be real instead of an illusion."
The movement needed the backing of Texas Baptists and Baylor students
"raising a ruckus about this [and asking,] 'Is this really a Christian
university?' The president and the vice presidents and the trustees would
be very fearful of such a movement that could affect their donors."
In Kansas, the controversy was much different, dating to 1999 when the
Kansas State Board of Education voted to stop requiring the teaching of
Darwinian evolution -- which, in part, teaches that humans evolved from
apes over millions of years -- as well as to remove references to the
controversial subject from state tests.
Evolution opponents had little time to celebrate, however, because three
evolution opponents were defeated in elections last year. With new
members, the board has since voted to reverse the earlier decision.
"This battle was lost largely because the people who did it -- while very
well-meaning -- were inexperienced and they didn't understand how it would
play in the press," Johnson said. "It's perfectly understandable that they gave
the press some openings. They had no idea that it would become the focus
of an international media circus."
The media, Johnson said, helped shape public opinion. To make matters
worse, there were not enough credible evolution opponents to counter the
media's claims. Johnson said one story in The Washington Post "gave the
impression that there was this roving band of creationists who were going
around attacking science all around the country. ... There was a meltdown
in the news media over this."
>From the media's perspective, Johnson said the Kansas controversy had
little to do with education standards. Rather, it "had to do with their
concern about the possibility of a popular rebellion against the official
established religion of Darwinian evolution. That's what they're concerned
about -- that the public would get out and make a fuss about this and
overturn the established religion, which is the basis of the authority of
the universities and their allies in the national media."
Since that time, Johnson has helped strengthen the evolution opposition in
Kansas. He said that a coalition of creation science proponents and
intelligent design proponents was formed to support any future political
movement opposing Darwinian evolution. Johnson said this was quite a feat,
because both camps approach the creation debate from different
perspectives.
Creation science proponents tend to try to find evidence to support the
Genesis creation account. Intelligent design proponents, on the other
hand, rely less on the Genesis account. They simply try to prove that the
universe was created by an outside, intelligent force (God).
"When this comes up again -- as it will -- we will be prepared with a
leadership that understands the lessons from the first [battle]," he said.
"That's what I think about all these battles. It doesn't matter all that
much if you take a defeat in the immediate sense -- provided you end up
stronger afterwards. We ended up a lot stronger afterwards.
"We demonstrated it is possible to form a unified movement with the
academic [camp] who traditionally won't have anything to do with the
traditional creationist, and the creationists who traditionally won't have
anything to do with the academic crowd."
(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo
title: MAKING A POINT.
Oryginal: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=11354
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Johnson says academic freedom makes evolution's days numbered
By Michael Foust
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--The future of Darwinian evolution is limited because
its opponents have two major factors on their side -- academic freedom and
truth, said Phillip E. Johnson during a lecture at Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary June 27.
Johnson, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and
author of "Darwin on Trial," said it is only a matter of time before
evolution opponents win the day in the academic setting.
"We have the best arguments on our side," Johnson said. "We have the
principles of academic freedom on our side -- the principles of freedom of
expression and freedom of thought. ... When the scientific evidence is
argued on a level playing field with all the possibilities being able to
be considered, intelligent design is going to win. It's not going to win
because we're the most brilliant arguers. It's not going to win because we
have certain tricks to play. It's going to win because that's the truth.
It's going to win because the evidence supports that position."
During the three-day event, titled "Equipping for Ministry in Today's
University Culture," Johnson commented on recent controversies that
resulted in pro-evolution victories. At Baylor University last year, the
faculty succeeded in pressuring the administration to remove intelligent
design proponent William Dembski from a campus-based research center. In
Kansas last fall, conservatives lost three seats on the Kansas State Board
of Education, resulting in evolution language being reinserted in state
tests. It had been removed the year before.
Intelligent design -- the belief that the universe was created by an
outside, intelligent force (God) -- will win in the end, Johnson said. But
first, it must be given a fair hearing.
"Academic freedom -- freedom of thought, freedom of expression -- is the
most bedrock principle of our movement," he said. "It's unchallengeable.
It's every bit as important as the idea of intelligent design in biology
itself. The reason is that all we need to do is get the idea on the table
and it will prevail. ... The other side knows that. That's why they're so
desperate to prevent it from getting on the table."
Contrary to popular belief, Johnson said intelligent design proponents are
not wanting to censor Darwinian evolutionists.
