1

Thanks for posting this article. My good friend, Reuben Musiime, a Ugandan national whom I met while in Bible college is a missionary in his homeland. Reuben directs four child care centers filled to the brim with AIDS orphans. Many of these little ones are infected with HIV. I've been privileged to participate in two mission trips to Uganda, and am looking forward to a third this January. Although news out of that country is more optimistic than most sub-saharan Africa, statistics are grossly distorted. I walked rural village trails, visiting hut after hut ravaged by AIDS. In twenty years all these people will be lost. There are few elderly people and the average life span is 34-36.

Uganda has done well to communicate the message of abstinence. But, remember that promiscuity is not the only manner in which the disease is spread. Birth is another. And, frankly, no one knows how many of Africa's youngest are terminally plagued.

2

I appreciate this article. Thanks for choosing to write it.

3

I wonder if Pastor Scott read the article at all.

This has been reported in The Economist, the Weekly Standard, and others, in that HIV / AIDS diagnoses in Africa are so wide off the mark that all the proponents of new AIDS funding for Africa become immediately suspect. Joe, you are correct: the billions we are pouring into stopping AIDS in Africa are far better spent by providing cleaner water, and medicines for TB and malaria and other diseases. But the gay lobby in America, along with Republicans who consider AIDS in Africa to be a national security issue (try to figure that one out), we pour the money in, straight down the toilet.

Africa has a lot of serious, mortal problems, from civil wars to a primitivity of cultures and superstitions to famines and plagues. AIDS is one of the least of them.

4

Therein lies the danger in overestimating and overemphasizing the AIDS crisis. Handing out condoms will not prevent malaria. Encouraging abstinence does not inhibit the spread of tuberculosis. By focusing on the wrong disease we may inadvertently be allowing the preventable death of thousands, perhaps millions, of Africans. In America, a misdiagnosis that leads to an unnecessary death would be cause for a medical malpractice suit. In Africa, a misdiagnosis that leads to unnecessary deaths has only lead to an increase in funding.

Joe, you are way off base here. And frighteningly ignorant of what AIDS is and how it affects communities. You are being entirely too simplistic. What you say would be partially true only if all AIDS care consisted of was just Condoms or Abstinence programs, but the reality is quite different.

The AIDS virus in and of itself does not usually kill you. The majority of people who have died from AIDS are not killed directly from the virus, but from other diseases that your decimated immune system can't fight off. When my friend David died, he had 4 or 5 different diseases running rampant through his body. These things killed him, not AIDS.

The primary method of care for an AIDS patient is mostly consumed by the treatment of these opportunistic infections. An AIDS care center treats all of these things, not just AIDS. If you didn't, then treating just the virus would be pointless. And the more generally healthy a patient is, the higher the chance that they can fight off some of these infections on their own.

You are also assuming a sort of western view of health care that does not exist. You think that if you get a particular ailment that you go to a particular specialist. Health care in Africa is usually a one-stop shop. The same Aids treatment facility is also the family clinic, the urgent care center, etc. AIDS money can go to things like vaccinations, pre-natal care, nutrition, etc.

This is the correct way to treat AIDS, both by treating the person with HIV, but also by reducing the number of diseases available in the general population as a whole. And while Condoms and Abstinence do not prevent the transmission of all diseases, they do protect from a great number of them. This also reduces the strain on a health care system that would otherwise have to treat those diseases, which is much more expensive.

Plus the money toward AIDS allows health care programs to spend more money on other resources, such as Polio or TB vaccinations & children's health & nutrition.

You seem to be accusing AIDS of being over-politicized. But then you go right ahead and politicize it yourself. But your assumptions have little to do with the reality of the disease.

5

Patrick,

Joe, you are way off base here. And frighteningly ignorant of what AIDS is and how it affects communities. You are being entirely too simplistic. What you say would be partially true only if all AIDS care consisted of was just Condoms or Abstinence programs, but the reality is quite different.

I think you completely missed the point of my post. I’m not talking about AIDS care I’m talking about disease prevention.

You are also assuming a sort of western view of health care that does not exist. You think that if you get a particular ailment that you go to a particular specialist. Health care in Africa is usually a one-stop shop. The same Aids treatment facility is also the family clinic, the urgent care center, etc. AIDS money can go to things like vaccinations, pre-natal care, nutrition, etc.

Again I think you are missing the overall point. If diseases are being misdiagnosed as AIDS, then they are unlikely to receive the preventive treatment necessary to prevent them from spreading.

This is the correct way to treat AIDS, both by treating the person with HIV, but also by reducing the number of diseases available in the general population as a whole. And while Condoms and Abstinence do not prevent the transmission of all diseases, they do protect from a great number of them. This also reduces the strain on a health care system that would otherwise have to treat those diseases, which is much more expensive.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for doing as much about the AIDS crises as we possibly can (didn’t I already say that?). But we have to look at what is actually happening rather than relying on extrapolations from a computer program.

Plus the money toward AIDS allows health care programs to spend more money on other resources, such as Polio or TB vaccinations & children's health & nutrition.

Does it? I’m sure a small portion of it does but how much?

You seem to be accusing AIDS of being over-politicized. But then you go right ahead and politicize it yourself. But your assumptions have little to do with the reality of the disease.

I don’t think that any informed person on the planet could argue that AIDS isn’t over-politicized. But I’m more than willing to hear what about the “reality of the disease.”

6

What other health care moneys is Patrick speaking of. . .
That's the point Patrick... There is a disporportionate amount of $-funding going towards the AIDS issues...
So in actuality there is just not enough balance in funding the other health-care issues that plague Africa. I think Joe is just speaking about that balance here... and trying to inform as to... un-politicize the issue. The assumptions about the "reality of the disease" and the actual numbers who are infected, are completely seperate issues altogether.

7

"I think you completely missed the point of my post. I’m not talking about AIDS care I’m talking about disease prevention."

That's your ignorance talking again. Because when it comes to AID's they are one and the same thing. There is no cure for AIDS. It's a fatal disease. You can delay onset, but thats it. Any "treatment" of AIDS must therefore include prevention of future infection by the virus. That means prevention is inherently part of care.

I understand your point to be that we should stop spending so much money on AIDS so that we can concentrate on other diseases and problems.

My point is that the money spent on AIDS in Africa does include those other issues, such as clean water, etc. It has to because of the low to non-existent standard of health care there. You can't address AIDS if the patient is already too weak to survive the treatment due to other causes. But if you want to cut the funding for AIDS and put it toward other health issues, feel free to do so, because treatment of those issues are also integral to the treatment of AIDS. That's the part that you don't seem to get.

If we were talking about AIDS spending in the USA, it would be a different story. Because there is at least a basic level of health care that exists. As screwed up as our health care system is in this country, it's still light-years ahead of most of Africa. In Africa that basic level has to be created before and as you treat AIDS, otherwise it's pointless. The treatment and prevention of AIDS in Africa includes these things, where it is not necessary to do that in the US.

And the "gay lobby" is not an epithet. If it weren't for the reviled gay lobby that forced the AIDS issue into the spotlight in the 80's when the Government was busy trying to ignore it and while Churches were condemning the people who had it, there would be a lot more people in the USA today who would be either dead, dying or infected.

I remember when we couldn't even get straight people to help set up pediatric care for AIDS babies. Some of the first organizations that did so were started by the evil "gay lobby".

8

Joe surely you've come to realize that the core of Philip Johnson's support for mythology and pseudoscienc lies in the inbility of his supporters to accept contradicting facts. Johnson is a walking breathing recruiting tool for the Reality Based Community.

9

Patrick That's your ignorance talking again. Because when it comes to AID's they are
one and the same thing. There is no cure for AIDS. It's a fatal disease. You can delay onset, but thats it. Any "treatment" of AIDS must therefore include prevention of future infection by the virus. That means prevention is inherently part of care.

Before you criticize my post you might want to try reading it first. My point -- as I thought was rather obvious – is that that the potential too misdiagnose AIDS could be hindering the prevention of other diseases.

I understand your point to be that we should stop spending so much money on AIDS so that we can concentrate on other diseases and problems.

Not exactly. I’m saying that we must first understand what is actually killing the people of Africa and allocate the resources as necessary. It is quite possible that we may need to send more money on AIDS than we are doing now. But we can’t know the problem if we fail to even collect accurate data.

That's the part that you don't seem to get.

I understand that some factors such as sanitation and clean water will be useful in both for the care of AIDS and other diseases. But what if malaria is an area that we should be focusing our efforts. How much of the AIDS funding will be used to buy DDT? My guess is “none.”

And the "gay lobby" is not an epithet. If it weren't for the reviled gay lobby that forced the AIDS issue into the spotlight in the 80's when the Government was busy trying to ignore it and while Churches were condemning the people who ad it, there would be a lot more people in the USA today who would be either dead, dying or infected.

Yes, the “gay lobby” helped bring the disease to the attention of the public. And yes, the churches tended to ignore the issue for far too long. But we should also remember that it was the “gay lobby” that slowed the closing of the bathhouses. The “gay lobby” and homosexual men in general could have done much more to limit the spread of the disease by simply changing their behavior. But they didn't and the disease became a pandemic. I will give them credit where it is due but they should take their share of the criticism as well.

DS: Johnson is a walking breathing recruiting tool for the Reality Based Community.

What took you so long? I expected you to jump in with a subtance-free ad hominem attack on Johnson hours ago.

10

An ad hom is when one insults someone out of left field becuase they have no other method of debate. Joe I can personally clean your clock on Johnson and IDC, in fact I can clean Johnson's. If you don't like the ad homs, take me up on it.

