Critiques of Phillip Johnson. <address class="plus0">Jim Lippard and Bill Hamilton</address><p><i>Our apologies, but you must have JavaScript enabled to view author contact information. </i></p> Copyright © 1993-2004 [Articles last updated: June 7, 1994] [Links updated: March 18, 2004] hillip Johnson, a law professor who was a clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren, is the author of Darwin on Trial and is one of the founders of the "Intelligent Design" movement. This file has two articles on his views. Johnson sent me a copy of the paper of this title from the January 1993 issue of First Things, and I thought some portions to be worth quoting: p. 9: "Those who regard Scripture as more authoritative than scientific theories, and who are confident that they know the correct way to interpret it, may choose to defend the Genesis account as literally true and employ scientific argument to discredit the alternatives.
[This is the view he is arguing against.] [This seems to me to be Johnson's central claim. Phillip E. Phillip Johnson, One of the Very Best Intelligent Design Creationists. The IDiots have been complaining of late that we aren't addressing their very best arguments in favor of Intelligent Design Creationism. They think we're just picking off the low-hanging fruit by attacking amateurs and Young Earth Creationists. This isn't true, but that's not a surprise since much of what they say isn't true. The Intelligent Design Creationists are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the publication of Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial [Phillip Johnson on the Scientific Nature of Opposition to Darwinian Theory] [Christian Post: Darwin on Trial Still Resonates 20 Years Later] [Why Phillip Johnson Matters: A Biography]. It's clear that they think of Phillip Johnson as one of the leading proponents of Intelligent Design Creationism and that's quite reasonable since he was one of the key players at the beginning of the movement.
I'm going to assume that Phillip Johnson is not low-hanging fruit. Thus we see three majors themes in this video. Creationist Misunderstanding, Misrepresentation, and Misuse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. One of the cornerstones in the crumbling foundation of creationist "science" is the notion that evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. The classical version of this law may be stated as follows: The entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. (An isolated system is one that does not exchange energy or matter with its surroundings.) Creationists originally argued that a decrease in entropy is exactly what evolution requires, hence the conflict with the second law.
This argument was used in an article by Dr. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) as late as 1973. As is the usual practice among creationists, he tried to support it with out-of-context quotations from the writings of respected scientists. Actually, it is not difficult to find inaccurate statements regarding entropy in popular science literature. . - page 9 - But most fundamentally, negentropy—or entropy deficiency—is a measure of the improbability of a system being in a given state. Summary. Creationist claims. Creationist claims are statements made for the ostensible purpose of providing evidence for creationism, but nearly always are in the form of evidence against the theory of evolution. While creationists' arguments in many cases at first appear to be verified intuitively, they without exception contain one or many logical fallacies and mistakes of fact.
An example of a creationist claim is that there is a lack of support for evolution among scientists. This claim has for example been articulated, "Interestingly, ever since Charles Darwin's book The Origin of Species was published in 1859, various aspects of the theory have been a matter of considerable disagreement even among top evolutionary scientists. Hundreds more claims have similarly be countered by examination of them. [edit] Common "major" arguments RationalWiki has collected various often-used claims, and provided counter-arguments to each. [edit] "If man arose by chance, life would have no purpose or meaning. " [edit] Responses. - RichardDawkins.net. An Index to Creationist Claims. Creationist claims are numerous and varied, so it is often difficult to track down information on any given claim.
Plus, creationists constantly come up with new claims which need addressing. This site attempts, as much as possible, to make it easy to find rebuttals and references from the scientific community to any and all of the various creationist claims. It is updated frequently; see the What's New page for the latest changes. Since most creationism is folklore, the claims are organized in an outline format following that of Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. Sections CA through CG deal with claims against conventional science, and sections CH through CJ contain claims about creationism itself. This collection is intended primarily as a guidepost and introduction. The Complete List Links to Main Sections Expanded Outline. Discovery Rocks Creationists' Claim That Humans Lived with Dinosaurs | Young Earth Creationism & Intelligent Design | Human Evolution. Ancient images that creationists claim are evidence of humans living alongside dinosaurs are at best just smeared pictures, scientists find.
At the site of Kachina Bridge in Utah — an immense sandstone formation resembling an arch more than 200 feet (60 meters) high and wide that was formed by the undercutting of a rock wall by flowing water — prehistoric cultures decorated the walls with paintings and engravings known as petroglyphs. Among them are what young-earth Earth creationists, who believe all life was created on the same day about 6,000 years ago, have said are depictions of dinosaurs, claiming these images as proof of their beliefs. [Scientists Hunt for Signs of Earth's Earliest Life] Now, closer investigation reveals these ideas are just wishful thinking.
The researchers analyzed the four alleged dinosaur images with the naked eye and with binoculars and telephoto lenses while the pictures were illuminated by direct and indirect sunlight and when they were in shadow. How blind salamanders make nonsense of creationists' claims. Explore Evolution :: The Exhibit :: B. Rosemary and Peter R. Grant.