Happy Darwin Day!
The day to celebrate Charles Darwin’s courageous work is here! I spent 11 hours at a scrapbooking convention in Phoenix yesterday, away from my children. I came home last night after they were in bed. When I woke this morning, prepared for the big day, I wondered if anyone else remembered what we would be celebrating today.
As soon as I walked into the living room, where Israel was on his computer, he exclaimed, “Happy Darwin Day!” Of course, laughter always accompanies the phrase when he says it. It truly amuses him.
My two oldest children also awoke with anticipation. They each, independently of each other, greeted me with the same well-wishing, “Happy Darwin Day!”
I want to quote an AgnosticMom reader who left a comment two days ago. I love what she did in honor of Charles Darwin:
Thank you so much for this website! I just found it the other night and have been anxious to see your ideas for celebrating Darwin Day. After searching all of our local libraries and bookstores, I was not able to find one single book about Darwin or evolution for my children. In fact, when I searched evolution as a subject in my library catalog, the results were all Bible related books!! I was shocked! I ended up ordering it from Amazon.com and I ordered a second copy to donate to our library. We are looking forward to a fun nature exploration in our backyard on Darwin Day. My kids are 5 & 3 so I think we will limit the celebration to 1 day and talk about all the living things we see outside and see what observations we can make. Have a wonderful weekend!
Donating the book to the library not only provides the public with easier access to books on evolution and Darwin, it also informs our local libraries that there is a demand for books on the subject. Let’s make this a regular part of our Darwin Day celebrations!
Now, for an important announcement. The timing is interesting. A few days ago, someone named Ben left a comment in response to my post, This Is Getting Scary. In this post, I wrote about Philip E. Johnson, one of the leaders of the Intelligent Design Movement. I outlined his strategy, what he calls the Wedge Strategy, to disguise Creationism as a nonreligious, scientific movement.
Ben asked the question, “Have you read any of Johnson’s books, or just what others have said about him?
It is a fair and important question. I sat down at the computer today to respond to various readers, including Ben. Before doing so, I surfed around some of my favorite Darwin-friendly sites. What a surprise to find the following in a post on Panda’s Thumb:
There is a quote that I’ve seen all over the place, and I believe even used myself over the years, from the founder of the ID movement, Philip Johnson. Here is the quote as it is usually given:
“The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to ‘the truth’ of the Bible and then ‘the question of sin’ and finally ‘introduced to Jesus.’â€
The quote appears on over 400 webpages according to Google, and the source cited is the April 1999 edition of Church and State magazine. That magazine is published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and this article was written by Rob Boston. The problem is that this is not a quote from Philip Johnson, it’s a quote about Philip Johnson, and as it has gotten passed around it has often been attributed to Johnson himself.
Click here to read the entire post.
My blog is one of those 400 webpages. I got that very quote from Wikipedia and included it in the post Ben responded to. Wikipedia listed a number of quotes by Phillip E. Johnson stating his thoughts about his own strategy to legitimize Intelligent Design. I copied the entire list of quotes and pasted it onto my entry. I invited readers to go to Wikipedia, itself, so they can click on its links to the actual sources.
After the revelation in Panda’s Thumb, I returned to the Wikipedia article, rechecked all of the sources for the particular list, and from what I can tell, all of the other quotes by Johnson are good. In fact, all of their sources (except the botched one) are Christian.
I apologize for participating in the accidental spread of a misrepresentation.
Now, to answer Ben more directly. I have NOT read Johnson’s books. If I remember right, I read exerpts on websites. I read a lot about him and his speeches from a number of sources. If I were hyper-organized and more obsessive than I already am, I would be keeping a research log, and I’d be able to list all the sites, but that’s not the case (Althought I am considering it now! Would that push me over the OCD precipice?).
I feel I can say with confidence that I have read enough, not only from pro-evolution writers, but also from Christian pro-IDists, to know Johnson’s objective. One of the articles I read is an interview of him where he does all the speaking. He told all about how he came to believe what he believes and how he developed the Wedge Strategy.
If we eliminate the false quote I mentioned above, it does not change the story about how Philip E. Johnson wants to disguise Creation to make it look like neutral science. It does not change the fact that he wants to re-write the current definition of science, eliminate its emphasis of materialistic observation, and make the assumption of a god its foundation.
BUT, I was wrong before, and I could be wrong now. If someone can show me how the other quotes are wrong, how the things people are saying about him misrepresent his true motives, please inform us. My aim is for truth. I would be happy to devote more time to this important subject.
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February 12th, 2006 @ 4:12 pm
Why would one read one of Johnson’s books unless one wished a fundamentalist Christian approach to attacking science? Is Ben suggesting there is any other purpose to Johnson’s books?
February 12th, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
Mr. Darrell: I can’t honestly say what the purpose of Johnson’s books are, because I haven’t read them. Have you? If not, how can you honestly purport to understand them and to be able to synthesize their purpose in seven words?
One purpose of reading them would be to hear his arguments as he has expressed them, and in their entirety. Whether he’s right or wrong is not my point here. I’m just interested in intellectual honesty. It’s hard to debate someone you’ve never listened to.
Agnostic Mom: thank you for your gracious response. I’m very impressed by your willingness to check sources and admit an inaccuracy.
I’m sure you’ve researched this topic far more thoroughly than I have — I was just alarmed when I noticed that your blog entry on Johnson seemed to depend primarily on Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia, but would hesitate to rely on it for much useful information relating to a topic that has so much emotional and political significance.
Please post the link to the Johnson interview you just mentioned; I would like to read it. A thoughtful and learned man that I know well and whose ideas I tend to trust once interviewed Johnson as well. Having a bit of the old OCD in him, too, he probably read everything Johnson wrote, before the interview. After all that, he came away favorably impressed. So now I want to learn more.
