The Awesome Phillip E. Johnson

Most usage of Natural Selection is tautological, as also observed by Popper. I think this is very typical of Johnson, that he addresses the common understanding of Natural Selection among biologists, in stead of trying to find a definition of Natural Selection that is not tautological and addressing that. I think this is fair enough.MrHambre:
"and that criteria for fitness only apply to a particular organism in its environment at one point in time."I guess Johnson would never address something like you write here, because you can't reference above in Darwinist literature. You could make interpretations of Darwinist literature which support what you write here, but not reference something which says more or less the same. At "a point in time" a cocunut falls from the "environment" on a "particular organism", killing it outright. So then might this be a fit organism that was unlucky, or an unfit organism because it died before reproducing, or does fitness simply not apply to particular organisms at a point in time? Johnson just passes over such argument and addresses the common understanding of biologists at facevalue, which is refreshing IMO.The "spiel" about methodological naturalism is something that is only prevalent in evolutionist circles. We should all be very wary of evolutionist / darwinist fanatics trying to unify all science under one method. What this methodological naturalism does is to add superflous atheistic adjectives, like blind, undirected, purposeless, to supposedly scientific theories. Physicists could with equal merit say that gravity is purposeless, but they don't, only Darwinists say their theory is purposeless. In this context of the initiative of evolutionist fanatics to try to unify all science under one atheistic method should Johnson's criticism of materialist religion be understood.It's not proper for an evolutionist to refer to an example of intelligent design (of corvettes) to illustrate their theory, but it is proper for a creationist to refer to an example of intelligent design (of watches) to illustrate their theory. I guess that is the blunder to which Johnson refers.Johnson just falls back on the Michaelangelo's painting theory as an alternative to evolution. Since evolutionists commonly explicitly deny that evolution allows for creativity, this becomes an alternative rather then a different perspective on the same thing. It's just neurons and whatnot in Michaelangelo's brain, nothing non-natural going on here at all, and then the logic of evolutionism tends to degrade the argument further into explaining the painting as an expression of Michaelangelo's racial characteristics.... That Johnson doesn't give a mechanism for how organisms come to be is no shame, just as it is no shame that he doesn't give a mechanism for Michaelangelo's painting. He falls back on a cliche about the unknowable nature of creation that is shared by most, but disturbingly is not shared by that many evolutionists.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Lorenz's work is now known by historians to be slanted towards his nazilike belief in eugenicism. Lorenz like so many evolutionists conflated moral understanding with objective understanding in papers he published in a Nazi journal. Later he then made prosaic books with suggestive titles like "The socalled evil", based on those papers. It's entirely different then Werner von Braun's scientific work. I suspect that Werner von Braun was a Nazi because of Lorenz's work, or Haeckel's, because a science minded person like von Braun might well be easily duped, and or tempted by such pseudoscientific deceit. That some people propose that the intricate relationship between Darwinism and Nazism can satisfactorily be described by a a baseballbat anology, is a lawyertrick to stop investigation of that relationship.Of course your opinions about me, and your strawman of my opinions, are obviously all prejudicially slanted to defend Darwinism.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Since Darwin advocated eugenics in his prosaic work, it's not really a question of "morons not understand what he is saying".Of course there was racism and eugenics prior to Darwin, but racism and eugenics are not like a gene that sprang into existence through a mutation somewhere back in history, as if the origin of all racism can be traced back to one root cause.Darwin and Wallace, and Spencer's highly similar theories of selection were all inspired by Malthus eugenic work on population growth. So eugenicism was mixed up with Darwinism from it's conception, although I don't think this historical link has that much significance in the link between Darwinism and Nazism.Actually historians broadly recognize the link of Darwinism to Nazism. Klaus Fischer for instance who wrote a standard book on Nazi Germany, says that the rise of pseudobiological racism would be inconceivable without the intellectual climate of opinion that developed as a result of the Darwinian revolution. I think this is the right way to approach the issue, to think in terms of how Darwinism "effects the intellectual climate of opinion" both societaly and individually. Looking at it this way, I think it is meaningful to try to get fairly precise from what points in the theory the crossover from Darwinism to eugenics etc. tends to occur.This is all very repetitive for me. I ask that people not bring up either my redefinition of selection, or my opinion about the link of Darwinism to Nazism in threads that have a different subject. When somebody spreads basic falsehoods about the link of Darwinism to Nazism then I feel compelled to respond. I refer you to my previous posts, or read Klaus Fischers's book "Nazi Germany : the twelve year reich", I think it is called, or Burleigh's "The racial state revisited" on how presentday historians are looking at the relationship between Darwinism and Nazism.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu