Q. And what do you understand Mr. Nelson to mean by the way science was defined in this debate? How was science defined, so to speak, in Edwards v. Aguillard?
A. It's defined as naturalistic, remaining within the area of the natural world and seeking explanations.
Q. And under those rules, creationists didn't have a chance?
A. As Phillip Johnson understood that. Phillip Johnson considers the definition of science as naturalistic to be arbitrary and operari and so that it would exclude supernatural explanations from the very beginning.
Q. Could you go to the next passage?
A. Quote, Johnson rejected the philosophical dichotomizing. Definitions of science, he argued, could be contrived to exclude any conclusion we dislike or to include any we favor, end quote.
Q. Go to the next passage.
A. Quote, In June 1993, Johnson invited several of the mostly younger members of that community to a conference at the California beach town of Pajaro Dunes. Present were scientists and philosophers who themselves would later become well-known such as biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, 1996, mathematician and philosopher, William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, 1998, and Intelligent Design, 1999, and developmental biologist, Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution, 2000.
Of the 14 participants at the Pajaro Dunes conference, only three, microbiologist Siegfried Scherer of the Technical University of Munich, paleontologist Kurt Wise of Brian College, and me, that would be Paul Nelson, could be seen as traditional creationists, end quote.
Q. So Mr. Nelson is acknowledginging he is a traditionalist --
A. Dr. Nelson is, yes.
Q. These passages I just asked you to read, you agree, this is an accurate history of how the intelligent design movement arose?
A. This is consistent with everything I've seen, yes.
Q. Creation-science was ruled unconstitutional in Edwards?
A. Yes.
Q. And then Mr. Johnson came up with with a new strategy for arguing for creationism?
A. Yes. Dr. Nelson actually gives Phillip Johnson credit for reviving the debate. After they thought that the two-model approach was dead, he gives Johnson credit for reviving the debate about origins.
Q. His new approach was to try to redefine science from how the NAS understood?
A. Yes. He rejects the definition of science as naturalistic.
Q. And then he gathered around him these figures that are identified here, Behe, Dembski, and Wells, to take up that project?
A. Yes. As I understand it, this was a conference that Professor Johnson called in order to do this, to draw these people together, and begin to execute what would become the Wedge Strategy.
Q. Matt, could you go to the next passage, please? And could you highlight the heading of this part of Mr. Nelson's article? And what is the heading there?
A. This is a subheading in the article. It's God's Freedom and the Logic of Design.
Q. And could you highlight the passages, Matt, that Dr. Forrest did in this section?
A. Quote, Johnson saw that allowing for the possibility of design as special divine action, for instance, God creating human beings directly, meant that one must also allow for other possibilities, such as God electing, if he so chose, to use an evolutionary process that wasn't self-designed.
Quote, I believe, Johnson wrote, that a God exists who could create out of nothing if he wanted to do so. But he might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead, end Johnson's quote. God could have created everything in six 24-hour days or not.
The fundamental point is to allow for the possibility of design. The scientific narrative of design, when God acted, and how, might capture any number of competing theories, end quote.
Q. Any doubt about who Mr. Johnson is declaring the intelligent designer is, according to Mr. Nelson?
A. No. As Dr. Nelson recounts, the designer is specifically named as God.
Q. Nothing about space aliens?
A. No, space aliens are -- Dr. Dembski, in 1992, actually wrote an article in which he stipulated that he was not talking about space aliens, he was talking about a supernatural transcendent designer.
Q. Nothing about super time travelers here?
A. No, nothing like that.
Q. Matt, could you go to the next passage.
A. Quote, The promise of the big tent of ID is to provide a setting where Christians and others may disagree amicably and fruitfully about how best to understand the natural world as well as scripture, end quote.
Q. Are you aware of any other scientific theories in which understanding of scripture is central to the enterprise?
A. Not as science is currently practiced, no, I'm not aware of that.
Q. Has Mr. Johnson, in addition to the article we looked at very early in your testimony where he defined intelligent design as theistic realism, has he written other articles or books that suggest, that for him intelligent design is a religious proposition?
