Phillip Johnson's Dishonesty

I had a couple people email me this article from the Sacramento Bee about Phillip Johnson, the founder of the ID movement. One thing that jumped out at me about it was this statement:

Johnson said his intent never was to use public school education as the forum for his ideas. In fact, he said he opposed the efforts by the "well-intentioned but foolish" school board in Dover, Pa., to require teachers to present intelligent design as a viable scientific theory.

It's very similar to an earlier quote from Johnson that I wrote about in a post over two years ago:

But Johnson argues that forcing intelligent design theory into public schools is not his goal. "We definitely aren't looking for some legislation to support our views, or anything like that," he says. "I want to be very cautious about anything I say about the public interest, because obviously what our adversaries would like to say is, "These people want to impose their views through the law.' No. That's what they do. We're against that in principle, and we don't need that."

My immediate reaction to this was, "Uh, what about the Santorum Amendment, which encouraged schools to teach ID? Phillip Johnson wrote it and bragged about writing it. I didn't bother to write this up, but Wesley Elsberry has done so, along with many other quotes from Johnson that clearly conflict with his claim. It's just another example of ID advocates speaking out of both sides of their mouths. Praise Janus!

More like this

Don't you HAVE to speak (and "think") out of both sides of your mouth (head) in order to rationalize ID? I mean you have to be able to claim that there is no evidence for evolution at the same time you declare elements of the fossil record to be ape/man/man/ape/ape/ape/man, to declare a perfect transitional form to be nothing more than a fish because it isn't a perfect 50/50 ratio, etc. Especially when it comes to YEC ID-ists, they have to think out of both sides of their mind just to rationalize the world.

By dogmeatIB (not verified) on 15 May 2006 #permalink