11

"The Swiss Epimodel program, as former UC-Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson explains ..."

Why would anyone listen to what "former UC-Berkeley law professor" Phillip Johnson thinks about AIDS diagnosis and treatment? Seriously. What are Johnson's credentials in this area? As I recall, he was one of the handful of clowns (along with that shameful rube Peter Duesberg and the acid-muncher Kary Mullis) who pretended that AIDS was caused by amyl nitrate use rather by HIV.

http://www.sumeria.net/aids/phil-j/reason.html

These people have been completely discredited. At least here on Earth. At the Evangelical Outpost, of course, as long as you quote a few lines from the "persecuted Christian worldview" script, you'll be taken seriously.

News flash: the United States government typically employs genuine and respected scientists and doctors to help interpret data and determine its policy, or at least it used to before George Bush and his "Father" rode into town. When a number of credible scientists whose opinions actually carry weight speak to this issue, I'll listen, no matter what the conclusion.

12

DS,

An ad hom is when one insults someone out of left field becuase they have no other method of debate.

I guess I hit the nail on the head then.

Joe I can personally clean your clock on Johnson and IDC, in fact I can clean Johnson's.

Let me check...no, my clock is already clean but I appreciate the offer. You might want to check with Mr. Johnson.

If you don't like the ad homs, take me up on it.

Take you up on what? The fact that you disagree with Johnson? *Yawn*

If you can get the best of him then why haven't you published an article that puts him in his place? I'm sure there are numerous publications that would be interested in a thourough and complete debunking of Johnson's logic and arguments.

13

DS,
"An ad hom is when one insults someone out of left field becuase they have no other method of debate."

With such a badly mangled definition of ad hominem, I doubt very much you could argue against a high school student

"Joe I can personally clean your clock on Johnson and IDC, in fact I can clean Johnson's."

Wow....such self important self delusion...
talking about lacking a solid connection with reality....

14

Yes Larry the Christian Community is being persecuted...didn't you know? It's a strange kind of persecution though. They control the Oval Office and both halls of Congress, their religious tracks are on our currency, they're the largest religion in our country by a factor of 10, there's an implied pledge of submission and service to their deity in the state sponsored loyalty oath most children recite before they can read, and every politician has to keep up the pretense of believing in their hocus-pocus regardless if they do or not or risk being run out of office...but they're persecuted, oh so persecuted. The humanity. OMG the humanity.

15

I think on the first point, I'll agree (heaven forfend) with Larry, a law professor is not the first psrson I'd go to for statistical analysis.

That being said however, I'd also be suspicious of the number of AIDS/HIV infected people in the sources cited by Joe. The last two decades have taught us over and over that when science comes up against politics or ideology, good science usually ends up with the short stick.

16

Let me check...no, my clock is already clean but I appreciate the offer. You might want to check with Mr. Johnson.

Joe I believe that's called 'chickening out'. I don't blame you though. You don't have the ability nor the material to defend Johnson's IDC crapola. No one does.
Johnson doesn't generally answer critical questions from anyone my friend nor does he publish in peer reviewed journals. He hides from criticism and simply spouts nonsense hoping someone like yourself swallows it and passes it on.
I give you credit for at least being responsive unlike Johnson. Sadly when that someone is unable to defend IDC, understandable and not your fault as Johnson is sending you to a tank battle with a pea shooter, it is that someone who pays in cred, not Johnson.

If you can get the best of him then why haven't you published an article that puts him in his place? I'm sure there are numerous publications that would be interested in a thourough and complete debunking of Johnson's logic and arguments.

I and many, many others have entire Blogs, sites, comms, and articles dedicated to 'putting him in his place" and much more. In fact there are so few IDCists willing to engage in open debate that we litereally fight over them. Johnson has been gang raped by us so many times now he probably enjoys it.

I'll be happy to give you one more shot Joe. Don't chicken out. Be brave. No one expects you to win.
Based on past experience it is my opinion that you lack both the necessary scientific knowlege and the moral integrity to recognize that you're not qualified to defend mythology over science or to distinguish between an empirical fact and wishful thinking . But I'll give you one more dance in the interests of fairness.
Simply state the Theory of Intelligent Design Creationism which unites the same facts as evolutionary biology and give me some testable predictions for it. Or make your best case for IDC. Feel free to take your time. :)

17

"The last two decades have taught us over and over that when science comes up against politics or ideology, good science usually ends up with the short stick."

I won't try to guess what examples you might provide as examples of the conflict between science and politics/ideology.

For a number of reasons which have been explored and debated by scientists for years, the spread of HIV in Africa and the presentation of the diseases resulting directly or indirectly from HIV infection are different there compared to some other parts of the world, including the gay communities in the United States. Is that surprising given what we know about HIV infection and given how much we don't know about HIV infection? I don't think so.

Are political pressures at work to falsely inflate figures relating to AIDS infection? Possibly, although I'd never take Phil Johnson's word for it. Are we making matters worse for ourselves even if the situation is not as bad as some of the statistics cited by Bush, Kerry, et al.? I don't see how that is possible given that our current level of effort doesn't seem to be stopping the spread of the disease whose spread we are allegedly "overestimating".

18

Joe I believe that's called 'chickening out'. I don't blame you though. You don't have the ability nor the material to defend Johnson's IDC crapola. No one does.

Settting aside the schoolyard bluster for a moment (the only one you are impressing is yourself), the fact remains that you are not an expert on IDC and neither am I. While we may could waste a lot of time on the subject I don’t think it would be all that fruitful. Call it “chickening out” if you want. I’m not one to be taunted into reacting to such silliness.

Johnson doesn't generally answer critical questions from anyone my friend…

That must come as a surprise to Michael Rose, Ken Miller, Philip Kitcher and all of the other people he has publicly debated.

…nor does he publish in peer reviewed journals.

Quite true. Remind us again which of your articles you’ve published in peer reviewed journals?

I and many, many others have entire Blogs, sites, comms, and articles dedicated to 'putting him in his place" and much more. In fact there are so few IDCists willing to engage in open debate that we litereally fight over them. Johnson has been gang raped by us so many times now he probably enjoys it.

Um, yeah, whatever you say, DS. I’m sure the esteemed law professor is shaking in his boots after reading your Yahoo Group posts.

I'll be happy to give you one more shot Joe. Don't chicken out. Be brave. No one expects you to win.

Sorry, but I have a general rule not to waste time debating people who use grade school taunts like “chicken.” I couldn’t expect people to take me seriously when I resort to such goofy flame wars.

19

Joe please don't be frightened. If neither of us is an expert then we're fairly matched. I offer you honest thoughtful debate on your Blog where you have both the control and many of the regs behind you. Are you willing to defend Johnson on the merits of the case or not?

20

DS
"Joe please don't be frightened. If neither of us is an expert then we're fairly matched. I offer you honest thoughtful debate on your Blog where you have both the control and many of the regs behind you. Are you willing to defend Johnson on the merits of the case or not?"

I Don't think he is. He probably realises, as do I, that discussing things with you is generally going to be a waste of otherwise useful time.

You have been hanging around with your me too crowd for so long that the group self-congratulation has disconnected you from any useful self evaluation, enabling you to think you have 'won' any discussion even though the objective evidence is far from conclusive that you did.

Your group reinforced self-delusion is quite strong.

21

Yo Alan, you want to see an example of a "me too" crowd, check out how little Bush's supporters know of the guys actual policies

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html

I guess that's happens when your position is so unpalatable to most people you have to pretend that it's not really your position.

In the real world, if we're in a charitable mood, we call that "misleading." In certain conservative circles, they prefer a different phrase: "tending the sheep."

22

Joe, you wrote a post awhile back discussing radiation danger in the context of a dirty bomb. It was a good post I thought. One solidly grounded in empirical data. However you discard empirical data for magic when it suits your purposes and go on in various posts to challenge the very foundation of science; unfortunately by aiming at philosophy instead of science but that's an aside.
It's my opinion based on what I've read of Johnson that the man is a crank and a fraud. His grasp of science is abysmal. I've taught science to high school kids who could run rings around him even before he was sidelined with a stroke.

I also feel that if Johnson couched his nonsense in a framework of Hindu Mysticism or Astrology you'd roll you eyes chuckling at his material and routinely take it apart on your Forum. One doesn't need to be a scientists or even real knowledgeable in science to do so. Johnson's is flat out terrible at science. I know more than he does, most anyone whose taken college level biology knows more than he does. Anyone who can read can learn to cut Johnson off at the knees with a few simple books or a few hours a night spent learning the material he distorts and lies about. You implied I'm not an expert? Buddy compared to Phil Johnson I'm a Nobel Laureate.

Some in the evangelical community suffer under a terrific handicap which Johnson uses against them. When his New Age pseudoscience is couched in Christian language, you're hopelessly biased and drawn to it. You want to believe it so badly you abandon critical thinking and simple logic. Some of you seem to have real trouble recognizing that people really do lie, and they lie convincingly with a smile and a prayer under the auspices of your shared faith for personal gain and status. Your biased to the point that it over rides your sense of ethics and decency and even compromises your ability to discern fantasy from observable fact. This is the core of Johnson's strength, but it doesn't have to be this way. He can only pull the wool over your eyes in this manner if you let him. Just as the victims of John Edwards let that fraud trick them.

If someone wants to be led by a ring in your nose to facilitate frauds and tricksters no one can stop them. But I don't like to see it happen to you Joe. I personally like you. You are decent guy who tries to make a difference and you sincerely care about your readers. You put up with a lot of jibes from me and others that many folks in your position would not tolerate. So I don't feel very any sense of victory or happiness seeing you come up short in this regard, especially in front of informed Christians and non Christians.