"What we're trying to do is prevent censorship," he said. "We're trying to
have [an] open liberal conversation, and it's the other side that wants to
produce a dogma and not allow any criticism over it."
For such a movement to succeed, intelligent design proponents in the
academic world must join forces with the political world, Johnson said.
Support is needed from students as well as parents. However, everyone must
be knowledgeable.
"You don't want to have a wild mob descend on the university and act in
some ridiculous manner," he said. "We want people prepared. What they do
-- if they do it really intelligently -- is they stand up for academic
freedom. That's all they have to do, and that's the easiest thing in the
world to defend."
Johnson said a defense of intelligent design could be as simple as
arguing, "'Is that a university, where you shut down ideas because you're
afraid they might be convincing?' It's that kind of argument that ... we
need."
Johnson pointed out that the intelligent design movement crosses political
lines. He said that politicians such as Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D.-Texas, have supported the teaching of
intelligent design.
Oryginal: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=11355
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Johnson: Evangelicals focus on the heart at expense of the mind
By Jeff Robinson
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Twentieth-century evangelicals have so focused on
bare emotion and "winning the heart" that they are no longer contending
intellectually for the faith in the public square, Phillip E. Johnson said
during a recent conference at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Johnson, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and
author of several books on Darwinism and evolutionary naturalism --
including "Darwin on Trial," "Reason in the Balance" and his latest, "The
Wedge of Truth" -- served as guest lecturer for the "Equipping for
Ministry in Today's University Culture" conference at the Louisville, Ky.,
campus.
In an interview between lectures, Johnson said he has grown increasingly
frustrated at evangelicals' lack of boldness in defending their faith.
"I am frustrated by many evangelicals who are indifferent to ideas, who
don't understand that ideas have consequences," he said. "[Many] think
they can preserve their faith by walling off a Christian subculture and
somehow keep that independent of the mainstream culture -- the public
schools, the television networks and so on.
"Of course, that mainstream culture infiltrates that Christian subculture,
and the Christians have no defenses when it does. Their immune systems are
inactive because they have not tested themselves against the infections
from the mainstream culture. What has happened in the 20th century is that
Christians have largely abandoned the whole world of ideas and the
academic world and the public stage in general to agnostics, to the
evolutionary naturalists."
Johnson teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley and was a
law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Currently, he travels the world teaching seminars on Christian
apologetics, critiquing evolutionary naturalism and postmodernism.
Johnson addresses audiences in both secular and religious schools as well
as churches. He hopes to aid evangelicals in proclaiming the truths of
their faith
with confidence and avoid being intimidated by supposed "scientific
evidence" that debunks the Christian doctrine of creation.
"[Christians] are pretty good with feelings and the heart, but not so good
with ideas and facts and knowledge," he said. "There is no reason why
Christians have to be dumb. They can be well-educated, they can be very
smart and they actually have a better starting place than the other side
does.
"What I want to do is to help them take on that job, to realize that they
can do it very well if they are willing to discipline themselves to learn
what they need to learn. The goal of the conference is to arm and equip
people like that and to encourage them so they can create out of the
student generation a whole new army of young people who can make an
effective Christian witness and who know what a good argument is."
Johnson believes many Christians have bought into the false belief that
religion and science are polar opposites; a great deal of them unwittingly
hold to secular ideas that are diametrically opposed to orthodox
Christianity.
"I think many of them are often completely confused about this, so they
believe the Bible when they are with Bible people and they believe science
when they are with science people," he said.
Johnson sees the doctrine of creation as the natural starting point for
Christian witness. He said "creationism" is a derisive term which
evolutionary naturalists use in attempts at demeaning evangelicals.
"The secular world tells us that it's a simple fact that the creating was
done by nature and that's why the whole concept of sin, for example, has
dropped out of their vocabulary; it doesn't make any sense when you were
created by natural forces that don't care what you do."
Johnson said it is critical for Christians to point out irrational beliefs
within Darwinian evolution, such as the concept that man simply evolved
from nothing. This, he said, fails to connect with reality. Johnson added
that beginning with a sovereign Creator who designs the universe according
to his well-ordered plan is much more consistent with the world around us.
Evangelicals need not be intimidated by those who rail against the faith
by saying science has given mankind all the answers to ultimate reality,
Johnson said. He urged Christians to study their own doctrines and be able
to speak for what they believe and why they believe it.
"The real data for science, the real knowledge that comes from science
points to the need for a creator," he said. "So we have to understand some
science, but we have to understand our own doctrines as well."
(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo
title: PHILLIP E. JOHNSON.
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