From:    Chris Colby
To:      All                                    Dec-18-93 12:46PM
Subject: Re: Announcement

Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome
From: colby@bu.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Message-ID: <2evq6g$ni3@news.bu.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins

Phillip E Johnson (philjohn@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:

: I wish I could afford to give a free copy to everyone on T.O. who
: has said something memorable on this subject, but I only have a
: hundred or so to pass out and it would excruciating to pick
: favorites.

I'd like to mention that I will give a free copy of my FAQ to
anyone who asks! That's right -- FREE! And it makes a great
gift for the holidays. This FAQ contains all my greatest
hits. Check out "Selection is differential reproductive
success", "Evolution is a change in the gene pool", and
my favorite, the hauntingly evocative "The best line of
evidence for common descent is the nested distribution
of genetic traits across taxa". You won't find that
mentioned in "Darwin on Trial".

So you make the choice. Spend 10 bucks to read Johnson's
"I don't understand evolution, but I'm sure its wrong
because, well, I want it to be." Or read some real
science -- positive statements of fact and testable
theories and hypotheses. Anyone can simply refuse to
believe things, although Johnson's lawyerly approach
is obfuscational weaseldom at its finest, but it takes
real guts to come up with scientific theories and have
them stand the test of time in the scientific community.

"Darwin on Trial"? Sorry Phil, the jury of Darwin's peers
have found in favor of him long ago. Say "Hi" to Doug
Lewellyn on the way out.

: Merry Christmas!

Blow it out your ass.

Chris Colby
email: colby@biology.bu.edu

============================================================
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Subject: How do you separate creationism from religion (Was: Re: Announcement)
From: agnostic@stein2.u.washington.edu (Jeff Lowder)
Message-ID: <2f0pe7$r5@news.u.washington.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins

Hello, Pr. Johnson.

It's been a while since I've read your book, about 9 months, in fact, so
forgive me if I'm asking you a question you addressed in your book.  But
I'd like to know how you separate creationism from religion?  I'm
assuming that you think creationism can be presented in a strictly
scientific context, so perhaps you could help me out by defining science
and giving us your criteria for a scientific theory.

I contend that creationism violates (among others) the following
criteria for a scientific theory:

1.  A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable.
      Creationism requires a belief in a Creator or God.  How is that
      falsifiable?  What experimental result or observation would disprove
      (theoretically speaking) the existence of God?

2.  Must be operationally definable.
      Creationism asserts that all living things were originally
      created according to their own kind.  How do you define kind?
      I haven't been able to find a good definition of kind yet.

3.  Must pose a new set of scientific problems upon which scientists may
work.
      I have not found any evidence whatsoever that creationists are
      engaged in any experimental research concerning creationism.
      Granted, there are creationists with scientific degrees, but it
      seems like any research they do is in non-creationist fields.
      Am I mistaken?

      It seems like creationists rely heavily on quotations of evolutionists
      in the scientific literature to make their case because they are not
      engaged in any research of their own.  I remember that at the
      Arkansas equal time trial, creationist witnesses suggested that
      their writings was being suppressed by the scientific community.
      But as Judge Overton wrote in his decision, no witness was able
      to produce an article for which publication had been refused.
      I also seem to remember reading an article where Eugenie Scott
      and John Cole did a database search for articles in the scientific
      literature for articles by creationists, and didn't seem to find many,
      if any.  (Anybody remember the exact finding of the article?)

Thanks for your time.

Jeff Lowder