February 12th, 2006 @ 8:09 pm
Hi Ben. In your comment you said:
In the midst of all the articles I read, I found that Wikipedia had everything I wanted right there. And because it links to many different sources itself, I just thought it easy to use it completely. Lesson learned!
Touchstone, a conservative Christian journal, conducted the interview you asked about it. You can read it at:
http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/15.5docs/15-5pg40.html
I think you’ll like the interview. It is pretty comprehensive. He is well-educated, but I disagree with his premise, which is that Jesus must be the starting point for all knowledge.
February 12th, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
You know, I need to add one more thing. It’s not JUST that we disagree on the premise of Jesus being the starting point for knowledge. If that were all it was, then I wouldn’t have felt a need to blog about him, nor would I have attached the word, “scary” to his name.
If a person wants to make personal life decisions based on religious belief, it’s all good with me. Once decisions extend to the public arena, we must base them on rational thought, reasoning, and material observation. Not on the Bible. Not on Jesus. Johnson is scary and dangerous because he wants to overthrow material observation and reasoning, even when it comes to science and education.
February 12th, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
Noell, thanks for the link. I’m looking forward to reading the interview. Point taken about Wikipedia.
If we can set Johnson slightly aside for a moment, your last comment sparked this question: Do you think that it’s essentially a religious position to hold that an intelligence created and/or orders the universe?
February 13th, 2006 @ 6:45 am
Ben, to answer your question: no, not necessarily. I wouldn’t consider Deism a religion. I know some people are trying to call humanism or secularism a religion. In my opinion, religion requires two parts: worship of a god-figure or the supernatural, and a proscribed set of actions or beliefs required for a type of salvation.
I think some of the AgnosticMom readers believe in an Intelligent Designer of some sort, a Prime Mover, a Supreme but undefined Being, but are not religious. They don’t believe that any religion or book or person knows anything about this Intelligence.
I have no problems whatsoever with a person believing in Intelligent Design. In fact, I understand it. Sometimes when I read to my children the book I blogged about, The Tree of Life, I wonder at how this could happen without some divine help. The difference for me, is I then think how unfathomable it is that there could be such a thing as divine help. And even if there were, what does it have to do with me? What does it matter? I want to focus on what I know, which is that we all experience pain and pleasure, misery and joy. I will do what I can to decrease the pain and increase the joy.
My only beef with Intelligent Design, is trying to pass it off as science, which it is not. It is philosophy. The United States is in a crisis situation, among other reasons, because we are falling farther behind in the science arena. To go backwards by changing the definition of science in order to make it more compatible with religion would push us down to the bottom of the rung.
Ben: if you believe in an Intelligent Creator who orders the universe, but do not follow religious doctrine, you could fit in very nicely here. Of course, everyone is welcome.
February 13th, 2006 @ 9:25 am
Noell, your working definition of religion seems fair. Without going too far out on an etymological limb, I’ll venture from vague memories that the root of the word “religion” in Latin means “to bind” — i.e., to prescribe certain beliefs and/or actions.
You say that your beef with Intelligent Design boils down to this: that it is philosophy posing as science. What do you think is the proper relationship of philosophy to science? If you could also throw in a working definition of each (philosophy and science), I think that would really clarify things for me.
I’m somewhat of a latecomer to your blog, as may already be obvious. Forgive me if you’ve discussed this elsewhere, and just point me to a link (the same goes for the questions I’ve asked above), but in what sense do you think that this country is falling behind in the science arena?
February 14th, 2006 @ 8:15 am
Ben, I have not yet written about your questions, only alluded to them. I would be happy to write about the topics you requested. I don’t have a lot of blogging time over the next few days, and because, once again, I don’t keep a research log, I will need to do my research all over again. So it’s going to take at least a few days. It’s an important subject so I don’t mind. You’ll just need to be patient. And don’t think I forgot you when I whip out some quick posts in the coming days before I get to yours.
February 14th, 2006 @ 10:27 am
Noell, take your time. These are big questions — perhaps some of the biggest. I’ll try to do some reading in the meantime too.
February 16th, 2006 @ 8:19 am
All of this talk presents a problem for me . I ran across an article recently that really explained the reasons for the need for religious belief for some. ” How does a common cold improve our fitness- the answer is it doesn’t Rather for it to survive it needs a fresh set of willing hosts , even if a disease manages to kill off its hosts all that matters is that it increases its ” own fitness and reproductive success. People are vessels for the transmission . That is all they are from that perspective. Religion spreads not because it makes us stronger , faster or more cohesive , its track record is mixed , but because it hijacks us for its own propagation. Intelligent design is being used as such a catalyst . I think that the presentation of intelligent design only shows how utterly rediculous it sounds. More supernatural blah blah blah with no factual base, also just a note , I do have problems with people ” believing” in ” intelligent design ” It’s all just more hocus pocus.
February 17th, 2006 @ 1:16 am
Fran, thanks for sharing your feelings about religion. What problem in particular does this discussion present for you?
February 17th, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
I just take personal offense with the idea of intelligent design being used not to seriously challenge , in a truthful scientific way, but rather to ridicule for degradative purposes.
February 17th, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
If you are going to say ok I think that I can raise a strong arguement supporting religion and its belief system . So from this point forward I offer a testable hypothesis .That would be fine. All intelligent design does is offer theories that are shot down before they make print.They attempt to make fools of us all. The judge in the case emphasized that point very clearly and he himself professes Christianity.
February 19th, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
Someday soon I’m planning to record my kids, aged 5 and 7, yelling “Happy Darwin Day”. There’s nothing cuter that their laughter after they say it.