[Vision2020] Eugenie Scott's Talk at U of I

[John D]

--- Michael <metzler at moscow.com> wrote:

> I think we have lost my original point here.

You are developing an unfair pattern of selectively
ignoring certain points of mine.

> To critique Johnson, one must show why
> his arguments for the fact that Evolution and
> Creation are the only two options and why they 
> are mutually exclusive.  Simply asserting that 
> Johnson starts off with a false alternative 
> doesn't deal with his argument. It is a
> straw man.  And this is precisely what Scott did. 

This is not true. Scott has mentioned potential
alternative natural scientific explanations of the
origins of modern lifeforms in her presentation. One
of those she mentioned was the idea of self-organizing
systems. Another natural alternative is Kimura's
neutral theory. Neither self-organizing systems, nor
neutral theory, involves the paranormal.

A thought experiment. Imagine the year is 1809.
Lamarckism is the ruling natural explanation of the
origins of modern lifeforms. Philip Johnson's great
grandfather attacks Lamarckism and disproves its
validity. He was right to do so, because Lamarckism is
a flawed theory. However, in doing so, he didn't prove
creationism is true, because Lamarckism and
creationism are not mutually exclusive (they are not
the only two possible explanations), given the
existence of the idea of evolution through natural
selection (aka 'Darwinism').


	
		
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