IDC is bunk Joe. It's horse manure. I don't know a blunter way to say it. It's a marketing strategy designed to keep the dollars flowing, the books selling, and the contributors happy with false hope. It's right up there with expeditions to Turkey looking for Noah's Ark who tell church goers that if only they donate their hard earned cash, the next expedition will be able to go back to Mt Arrarat and finally 'prove it'. That's your esteemed Professor. An old crank posing as an authority on biology to collect contributions and pad his bank account.

23

Sorry Joe. I agre with a lot of what you say, but Phillip Johnson is a quack on AIDS.

His own words:
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/pjohnson.htm

24

You might compare "Dr." Johnson's writings inclduing the same tired claism of conspiracy and censorship (sound familiar?)with this monograph discussing AIDS from an easy to comprehend scientific point of view, refreshingly devoid of politics:

http://www.skeptic.com/03.2.harris-aids.html

and then tell us the Professor Johnson has anything factual to say about AIDS

25

After reading all the comments, I was willing to allow that Philip Johnson may be wrong in this case.

Then I linked to "Media Culpa" under the "Hat Tip" line, and the first thing I see is:

The Boston Globe reported in late June that estimates of the number of people in many countries with AIDS have been dramatically overstated because of errors in the statistical models used to estimate the number and other factors.

I did a little more digging at the source site for Johnson's document, and find out that the article is from June, old enough that Google news doesn't have it cached. The Globe's searchable index turns up many results for the keywords "AIDS". One is from June 20, the other from June 26.

I haven't read the complete article for either, but the headers for the first article say that there is a gap between statistically guessed deaths from AIDS/HIV, and actual deaths.

The second article says that a few numbers from the first article were "slightly off". It doesn't say that they were "slightly off" enough to invalidate the factual claim from the first article.

My conclusion: something is wrong with the statistical method.

26

Larry writes:
I won't try to guess what examples you might provide as examples of the conflict between science and politics/ideology.

For starters, I'll refer you to Mr Lomborg's book, "the skeptical environmenalist" or the "science" touted for demonstrating the causes of global warming.

With respect to global warming, I think the models are just fancy ways of computer assisted story telling. That as much was admitted in Nature (but since I didn't read it on the Web and I won't be able to track the reference down). That article in Nature also admitted exactly the claim I made.

27

The problem with Johnson isn't his position on AIDS in this one article. The problem is the man is a crankpot through and through so we can't believe anything he says without laboriously checking out each and every detail. It's as if John Edwards claim's to have seen a ghost and says he has proof. His past track record is so terrible that nothing he says has any credibility left and any evidence he provides will be dismissed as a hoax. Johnson is useless even if he occasionally tells the truth by deign of by accident.

28

Joe M Sorry Joe. I agre with a lot of what you say, but Phillip Johnson is a quack on AIDS.

What specifically from those articles makes you say that? The fact that the articles are linked on a site called “Virus Myth” does not mean that Johnson believe in a virus myth. Anyone who reads the articles will see that Johnson is only questioning whether HIV is the sole “cause” of AIDS and why the disease is defined to exclude people with the exact same symptoms but who do not have HIV.

I hardly think this makes him a “quack.”

You might compare "Dr." Johnson's writings inclduing the same tired claism of conspiracy and censorship (sound familiar?)with this monograph discussing AIDS from an easy to comprehend scientific point of view, refreshingly devoid of politics:

After the two I see that the main difference is that Johnson thinks that some patients with immune deficiency diseases should be classified as having AIDS while Dr. Harris believes that should be excluded because they don’t fall into the proper “risk group.” Personally, I think it is simply a matter of semantics.

29

DS,

The problem with Johnson isn't his position on AIDS in this one article. The problem is the man is a crankpot through and through so we can't believe anything he says without laboriously checking out each and every detail.

2 Ad hominems, 0 substantial arguments. You're on a roll!

30

Joe I'll go for three my friend. I think the man is a crack pot, a fraud, and a huckster. I'll say so to his face. I'll invite him here to say it, and I'll back it up against you or he, or anyone else. Capieche?

31

DS,

I'll back it up against you or he, or anyone else. Capieche?

Instead of repeatedly saying how you can back it up why don't you actually back it up. And please stick to verifiable facts. I think we're all growing tired of your opinions.

32

Here's what I don't get

"Therein lies the danger in overestimating and overemphasizing the AIDS crisis. Handing out condoms will not prevent malaria. Encouraging abstinence does not inhibit the spread of tuberculosis."

Where is the evidence that malaria and tuberculosis sufferers are given condoms instead of quinolones (or whatever drugs work against malaria or tuberculosis these days)? No one doubts that there are areas in Africa where malaria and tuberculosis are serious health problems. But are these problems really being ignored or getting worse BECAUSE of AIDS over-diagnosis (whether true or not)? That is what I don't get.

I agree that books about absinence and boxes of condoms aren't going to make Africa healthier. But what I don't find convincing is the argument that this alleged overestimation of AIDS in Africa is scandalous or dangerous.

Particularly from the point of view of American health, I think it's easier to control and treat bacterial or parasitic diseases like tuberculosis and malaria than it is to control and treat a retrovirus like HIV for which there is no known cure or vaccine. The entire world should be focused on ridding the world of HIV as it once rid the world of polio.

33

Sure Joe. Have fun. source: http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/johnson.html

Lawyers are not the best-respected professionals in our society. Being a lawyer gives one a certain prestige because law requires expertise, like medicine or science, but we tend to put lawyers in the same shady box as salesmen and politicians. We don't trust them. And—perhaps—there are good reasons not to. Courtroom lawyers are called upon to represent the guilty as often as the innocent, and they are duty-bound to build the best case that they can. It follows logically that a courtroom lawyer will spend half of his or her time trying to convince a jury of the truth; the other 50% of the time, they are trying to persuade the jury to believe something which isn't the truth.

This is not only permissible in the courtroom, it's necessary for our justice system to work. It's ironic that a system of justice requires what could be called 'injustice' from its participants, but that's what the law demands: lawyers playing parts which they may not even believe. Our law dictates that even the guilty should be represented in court, and most of us would agree that this curious tangle of competing fictions turns out to make our justice system more just. Because of this, it is entirely acceptable for a lawyer to play his or her false part in court, just as it is acceptable for an actor to play someone fictional on the stage. But when people assume false identities offstage, we call them impostors. I would argue that when a lawyer plays lawyer games outside the courtroom, it is just as morally wrong.

Of course, you can't have a debate without having debating tactics. It's entirely fair, inside the courtroom or out, to showcase the facts that are most favorable to you. In the same way, it's perfectly fair to write a radio ad pointing out that your brand of widgets is cheaper and more reliable than your competitor's—if those favorable facts are actually true. But we're all aware of sleazy sales pitches where the tactics are used to obscure or distract attention from the relevant facts. I am not claiming that the line between these two is crystal-clear. But I am claiming that those who try to sway public opinion—especially if they are laying claim to the moral mantle of Christianity—are ethically bound to stick to the fair methods and leave the lawyer games in court.

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1. Darwin on Trial

Darwin on Trial, the book by Phillip Johnson which founded the neocreationist movement of "intelligent design", was written in 1991. I first encountered it in 1996. At the time I knew nothing at all about creationism. A friend-like me, a serious Christian as well as a scientist—suggested that I take a look at it, and I was curious enough to do so. There are certainly things about the book which I applauded, at the time. I've always been irritated by pop-science works which try to make statements about God (or the lack thereof) as though these statements are supported by scientific fact, and I was glad to see someone taking on Richard Dawkins. But even without much training (I had only a B.A. in biology), while reading through Johnson's book I began to notice some puzzling things. At first, they were quite small: a claim in one place which contradicted a different claim in another. A strange lapse of logic-perhaps excusable on account of the author's inexpertise? Statements which didn't fit with what I knew firsthand about science and scientists.

I was naive. I assumed that a Christian writing to other Christians would provide a scrupulously fair and accurate account of the facts[1]. But the deeper I got into Darwin on Trial, the less naive I became. And the clearer it became that the driving force behind Johnson's book was neither fairness nor accuracy.

A few years passed with this troubling thought at the back of my mind. I entered graduate school and started doing real science myself. And, the more I learned, the less I trusted Darwin on Trial. I finally challenged myself to put my mistrust to the test. Perhaps Johnson was merely confused about some things. What I should do, I told myself, is look at the sources he actually used in writing Darwin on Trial, and see what they say. Perhaps part of what Johnson says is accurate; perhaps his sources misled him in places. So I went to the campus library and started checking his claims.

I was a lot less naive when I finished that task. I found that almost every scientific source cited by Johnson had been misused or distorted, in ways ranging from simple misinterpretations and innuendos to the construction of what appears to be outright fiction. The more closely I examined Darwin on Trial, the more inaccuracies I found, until it became almost impossible to catalogue all of the misleading statements in Johnson's work. This book-upon which the "intelligent design" movement is trying to hang a program of social reform and public education-is perhaps the ugliest and most deceptive book I have ever seen.

It may seem irrelevant to critique a book over a decade since it was published. But Darwin on Trial was the work which founded the "intelligent design" movement, and Phillip Johnson is still regarded as the "godfather" of that entire school of thought. Later "intelligent design" creationists have adopted many of his exact arguments, as well as many of the questionable tactics and strategies used in Darwin on Trial. Perhaps most importantly, nobody in the "intelligent design" movement has, to my knowledge, ever criticized or disavowed any of the claims in Darwin on Trial. As I will show, this book is so full of questionable tactics that it would be hard for any informed reader not to notice any of the inaccuracy. All of the stars of the "intelligent design" movement, by their silent approval of these tactics, stand under a cloud of suspicion at the very least.

Many Christians have welcomed the "intelligent design" creationists in the belief that they are fighting for God and truth. But, as the televangelism scandals of the 1980's should remind us, there are some more unsavory reasons for seeking celebrity in the Christian community: money, fame, applause, or power, especially political power. In short, there are a wealth of reasons why Christians need to be careful about trusting the stars of the "intelligent design" movement. And even well-intentioned debaters, if they let their desire to win the argument outstrip their respect for the facts, will turn out a product which is grossly misleading. Integrity is important. If—as I will show in this essay—the claims of "intelligent design" are more a product of debating tactics and tricks than they are a fair and honest presentation, Christians need to seriously consider whether they can support this movement in good faith.

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2. Lawyer games

To understand a lawyer's book, talk to another lawyer. Darwin on Trial has been reviewed by, among other people, a practicing lawyer by the name of Thomas C. Sager. In his review, Sager makes some very interesting points about the legal profession which he and Johnson share. He puts it succinctly: "The job of a lawyer is not to find the truth, (that is the job of the judge or jury) but to defend (or prosecute) the client.... The standard is to vigorously argue on behalf of one's client, rather than to pursue an abstract 'truth' or even 'justice'." Sager goes on to note: "In supporting the client, the lawyer may use any ethical means available. It is perfectly ethical for a lawyer to make ad hominem attacks on the opposing witnesses, to present incomplete information to a jury, to bring in irrelevant data, and of course to use a wide panoply of rhetorical skills and tricks. Science, obviously, has different goals. But the lawyer's orientation should be kept in mind when analyzing Johnson's book, because he is a lawyer, he has titled his subject a trial, he pursues it as a trial, and his job is to prosecute Darwinism. Lots of things are 'fair', from his point of view."[2]

Johnson might protest that none of these tactics—ad hominem arguments, half-truths, and rhetorical sleight-of-hand-are technically lies. I am not interested in quibbling over fine shades of meaning in such definitions; in my view, deliberately misleading people does not become more acceptable because it goes under a different name. To a certain extent, it does not even matter whether these inaccuracies are deliberate or not. If Johnson is being intentionally misleading, that is an ethical and intellectual crime. If he is merely letting a desire to attack evolutionists override his concern for careful and accurate research, that indifference to fairness is also a crime, though a lesser one. In either case, Darwin on Trial cannot safely be trusted at face value as a guide to the facts.

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3. Just the facts, ma'am

Phillip Johnson, perhaps even by his own admission, is not terribly interested in facts. Indeed, the heart of the argument against evolution which is presented in Darwin on Trial—and echoed throughout the "intelligent design" movement up until the present day—is that science isn't actually about facts. According to Darwin on Trial, it's about "ideology." The accusation is that evolutionary scientists are all hopelessly biased, wedded to an atheistic ideology, and that the only reason they support evolutionary theory is that they need some way to explain the marvels of biology without bringing up God.

This is a clever strategy, because a number of well-known and outspoken scientists are in fact atheists, and the Christian community in America has long had a vein of simmering resentment against a few individuals, like Richard Dawkins, who have preached atheist ideology while calling it science. Johnson taps into this vein skillfully, claiming that "Darwinism" is not only the view that natural forces created biology as we see it today, but also the insistence that God is a mere fable, uninvolved in evolution or—for that matter—anything else.

The problem is that this argument isn't true. The truth is that biologists are overwhelmingly convinced that the theory of evolution really does explain the natural world accurately. That's why they support it, not some "ideology." Johnson and the other "intelligent design" creationists are aware that a large number of evolutionists maintain a deep faith in God. However, if the "intelligent design" creationists acknowledged them, they would have to admit that there are other reasons besides ideology to agree with the theory of evolution. Their strategy has been to deny that these people exist. A Gallup poll conducted in 1982[3] found that only about 10% of Americans think that "Man evolved over millions of years from less developed forms. God had no part in this process." 90% of us, then, reject "Darwinism" as Johnson defines it, and the "intelligent design" creationists are fond of quoting this statistic. What they avoid mentioning is the other half of the poll, in which Gallup went not to the average American but to the average American scientist. About 40% of scientists declared their belief in both evolution and in an actively intervening God very much in control of the process. Either 40% of the scientists in America are fighting tooth and nail in defense of an ideology which they actually reject, or-based on the very poll which Johnson likes to cite-Johnson's argument about ideology is bunk.

There is plenty of other evidence suggesting that Johnson should know this argument to be just that: bunk. Upon reading through the sources cited in Darwin on Trial, I found that the distinction between science and atheism was drawn quite clearly on a number of occasions It is made repeatedly by theologian Langdon Gilkey (Creationism on Trial, pp.34-35, 97, 175-176)[4] and scientist Douglas Futuyma (Science on Trial, p.217)[5], both of whom are cited by Johnson. While Darwin on Trial points out that evolutionists like Dawkins, Julian Huxley, and Steven Jay Gould claim or imply that God is dead, it neglects to mention that all these figures have been criticized harshly and publicly by evolutionary biologists for muddying the line between scientific conclusions and metaphysical preferences. Johnson has a ready excuse: he claims that any time scientists say that they are not atheists, it is only to fool the public—or, as he puts it in one of his nastier moments, "for fear of jeopardizing the funding for scientific research" (p.127). However, Darwin on Trial gives no evidence to back up this accusation. That's because no such evidence exists. If Johnson wants to convince us that his accusations of atheism are not just conspiracy theory, he has had plenty of opportunity to do so. Several reviews of his book have criticized him for pretending that the personal views of a few inflammatory scientists are the consensus view of the scientific community, but Johnson has made no attempt to correct his claims or provide evidence for them. To my knowledge, neither have any of the other leaders of "intelligent design" creationism. There can be no denying it: stereotypes are rhetorically handy. But they aren't honest. The attempts by a few scientists to clothe their personal philosophies in the authority of science are certainly deplorable, and I believe that Christians are right to deplore them. But is the correct response to meet one mistruth with another?

The way science works—methodological naturalism, to call it by its highbrow name[6]—is to try to explain the world in terms of ideas which can be empirically tested. The tests can be experimental, or one may posit an hypothesis and then look for those empirical signs which would follow logically if that hypothesis were true. Johnson's strategy is to claim that this is the same as atheism (see, for example, pp.116-117 of Darwin on Trial). This argument does not stand up for long under scrutiny. We may not call it by such an elaborate name, but when a plumber tries to find out why your sink is clogged, or when police try to solve a crime, or when an engineer tries to design a bridge—in fact, whenever anyone tries to figure out pretty much anything about the physical world we live in—they are using methodological naturalism. You yourself use it every day. So do the "intelligent design" creationists.

Scientists aren't precommitted to atheism. They're precommitted to a scientific method that can actually work. The only alternative to methodological naturalism—that is, to trying to understand the world in terms of ideas which can be empirically tested—is to try to understand the world in terms of ideas which can't be tested at all. See if you can unclog your sink that way.

Johnson should, by now, be painfully aware that this argument does not hold up. He has been challenged clearly and publicly (for instance, by Robert Pennock)[7] to present a working alternative to methodological naturalism. Despite the fact that he has had over a decade to work out a method for what he calls "theistic science", Johnson has had nothing to say. Writes Pennock: "This is not surprising, for he has consistently refused to say anything positive about how a theistic science is supposed to work." If Johnson really feels that scientists have other options—if we really do have a choice other than methodological naturalism in science—he should give us a hint about what those options are. Until the intelligent design creationists explain to scientists what other methods they could be using, I find it very hard to blame the scientists for considering methodological naturalism to be a limited but indispensable tool.

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4. How science isn't done

Darwin on Trial misrepresents science just as it misrepresents scientists. Johnson seems to suggest that any event which has not been directly observed may be dismissed as "pure philosophy", but inferential evidence-as he should know from law-can prove a point as well as direct observation. Essentially all modern science, including particle physics, astrophysics, geology, microbiology, and chemistry, relies on inferential evidence. He claims that scientists disagree over "every detail" of evolutionary theory, but Douglas Futuyma, on p.171 of Science on Trial (again, a book cited in Darwin on Trial) explains accurately and clearly what is and is not in dispute in the scientific community. On p.30 of Darwin on Trial, Johnson dismisses evolutionary mechanisms such as developmental constraints and pleiotropy—despite the fact that they are proven, genuine mechanisms that are not only compatible with Darwinian theory but are practically logical outgrowths of it. Darwin on Trial claims on pp.72-73 that, because developmental processes are different in different classes of tetrapods, the resulting traits cannot be homologues of one another; but this is only true if evolution adheres strictly to the principle of recapitulation [8] , a principle which was rejected decades ago by modern science. It suggests on p.80 that Archaeopteryx is just a mosaic along the lines of the platypus (it isn't); suggests on p.94 that the isolation of present-day taxa is at odds with the theory of evolution (this is incorrect); and on pp.95-96 claims that neutral theory is incompatible with Darwinian theory (a conclusion soundly rejected in at least one paper actually cited on the subject in Darwin on Trial)[9]. After examining the sources which Johnson himself used in writing Darwin on Trial, I find it very difficult to understand how a writer with a serious concern for fairness could have reached the conclusions which are stated in Darwin on Trial.

