04.30.06
ID: the betrayal of a cause
I was reading Darwin’s Nemesis, about Philip Johnson, today. I will comment some other time, but the basic issue for me here is the way that Johnson’s initiative started out as a critique of Darwinism, period. The ID gambit came later.
I find the sequence of events less thrilling than the account given here, more like a betrayal. Many thought that Darwin on Trial signalled some relief from the Darwin domination paradigm, but instead the whole thing veered off into the ID confusion, completely blunting the whole effort, and leaving all the rest of the Darwin critics in the lurch.
From Publishers Weekly
This Festschrift from friends—and a couple of friendly critics—honors Phillip Johnson, the Berkeley law professor whose 1991 publication Darwin on Trial and later books helped intelligent design emerge as a highly visible, and highly controversial, alternative to Darwinism. While it may be premature to hail Johnson as “Darwin’s Nemesis,” these essays reveal him as an influential strategist and mentor within the ID movement. Contributors to the 2004 symposium that spawned this collection include leading ID advocates Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells and Scott Minnich, as well as Darwin defender Michael Ruse, who has engaged Johnson in debate. Other contributors address cultural and political questions beyond evolution itself, such as Francis Beckwith’s timely review of legal controversies over ID in the classroom, J. Budziszewski’s discussion of naturalism and the Natural Law tradition and editor William Dembski’s commentary on the professional—and often personal—”backlash” against ID advocates. Readers who are familiar with the basics of ID and curious about the movement’s development and inner workings will find much of interest, although for an account of the most recent and current controversies over ID, they will need to consult other sources. (Apr.)