A. Yes.
Q. And made statements as well to that effect?
A. Yes. In fact, he made a statement in, I think, 1996, that the intelligent design debate is not about science, it's about religion and philosophy.
Q. I'd like to have you look at Exhibit P-524. And if you could illuminate the title and author. What is this article called?
A. This is called How the Evolution Debate Can be Won. It's by Dr. Phillip Johnson.
Q. And do you recognize this document?
A. Yes. This is 1999. This is the text of a speech that Professor Johnson gave at a conference that was called by Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida. It's an annual conference that Dr. Kennedy calls. It's called the Reclaiming America for Christ Conference.
Q. Have you highlighted passages in this article?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Can you go ahead and do that, Matt?
A. Quote, To talk of a purposeful or guided evolution is not to talk about evolution at all. That is slow creation. When you understand it that way, you realize that the Darwinian theory of evolution contradicts not just the Book of Genesis, but every word in the Bible from beginning to end.
It contradicts the idea that we are here because a creator brought about our existence for a purpose. That is the first thing I realized, and it carries tremendous meaning, end quote.
Q. Does this fairly summarize Mr. Johnson's opposition to the theory of evolution?
A. This is very characteristic of it.
Q. We'll go to the next passage, Matt.
A. Quote, I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. One very famous book that's come out of The Wedge is biochemist Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, which has had an enormous impact on the scientific world, end quote.
Q. According Mr. Johnson, Mr. Behe's work is part of his project?
A. It'ss a very prominent part of the Wedge Strategy.
Q. Could you go to the next passage, Matt?
A. Quote, Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible.
When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? When I preach from the Bible, as I often do at churches and on Sundays, I don't start with Genesis. I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves, end quote.
Q. So Mr. Johnson finds support for intelligent design in the Bible?
A. He specifically supports it in John 1:1.
Q. Is he the only intelligent design leader who finds that intelligent design is derived from the book of John?
A. No, Dr. Dembski has very prominently cited the Book of John as the foundation of intelligent design.
Q. What about Charles Thaxton? Has he done that?
A. Yes, he has. Dr. Thaxton wrote a book with Walter Bradley and Roger Olsen published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in 1984. It's called The Mystery of Life's Origins.
In the epilogue of that book, he argues for special creation, supernatural creation by a creator beyond the cosmos. Near the end of that epilogue chapter, he cites someone named P Fong. That's initial P Fong. And the citation of P Fong called upon the (inaudible) prologue, which is the first 18 verses of the First Book of John.
Q. Could you pull up Exhibit P-355? Do you recognize this document?
A. Yes.
Q. What is it?
A. This is an article from World Magazine about Dr. Phillip Johnson. It is dated December 2003.
Q. And what is World Magazine?
A. World Magazine is a religious magazine.
Q. Matt, could you go to the first highlighted passage?
A. Quote, But once someone accepts the fact that random evolution couldn't produce life on earth, it has to have developed some other way. Quote by Johnson, I look for the best place to start the search, Mr. Johnson says, and I found it in the prologue to the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the word.
And I ask this question, does scientific evidence tend to support this conclusion or the contrary conclusion of the materialists that in the beginning were the particles, end quote.
Q. So again, the reference to the Book of John?
A. Yes.
Q. And is it fair to say, Mr. Johnson starts with the Book of John and looks for scientific evidence to support it?
A. Actually, he talks about having -- upon rejecting natural selection as an explanation, he looked around for the place to start in finding an alternate explanation. He says he found it in the Book of John.
Q. Then tried to gather the scientific evidence that would support it?
A. Well, he regards this as true scientifically.
Originally Posted by robert_papalid_ece
im back... hmm... those miracles were done during the time when Jesus Christ came here... so better wait for the Second Coming na lang jud siguro to see more miracles... i agree with the other poster... Guitargod... "Lihok tawo jud"... and one thing... why are you asking God to clean the mess? he isn't your servant... but we are His servants... He is our shepherd... and we are his sheeps... not monkeys...
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