Serious misunderstandings of science pervade Darwin on Trial. For example, Johnson suggests that all scientists stick to the Darwinist party line out of self-interest—apparently unaware that scientific careers are made not by conformity but by coming up with radical new ideas. Any working scientist could have told him that. He does not understand basic scientific terminology (such as the word "tentative", for example, an error which he has not corrected even after being informed of it), or how the "self-correcting" nature of the scientific enterprise works. Many of these misunderstandings are so basic that Johnson seems to have done little or no research on the topic. In short, rather than do the work involved in understanding how science actually works, Johnson apparently made up a picture of modern biology which he finds useful for rhetorical purposes. Is this really the sort of work on which a true intellectual movement can be founded? Is this the sort of ethics with which the Christian community wants to ally itself?

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5. Did they really say that?

a. Colin Patterson

Most damning of all is the way in which Darwin on Trial represents the views of other individuals. In several cases, Johnson cites the published opinions of scientists on various matters; it is therefore possible to set his book side-by-side with the original statements and see if they match up. Time and time again, they do not. Even on a generous reading of the material, and even granting that Johnson may have misunderstood the more technical writing, there is in my judgment absolutely no honest way to read those original sources and represent them as Johnson has. It is hard to know whether Johnson simply neglected to read his sources with any sort of care, or whether he actually chose to misrepresent them; in either case, these misrepresentations say a great deal about the credibility of Darwin on Trial.

Johnson claims at several points in Darwin on Trial that evolutionists, while they keep up a solid public front, are secretly unconvinced by the modern theory of evolution. In his first chapter, Johnson says that scientist Colin Patterson disavowed the theory of evolution in a speech at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981. Specifically, Johnson says: "according to Patterson, Darwin's theory of natural selection is under fire and scientists are no longer sure of its general validity." (p.9); "Patterson suggested that both evolution and creation are forms of pseudo-knowledge, concepts which seem to imply information but do not." (p.10); "'Evolution' can mean anything from the uncontroversial statement that bacteria 'evolve' resistance to antibiotics to the grand metaphysical claim that the universe and mankind 'evolved' entirely by purposeless, mechanical forces. A word that elastic is likely to mislead, by implying that we know as much about the grand claim as we do about the small one. That very point was the theme of a remarkable lecture given by Colin Patterson at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981." (p.10); and states that the point of this lecture was that "a fact of evolution is vacuous unless it comes with a supporting theory" (p.12). Johnson reluctantly supplied me with a transcript of this speech. Upon reading it, I found that the speech was not about the theory of evolution at all. The theory of evolution is barely mentioned in passing.

What the speech was actually about was systematics, the arcane art of giving names to organisms. In the early 1980's, there were two schools of thought which clashed strongly on how to assign such names. Patterson championed one school of thought, called "pattern cladism." Adherents to pattern cladism felt that patterns of shared characters were the only important factors in assigning names to groups. For example, they would consider "mammals" a valid group because they share features such as hair, live birth, and mammary glands. The other school of thought was "evolutionary taxonomy", which argued that important evolutionary developments should be the basis of naming groups of organisms. An evolutionary taxonomist would put special emphasis on the evolution of warm-bloodedness and feathers in birds, and make "birds" a separate group from "reptiles." A pattern cladist would note that birds share more features with some reptiles than those reptiles do with other reptiles, and conclude that "birds" should really be a subgroup of the Reptilia. Even though one school was called "evolutionary taxonomy", it should be pointed out that the cladists in no way rejected Darwinian theory. In fact, doing cladistic systematics would be utterly pointless if the organisms in question hadn't evolved from a common ancestor. The pattern cladists simply felt that evolutionary history wasn't all that relevant to the names tacked onto different groups of organisms.

Patterson's speech is not about the folly of evolutionary theory; it is about the folly of evolutionary taxonomy. Patterson has said so publicly: he is on record as saying that the 1981 speech "concerned systematics, nothing else." Patterson's views on evolution itself can perhaps best be demonstrated from the textbook he wrote (titled, appropriately enough, Evolution)[10]. In the introduction he states: "evolution is about what Darwin called 'descent with modification'—it concerns the idea of common or shared ancestry and the belief that all species are related by descent. I think that belief is now confirmed as completely as anything can be in the historical sciences." (Johnson cites this book in Darwin on Trial, so it is hard to argue that he is not aware of Patterson's real views.) I read Patterson's speech and his book closely. In neither of them is there any statement, express or implied, that Patterson considered the theory of evolution to be "pseudo-knowledge"; there is no discussion whatsoever of evolutionary theory being "vacuous", and the quote from Evolution plainly shows that Patterson soundly affirms the general validity of evolutionary theory. Patterson is firm in insisting that names should be assigned to groups of organisms on the basis of shared characters rather than on inferences about their evolutionary history, but this is rather different from saying that evolutionary biology has no content!

Simply put, Johnson took a few sentences from Patterson's speech and placed them in a different context, where they appeared to state something which their author did not intend—indeed, where they appeared to state something which their author has publicly rejected as a valid interpretation of his views[11].

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b. Steven Jay Gould

On p.11, Darwin on Trial contains a quote from paleontologist Steven Jay Gould, presented in a fashion which is similarly misleading. In this quote, Gould states that the neo-Darwinian synthesis, "as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy." Anyone reading this section of Darwin on Trial will unavoidably go away with the impression that Gould is renouncing evolutionary theory. This in and of itself should make one suspicious that Gould's words are being misused, since Gould has been one of the most visible defenders of evolutionary theory in the modern era.

When I read Gould's actual article [12], I found that the first part of that sentence—omitted by Johnson—makes clear that Gould wasn't referring to all of evolutionary theory. Gould's true opinion is that "if [biologist Ernst] Mayr's characterization of the synthetic theory is accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy." What is Mayr's view that Gould is denouncing? Gould cites Mayr clearly: "The proponents of the synthetic theory maintain that all evolution is due to the accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural selection, and that transspecific evolution is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species." It is this last phrase in particular to which Gould is taking exception. Gould goes on to argue that the gradualism, reductionism, and panselectionism championed by Mayr are unnecessary and possibly incorrect. If this were pointed out publicly, Johnson might respond by saying that the disagreement between Gould and Mayr was about the fundamentals of the theory of evolution, but Gould's article emphasizes that this is not the case: "None of this evidence, of course, negates the role of conventional selection and adaptation in molding parts of the phenotype with obvious importance for survival and reproduction. Still, it rather damps Mayr's enthusiastic claim for 'all evolution... guided by natural selection.' The question, as with so many issues in the complex sciences of natural history, becomes one of relative frequency. Are the Darwinian substitutions merely a surface skin on a sea of variation invisible to selection, or are the neutral substitutions merely a thin bottom layer underlying a Darwinian ocean above? Or where in between?" Note that, by Darwinian, Gould means exclusively those changes due to natural selection; there is not, of course, anything about neutral variations (those variations "invisible to selection") which contradicts evolutionary theory. Nor are gradualism, reductionism, or panselection necessary elements of the theory.

Gould's article, therefore, is not criticizing anything central to the theory of evolution. There is nothing in this article to suggest that Gould considers evolutionary theory in general to be "effectively dead", and nothing Gould has written before or since supports Johnson's claim that Gould has renounced evolution. The simpler explanation is that Johnson found it useful to portray Gould's views inaccurately, just as a lawyer in court may find it useful to twist a witness' words.

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c. Nature on the British Museum of Natural History

Yet another striking example of distortion concerns a series of letters and editorials in the journal Nature about the British Museum of Natural History, discussed in Darwin on Trial on pp.135-142. Johnson's story is this: an exhibit opened at the BMNH questioning the validity of the theory of evolution. After a biologist, Beverly Halstead, wrote to Nature to denounce this "heresy", a firestorm of letters erupted, with evolutionists admitting publicly that they really weren't convinced by Darwinian theory. The story ends with the exhibit being "cleaned up" and the dissent suppressed.

I read all of the letters and editorials cited in Darwin on Trial, as well as all other letters about the BMNH published in Nature during that period. The real story has almost nothing to do with the conspiracy theory Johnson presents. The "substantial issue", as Johnson puts it, was not that the Museum was going public with doubts about evolution or evolutionary theory. The Museum never did anything of the kind. What Halstead's letter objected to was the fact that the Museum, under Colin Patterson's influence, had organized its exhibit around the principles of cladism. Halstead—a paleontologist who disliked the cladistic method for naming organisms—believed that, because not all of the scientific community accepted cladism, it was inappropriate for the Museum to present cladism as though it represented the views of all biologists. Halstead likens cladists to creationists, but not because cladists are antievolutionists, as Darwin on Trial implies. (In fact, most evolutionary biologists working today are cladists!) Halstead makes the comparison because cladists assume (for convenience) when arranging organisms in groups that no organism in that group is a direct ancestor of any other. Creationists who insist on the separate creation of man and other animals also insist on an absence of ancestry when considering hominid fossils and modern humans, but the resemblance stops there.

Halstead's letter appeared in Nature on November 20 of 1980. Darwin on Trial suggests that the entire exchange of letters called into doubt the validity of the theory of evolution, but the topic of the "validity of Darwinism" doesn't even come up until February 26, three months later. At that point, an editorial in Nature noted that the Museum's exhibit included the phrase "If the theory of evolution is true..." and commented that, since the theory of evolution is not in dispute among serious biologists, the use of such a phrase could only serve to confuse visitors.

