Have you all heard of Phillip E. Johnson, the UC Berkeley professor who is the father of the intelligent design movement?
Here is a lecture by Phil in which he explains the relationship with materialist philosophy and the practice of science.
The MP3 file for lecture is here. There is some Q&A at the end.
Topics:
- Can the diversity of life be explained by purposeless material processes?
- What can changes over time have scientists actually observed?
- What is the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution?
- Has macro-evolution ever been observed?
- Can observations of micro-evolution be extrapolated to prove unobserved macro-evolution?
- What causes people to doubt that material processes can account for all of life?
- Is evolution compatible with Judeo-Christian monotheism?
- How do scientists respond when you ask them for evidence of macro-evolution?
- Are observable mutations generally helpful or harmful?
- How do scientists who pre-suppose materialism deal with dissenting scientists?
- Why was the theory of Darwinian evolution accepted by early scientists?
Highly recommended. Phil is one of my favorite authors.
The one point you need to take away from this lecture is that if a scientist assumes a philosophy of materialism, then they will never be able to find evidence of intelligent causation in nature. They can look at all the evidence they want, or no evidence at all, and the answer will always be “no-God did it”.
So, consider the Big Bang. No-God did it. The fine-tuning? No-God did it. The origin of life? No-God did it. Molecular machines? No-God did it. Cambrian explosion. No-God did it. Origin of consciousness? No-God did it. Origin of free will? No-God did it. Origin of human rights? No-God did it. Origin of objective morality? No-God did it. Bodily resurrection? No-God did it. Galactic fine-tuning? No-God did it. Planetary fine-tuning? No-God did it. And so on. What else could have done it, once you assume matter is all there is?
The thing to do is to ask them what reasons they have for believing that this pre-supposition of materialism is absolute and undeniable. What is the evidence for it, that does not already assume it?
But many people change their pre-suppositions as evidence piles up that they are wrong. A combined approach is best. Surface their pre-suppositions and make them defend them. Then, stack up evidence against the pre-suppositions, e.g. – how can matter be all there is if science shows us that the entire physical universe came into being out of nothing in the Big Bang?
WINTERY KNIGHT 
You mean, the LAWYER Phillip Johnson, who has no expertise on any branch of science whatsoever? A convenient oversight, you failing to mention that part, I’m sure.
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Yes, the law professor from one of the top law schools in the country who holds an endowed chair and who specializes in the structure of logical arguments, pre-suppositions and the rules of evidence.
We do have some scientists too, though, who dissent from Darwinism. Over 700 by the last count. About the same number as those who dissent from man-made catastrophic global warming.
Sorry for not being clear, and the thing is that Johnson debates in public on evolution, e.g. – against Will Provine of Cornell. Ever seen that debate?
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Signers who hold degrees in chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or any of the non-biological sciences aren’t well equipped to answer that question, but I doubt that organization was able to get many people with PhD’s in biology, etc, to sign, so they had to open it up.
A lawyer is even less qualified to answer that question since the average political science major is generally only required to take a 2-class series in a science field in their entire academic career. So his whole argument has to be geared towards people who are woefully ignorant in this field (biology) and hinge on the fact that few will follow up on such complicated topics, or even be able to understand the material they do follow up on (unfortunately, few will actually crack open a biology book but will instead visit google)
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Johnson is a favourite of mine. He clearly exposes the philosophy revealed by the following:
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Richard Lewontin,
Professor. “The New York Review”, January 9, 1997, p. 31 (Emphasis in original.)
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Shamelessly Atheist,
If the lecture is primarily on the philosophy of science, I see no problem in a lawyer who, as Wintery mentioned, specializes in the structure of logical arguments, presuppositions, and the rules of evidence.
Wouldn’t you agree that speaking on the philosophy of science would be fair game for a guy of his stature?
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