According to Johnson's story, the next editorial-entitled "How true is the theory of evolution?"-admitted that biologists were not confident in the theory. It did no such thing. The article wasn't about the validity of the theory of evolution or any other theory. It was about what scientists mean when they say that a theory is "true." Technically, no scientific theory can ever be completely proven. The best modern example of this is the fact that the entire edifice of Newtonian physics was found by Einstein to be wrong—"untrue"—even after engineers used it successfully to land manned spacecraft on the moon. (Clearly, a scientific theory can be remarkably correct and still be "untrue".)

Because all scientific theories are technically unproven, no theory, be it germ theory, atomic theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, or even the theory that the earth is round, can be called "true." Placing the theory of evolution alongside these other unproven theories hardly suggests that scientists are in doubt about it.

The editorial goes on to say that the BMNH should be careful to clarify for the public the difference between scientific objections to evolutionary theory and objections with no scientific basis. Darwin on Trial claims that this article "implied that Darwinism is a metaphysical system sustained partly by faith" (p.139). This is false. The editorial noted that philosopher of science Karl Popper classified the theory of evolution, and all other theories about past events, as "metaphysical" since they cannot be confirmed by direct observation, but there is no suggestion whatsoever that the editorial writer considered the theory of evolution lacking in empirical support. Consider the following excerpts from the editorial: "Darwinism is consistent with the data to which Darwin had access more than a century ago. One of the remarkable features of the theory is that it remains consistent with the vastly greater body of data now available."; "The result [of the new science of molecular biology] is a striking confirmation of the general character of the relationships suggested by Darwin and his contemporaries."; "...the way in which the theory of evolution has been able to survive such a long succession of discoveries bearing on the mechanism of inheritance—the rediscovery of Mendelism, the discovery of chromosomes, the recognition of what genes are and the recognition that genes are usually pieces of double-stranded DNA-is striking evidence of its overwhelming consistency. No theory of such a grand scope in the physical sciences has done as well in the past century." Most telling is the fact that Johnson knows what Popper meant by the term "metaphysical"—it is actually discussed on pp.150-151 of Darwin on Trial. He cannot, therefore, claim that this misrepresentation was an accident.

Johnson's representation of Halstead's original letter is false; his claim that "the Museum's staff was 'going public' with doubts about neo-Darwinism and even the existence of fossil ancestors-doubts that had previously been expressed only in professional circles" is false; his claim that "the editors of Nature belatedly discovered that Darwinism is more controversial among scientists than they had realized" is not supported anywhere by anything in the series of letters and editorials. Basically, Johnson has taken quotes out of context and out of order from the series of letters and editorials, and reassembled them as part of a completely different story which happens to support his position.

The three examples cited above are only a few of many instances in which Johnson has taken quotes from scientific sources and placed them in a different context so that they seem to say something which is completely unsupported, if not actually contradicted, by the original material. Such a practice violates not merely standards of academic accuracy but basic, everyday ethics.

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6. Tricks of the trade

a. Distortions and inventions

In Johnson's book Defeating Darwinism, he exhorts his readers to examine claims critically. However, the research underlying Darwin on Trial is neither careful nor critical, and I would submit that it is not worthy of any true intellectual movement. Johnson's arguments distort scientific views in the same way that they distort scientists' words. For example, he notes that, when Darwin first wrote The Origin of Species, he made his case for natural selection by making an analogy to a more well-known practice: artificial selection, the process by which breeders have been able to produce wide varieties of domesticated animals and plants (p.17). Johnson then writes: "The analogy to artificial selection is misleading. Plant and animal breeders employ intelligence and specialized knowledge to select breeding stock and protect their charges from natural dangers. The point of Darwin's theory, however, was to establish that purposeless natural processes can substitute for intelligent design." This misrepresents the point of the analogy. It's true that Darwin's overall theory states that natural processes can create the apparent "purpose" and "design" in living organisms-but that's not the point Darwin was making with the analogy to artificial selection. The remarkable variety of forms produced by artificial selection merely illustrates the fact that, over many generations, organisms can be changed quite radically without huge jumps. The analogy is about process, not purpose[13].

Another type of distortion comes on p.66, where Johnson pretends that "Darwinists assume that the relationship between, say, bats and whales is similar to that between siblings and cousins in human families." This is not an assumption but a conclusion drawn from various lines of evidence, including fossils, molecular data, biogeography, and present-day comparative studies. The theory of common descent predicts that similarities and differences among species should be arranged in particular patterns; these predictions have been confirmed in striking detail.

One type of distortion which deserves special mention is the way in which Darwin on Trial deals with uncertainty in science. Often, Johnson cites a small uncertainty, or an unknown detail, and claims that the uncertainty is enormous and that the detail is actually a fundamental part of evolutionary theory. On p.19 he claims that "selective change is limited by the inherent variability in the gene pool." He allows that "It might conceivably be renewed by mutation, but whether (and how often) this happens is not known." There is much that is unknown about the processes of mutation, especially as they relate to the generation of variation upon which selection can work, but Johnson would have you believe that the uncertainty is much greater than it is. The evidence that variation recharges naturally is quite strong—if it didn't, natural populations couldn't have any variation at all for many traits—and in most cases it is hard to imagine a process which could possibly stop that variation from recharging.

In many cases, instead of presenting well-researched facts, Johnson substitutes what are apparently his own opinions or biases, unsubstantiated by any research. For example, on p.17, Johnson claims that Darwin's analogy to artificial selection, made in the Origin of Species, was accepted by scientists in Darwin's day only because the "receptive audience for the theory was highly uncritical." No historical work or history of science is cited in the research notes for this assertion. Furthermore, this assertion is contradicted by everything I have ever read on the topic. Darwin's theory was immediately subjected to fierce criticism from all sides, according to every historical sketch I have seen.

Similarly, Darwin on Trial claims that mutations are always harmful, never useful (p.17), a claim which is contradicted by a vast body of scientific research, and for which Johnson's research notes cite no supporting evidence. On p.18 Darwin on Trial states that natural selection is only conservative and that "there are definite limits to the amount of variation that even the most highly skilled breeders can achieve." No sources are cited for either of these claims, which are not supported by any scientific fact that I know of. Johnson's suggestions that species lack sufficient genetic capacity for major changes is flatly contradicted by the evidence: in Science on Trial, on p.117 (Johnson actually quotes a different passage from this very page), Futuyma cites experiments which selected for alteration of species "well beyond its original range of variation", and notes that researchers have been able to select for entirely new traits. It is not clear where Johnson got any of these claims that he is making. Certainly none of them are supported by his sources.

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b. The tautology argument

Population genetics is the study of how gene frequencies in a theoretical population change in response to various natural mechanisms, such as selection, drift, assortative mating, and so on. Population genetics essentially asks the question, "If evolution by natural selection happens, what is the behavior of a population under these circumstances?" Of course, since these are theoretical populations only, there is no mechanism behind selection in these mathematical models. In real life, say in a population of hawks, there is a reason why a gene will spread through the population—for example, it might confer slightly keener eyesight on its bearer, or more efficient flight. In the imaginary realm of population genetics, though, "fitness" is not the outcome of particular traits as it is in the real world; "higher fitness" just means that this hypothetical allele has been assigned a higher probability of "reproducing" than some other hypothetical allele. As population geneticists will freely admit, this mechanism-free way of thinking about fitness is tautological—"the survival of the fittest" among these theoretical genes merely means "the survival of the ones that survive." Of course, biologists working with real organisms think about fitness in terms of mechanisms, but on p.22, Johnson claims that the way of thinking of fitness in population genetics "spread to the zoologists and paleontologists, who found it convenient to assume that their guiding theory was simply true by definition. As long as outside critics were not paying attention, the absurdity of the tautology formulation was in no danger of exposure." The statement that zoologists and paleontologists "found it convenient to assume that their guiding theory was simply true by definition" is a fiction. Johnson either has not read or chooses to ignore the thousands of papers published by evolutionists who have gone to great lengths to test the theory of evolution rather than assume its accuracy—not to mention the fact that the theory of evolution had already been confirmed by several decades of zoology and paleontology before the population geneticists came up with their abstract populations.

On a related topic, on p.97, Johnson also seriously misrepresents the views of Motoo Kimura on neutral evolution. Kimura has argued that two or more different alleles at a given locus may have essentially the same effect on the survival and reproduction of an organism[14], and that they may therefore be considered "neutral" with respect to one another. The truth of this is fairly obvious, and the same mathematics which can be applied to completely neutral mutations-those where there is no impact on the appearance of the organism at all-can be applied to these "pseudo-neutral" alleles. Johnson claims that this argument is "merely another attempt to rescue the natural selection hypothesis from potential falsification by redefining it as a tautology." There is nothing at all tautological or illogical about the assertion that two alleles with slightly different functions, in Kimura's words, "may be equally effective in promoting the survival and reproduction of the individual." (In fact, it is hard to imagine a universe in which such things did not occasionally occur.) Johnson claims that "If fitness is determined only by the brute fact of survival and reproductive fitness, then there is no effective difference between neutral and selective evolution." He is wrong. The way in which gene frequencies change in populations over time—and that is, of course, what the entire field of population genetics is all about—depends very much on whether one allele tends to get reproduced more often than others. Here, Johnson does not seem to understand the difference between the basic forces of drift and selection.

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c. The missing links which aren't, and other examples

A striking example of Johnson's failure to do thorough research is found on page 75 of Darwin on Trial and the following pages. Johnson mentions, in his review of the vertebrate sequence in the fossil record, four groups of fossils (not including hominids): rhiphistidian fish, Seymouria, the therapsid mammals, and Archaeopteryx. On p.79, he states: "The mammal class includes such diverse groups as whales, porpoises, seals, polar bears, bats, cattle, monkeys, cats, pigs, and opossums. If mammals are a monophyletic group, then the Darwinian model requires that every one of the groups have descended from a single unidentified small land mammal. Huge numbers of species in the direct line of transition would have to exist, but the fossil record fails to record them." Similarly, on pp. 53-54, he states that no primitive bats or whales occur in the fossil record. I spent less than an hour checking these claims before finding one source[15] which lists over three hundred and fifty fossil species or groups of species which are considered to be transitionals within the mammals. Furthermore, the author of this source was careful to note that this list was nowhere near complete. Primitive primate-like fossils are known and species-to-species transitions are known within the primates; an early fossil bat is known, with appropriately primitive characters; transitional fossils for bears are extremely clear; transitionals for seals and cats are known; there is a whole chain of fossil genera leading up to whales; there is a transitional sequence for cattle as well as for pigs (not to mention very good transitional records for voles, mice, elephants, and ruminants). All of these are organisms which Darwin on Trial claims the fossil record "fails to record." Of course, if Johnson believes that these specimens do not represent true transitionals for some reason, he is welcome to explain to the rest of us why. Such a contention would be perfectly scientific and respectable if documented and backed up with careful study. No such documentation or study exist in Darwin on Trial.

The errors or misrepresentations go on. Johnson apparently does not realize that neutral traits cannot be expected to change under artificial selection (p.18), fails to mention a large body of work on female mate preference (p.30), attacks ideas which evolutionary biologists abandoned decades ago (p.79), and does not seem to grasp the distinction between natural selection and adaptation (p.144) or between common descent and natural selection (pp.151-152). There are a large number of other errors, any of which he could have avoided by consulting with a competent biologist before publishing his book. Several of these errors have been pointed out by reviewers of the first edition of Darwin on Trial; they remain uncorrected in the current edition. Johnson has apparently read almost no history or history of science on the subject of Darwin and Darwinism. The philosophy of science he uses is perhaps thirty years out of date and at least one reviewer has pointed out that he employs it incorrectly[16]. He has not bothered to read more than half-a-dozen articles from the primary literature (by contrast, a thorough undergraduate thesis might require a hundred or more). Furthermore, some of the sources he does employ are extremely suspect. Several of them have not passed through any peer-review process, a process which is absolutely mandatory before a source is considered to have any scientific authority. Johnson accepts The Bone Peddlers, a book by William Fix, as authoritative, despite the fact that the later chapters, by his own admission, "accept evidence of parapsychological phenomena uncritically." Another questionable source he relies on is The Neck of the Giraffe, by Francis Hitching. A little research revealed that Hitching is apparently a believer in Mayan pyramid energy and other paranormal phenomena, as well as some sort of professional psychic[17]. He has no scientific credentials of any kind. Johnson accepts Hitching as an authority nonetheless.

In short, Johnson is claiming to understand the entire field of evolutionary theory—a vast field which draws evidence from dozens of different subfields—on the weight of research which would not be acceptable for an undergraduate term paper. He ignores basic academic standards and principles, and has ignored almost all subsequent criticism on questions of fact. Any of these failings would be more than enough to disqualify Darwin on Trial as a respectable academic work.

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7. The log in your own eye

a. Selective use of evidence

In his book Defeating Darwinism, Johnson lists a number of 'tricks' which he says evolutionists use to fool laypeople into believing their arguments. The strategy Johnson is using here is one which is regularly seen in political races: candidates often try to "steal the thunder" from their opponents by pre-emptively accusing them of their own worst faults. Johnson himself uses the exact strategies he denounces, over and over again, in Darwin on Trial. For example, one such 'trick' listed by Johnson is "Selective Use of Evidence." Many of the examples I have noted above (for instance, the use of excerpts from Patterson's 1981 speech, or Johnson's omission of most of the fossil evidence) are just such selective quotation. There are many more such instances in Darwin on Trial. On p.25, Johnson invokes a phenomenon called "selection plateaus", which, if taken by themselves, suggest that there is a permanent boundary to the amount of change which can be achieved by natural selection. However, Johnson fails to mention that such plateaus are to be expected under any evolutionary scenario (Darwinian or otherwise), omits the fact that selection can continue to change populations after hitting a plateau (the rate of change simply slows), and does not mention that some large-scale selection experiments never hit a plateau at all. On p.100, Johnson quotes a review of molecular evolutionary theory by Allan Wilson[18], but his quotation is extremely selective: he quotes what is perhaps the only sentence in the entire review which is at all skeptical about molecular clocks, leaving a very skewed impression of Wilson's article.

The most striking example of the selective use of evidence, though, appears on p.25. Johnson claims that the idea that evolutionary theory is a tested scientific hypothesis is one "which deserves our most respectful scrutiny", and states that we must face a critical question: "what evidence confirms that this hypothesis is true?" Johnson then proceeds to list six examples from Futuyma's Science on Trial, and concludes that these examples are simply inadequate as a foundation for the sweeping claims of evolutionary theory.

These six examples, examples of natural selection at work today, are of course totally inadequate to establish evolutionary theory as a science. But, of course, no evolutionary biologist has ever claimed that one slender line of evidence is enough. Johnson's sources certainly don't claim this; on p.36 of Science on Trial, Futuyma notes that Darwin's theory originally drew its support from fields as diverse as "comparative anatomy, embryology, behavior, geographic variation, the geographic distribution of species, the study of rudimentary organs, atavistic variations ('throwbacks'), and the geological record to show how all of biology provides testimony that species have descended with modification from common ancestors." Futuyma specifically points out that the importance of the theory of evolution rests on its ability to tie many distinct threads of evidence together into a single explanation (pp.66-67 of Science on Trial). Futuyma's book makes clear that a great many types of evidence can be brought to bear on evolutionary theory: taxonomic (in the form of homologies, embryology, and vestigial structures or functions), fossil evidence, or biogeographical, for example. In fact, the biogeographical evidence (i.e., where species occur on the globe relative to one another) was the single line of evidence which most convinced Darwin that species had evolved, but biogeography is not addressed at all in Johnson's book. Another extremely important line of evidence which Johnson avoids discussing is the fact that natural selection can only generate structures or functions which serve to promote the survival and reproduction of the individual organism. Any complex structure which does not serve such a function-structures which exist only for the good of other species, for example, or which exist only for the sake of beauty-could not possibly have been formed by natural selection. The fact that no such complex structures or functions have ever been found (as Futuyma notes, for example, "No one has ever found a case of a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself") suggests powerfully that natural selection is responsible for the complex structures and functions we see in the biological world.

From Darwin on Trial, it is clear that Johnson knows that these other lines of evidence are important and relevant. After all, he spends most of the rest of the book discussing homologies, fossils, and various other, inferential evidence. But his "respectful" review of the facts somehow manages to leave all of this out. Comically, the rest of the book depends on Johnson's contention that the theory of evolution is not supported by the scientific facts-facts which he deliberately avoids discussing. Never were such grand pretensions built on so shaky a foundation.

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b. The moving target

This is a classic "bait-and-switch" strategy: Darwin on Trial leads the reader to expect a careful, thorough examination of the evidence, and at the last minute substitutes a minor subset of the evidence which no-one considers sufficient to 'prove' evolutionary theory. Johnson uses similar strategies to distract the reader from important points several times in Darwin on Trial. For example, on p.30, Johnson acknowledges that Darwin suggested a standard by which his theory of evolution could be falsified-but he then shifts the topic to whether or not Darwin suggested other mechanisms of evolution, avoiding the main point (that complex structures which serve other species could not have been generated through natural selection). On p.70, he quotes Steven Jay Gould's claim that imperfections in organisms are strong evidence for evolution, but then shifts the topic again, stating that Gould is making theological speculations. This ignores Gould's point, which is that the pattern of imperfections seen in biological organisms is very consistent with the theory of evolution. In his chapter on molecular evolution, Johnson protests that evolutionists went to the molecular evidence looking for confirmation of their theory rather than without preconceptions. Even if this were true-and he presents no evidence to support his allegation-it dodges the most important question, which is: did the molecular evidence turn out to be consistent with evolutionary theory? And unless the evolutionists' preconceptions somehow altered the molecular structure of every species on the planet, why are these supposed preconceptions relevant anyway? A similar trick is employed on p.99 when Johnson claims that "the molecular clock hypothesis assumes the validity of the common ancestry thesis which it is supposed to confirm." This is misleading. The molecular clock does not merely assume common ancestry; it goes on to test that thesis. Johnson is apparently trying to distract the reader from the facts: namely, that the theory of common ancestry passed the test with flying colors.

Another criticism of evolutionists in Defeating Darwinism is that they use vague and untestable terms and arguments. Vague and untestable statements are Johnson's bread and butter, when he's not simply insinuating things. For example, throughout Darwin on Trial, Johnson insists that there is a fundamental difference between minor variations or "microevolution" and larger, creative changes, or "macroevolution" (pp.66, 68-70, 81, 91, 111, 117, 151, 153, for example). However, he carefully avoids discussing where the boundary between micro- and macroevolution lies, or how one could tell objectively whether a change is "creative" or not. The failure to make these definitions renders his arguments untestable and, by his own standards, valueless. Another good example is on p.98, where Johnson claims that natural selection "permits variation only within boundaries". What empirical evidence do we have for these boundaries? Where exactly are they?

No matter what changes breeders manage to make through artificial selection, it can always be claimed that these are only "minor" or "uncreative" changes. There is no way to test Johnson's arguments scientifically, because the goalposts can simply be moved every time a challenge is met. What's the simplest explanation for this? Does Johnson want mobile goalposts? It's possible; mobile goalposts are tactically very useful. If you read carefully through Darwin on Trial, you will notice a remarkable number of places where Johnson suggests or insinuates something rather than stating it outright, or where he leaves a logical argument vague rather than well-defined. Usually, this is a good indication that he is trying to lead the reader to a false conclusion without actually saying a lie outright. This strategy is a variation on the theme of "plausible deniability"; by suggesting falsehoods rather than stating them clearly, Johnson can always protest later that he wasn't really lying, or that his critics have simply misunderstood his point. His critics aren't infallible, of course-myself very much included-but it is a curious coincidence that the point Johnson seems to be making so often turns out to be false. Johnson is not stupid, and I have no doubt that he could state his ideas clearly, if that were his goal.

In summary, Darwin on Trial contains an enormous number of questionable tactics which can only be described as 'trickery'. In reading carefully through Darwin on Trial, I found that Johnson used the very 'tricks' he denounces in Defeating Darwinism a total of fifty-eight times in the first two chapters alone[19]. I should emphasize that I was being strict in my reading, but if I am right about even a tenth of these violations, then Johnson's work is certainly no model of trustworthiness.

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8. Johnson's response

If the facts I've listed above were not enough, there is—last but not least—my personal correspondence with Johnson. When I first started to do the research which led to this review, I contacted Johnson to ask him if there were any sources not cited in his research notes which were important in supporting the views expressed in Darwin on Trial. Although, as noted above, Johnson makes many assertions about scientific fact which are not backed up by any references in his research notes, I felt it irresponsible to draw hard conclusions without making sure that the research notes told the whole story.

Johnson first flatly refused to help. I explained myself more fully, saying that I was simply trying to verify some of his factual assertions. To this, he responded that the controversy was not about scientific facts but philosophy. When I pointed out that factual assertions are very much a matter of scientific facts, he changed tactics, claiming that he did not have time to answer "open-ended" questions.

To be agreeable, I accepted this at face value and posed a simpler question instead, asking Johnson if he would provide me with a transcript of an interview he had with Colin Patterson in London. (At the time I was puzzled by Johnson's representation of Patterson; Johnson had provided me with a transcript of the ANMH speech, and I knew that Patterson hadn't been talking about the theory of evolution in that speech, but I still hoped that perhaps Johnson hadn't utterly misrepresented Patterson's views.) Johnson told me to publish my views and that he would then respond to them. I explained that it would be inappropriate to publish anything on the subject without trying to do thorough research first—which naturally involved trying to figure out what Patterson said during that interview! Johnson's response was that he stood by what he had written in Darwin on Trial. I explained that I accepted this fully, but that this did not answer my question. In this last letter, I asked him to please either provide the information I had requested or explain why he chose not to do so.

At this point I had received five letters from Johnson, each with a different excuse for why he was not answering my questions. I eventually had to send the last letter a second time, because Johnson simply failed to answer it. When pressed, he finally admitted that he had no intention of providing me with any information. He would not say why.

This bizarre correspondence is perhaps especially notable in light of the dedication to Darwin on Trial. Johnson piously dedicates his book to "those brave souls who asked the hard questions even when there was never a chance of getting a straight answer; and to those in science who want to allow the questions to be asked." My correspondence with Johnson is an excellent example of not being able to get a straight answer—and the questions I was asking were not even hard ones. When it comes to the critical examination of his own ideas, there seem to be a great many questions which Phillip Johnson has no intention of permitting. Since Johnson's dedication suggests that biologists are the evasive ones, I should add one further point: in the past several years, I have corresponded with, and asked favors from, evolutionary biologists on many occasions. None of them have ever answered those requests with the evasiveness which I received from Phillip Johnson.

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9. Conclusions

The facts I have listed above all point to one conclusion, and they are only the tip of the iceberg—there are many, many instances of trickery and misleading arguments which I haven't discussed in this document. Johnson's repeated attempts to stereotype evolutionists as atheists despite the fact that he has every reason to know otherwise; the way in which he has quoted evolutionary biologists out of context to give impressions which are not true to their views; the omission of vast amounts of evidence; the numerous examples of rhetorical sleight-of-hand and inflammatory rhetoric; his refusal to correct his work even when errors have been pointed out to him by reviewers; his refusal to follow the norms of intellectual inquiry-all of these patterns suggest that his intention is not to present an honest, accurate picture to his audience. They suggest, instead, that he is a lawyer playing the lawyer's game. I am not the first person to reach this conclusion about Johnson. For example, philosopher of science Michael Ruse (who initially found that he agreed with Johnson on certain philosophical issues) found himself regretting his trust in Johnson after Johnson misused statements made by Ruse at an American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium in 1993. Ruse wrote that Johnson's abuses broke him "from my complacent dream that perhaps we had moved on from the early crude days, where science was so clearly being attacked by people who had no genuine interest in finding the truth." Ruse added bluntly: "Johnson's response showed that his concern was not at all in scholarly debate. He merely wanted to take shots, simply to win at any cost." (Ruse's comments are used by Johnson—abused, Ruse might say—in the Epilogue to the second edition of Darwin on Trial.)

It is useless to try to explain science to someone who isn't interested in what the facts have to say. And it's useless to try to learn anything from such people. If they are clever, as Johnson is, they can find a way to claim that almost any fact supports their position. If evolutionists agree on something, it's a dogmatic orthodoxy; if they disagree, they're squabbling about every detail of evolutionary theory. If a piece of evidence seems to count against evolution, evolution has been disproven; if it seems to count for evolution, that merely shows that evolution is unfalsifiable. If scientists state that they are personally atheistic, they are clearly exposing the rotten metaphysical heart of evolution; if they state that they are religious, they are clearly trying to cover the rotten heart up. If we learn anything new, it's evidence that our current theory is completely false; if what we learn is exactly what we expected, it's only because we were precommitted to finding it in the first place. If we point out where creationists are wrong, we are persecuting the underdog; if we ignore them, we are refusing to face the fact that they're right. If a piece of evidence supports one part of evolutionary theory, it doesn't support that other part. If we find a strong piece of evidence for evolution, there ought to be more just like it. If an evolutionist speaks out in favor of Darwinism, it's because they were strong-armed into it; if they say anything which can be taken out of context to suggest any skepticism about evolution, it's resounding proof that nobody in science believes the theory.

I gave Johnson every chance I could to show that he was trustworthy. The academic community has done the same. The vast number of falsehoods and distortions; the trickery and stereotypes; the misleading way in which Johnson represents scientists and their views as well as science itself—the sheer number of these instances suggests that Johnson has little or no interest in truth or science. His focus is, as Futuyma puts it, "rhetoric, the tool of the Sophists, who taught their pupils how to win arguments, rather than how to seek for truth."

I would liken Darwin on Trial to a different ancient and infamous group. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for their hypocrisy: they observed formal rituals on the outside, but in their hearts they were corrupt. A "whitewashed tomb" is an excellent description of Johnson's arguments and the "intelligent design" movement which is founded on them. They are painstaking about appearing scientific, lavishing effort on their public relations and trying to dazzle their

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That's all nice and footnoted Joe with headers that read "Bait and Switch". "Misleading evidence" and generously sprinkled in are statements such as " A few years passed with this troubling thought at the back of my mind. I entered graduate school and started doing real science myself. And, the more I learned, the less I trusted Darwin on Trial. I finally challenged myself to put my mistrust to the test. Perhaps Johnson was merely confused about some things. What I should do, I told myself, is look at the sources he actually used in writing Darwin on Trial, and see what they say. Perhaps part of what Johnson says is accurate; perhaps his sources misled him in places. So I went to the campus library and started checking his claims.

I was a lot less naive when I finished that task. I found that almost every scientific source cited by Johnson had been misused or distorted, in ways ranging from simple misinterpretations and innuendos to the construction of what appears to be outright fiction. The more closely I examined Darwin on Trial, the more inaccuracies I found, until it became almost impossible to catalogue all of the misleading statements in Johnson's work. This book-upon which the "intelligent design" movement is trying to hang a program of social reform and public education-is perhaps the ugliest and most deceptive book I have ever seen."

The author of that critique is Jim Lippard, a Christian and a scientist. Looks like you have some serious learning to do Joe, and BTW ... I thoght you'd never ask! [wink]

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DS,

The author of that critique is Jim Lippard, a Christian and a scientist. Looks like you have some serious learning to do Joe, and BTW ... I thoght you'd never ask! [wink]

I don't know which is lamer, the fact that you couldn't rebut Johnson yourself and had to resort to cutting and pasting another article or the fact that you chose that article to use for your case.

Yeah, I've seen that before. No doubt you probably were impressed by the fact that it had footnotes (though I doubt you bothered to see what they were referencing). If you had paid attention you would see that Spitzer uses a lot of “Johnson seems to suggest…” rather than quoting from the text itself. He also says that “it is therefore possible to set his book side-by-side with the original statements and see if they match up” yet he never does set them side-by-side to show us that they don’t match. He also doesn’t address Johnson’s arguments about philosophical naturalism. I could go on an on but why bother. Mr. Spitzer isn't the one who brought up this debate, you did.

If you want to take Johnson on at the philosohical level -- the only point where I am in complete agreement with him -- then I will be more than happy to take up your challenge.

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Sorry Joe, that won't do. This is what you asked for. Page numbers, footnotes...ie. facts. I have read every word of that BTW, long ago even before that draft was out. Try again and this time please read the material you specifically requested and respond to that material.

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I already sent you an ess