Phillip Johnson

A judge whose articulate criticism of evolution and advocacy of intelligent design leads to him being credited with being one of the major architects of the Intelligent Design discussions.

The Church of Darwin

"A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin's theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: 'In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin.' ... one reason the science educators panic at the first sign of public rebellion is that they fear exposure of the implicit religious content in what they are teaching. An even more compelling reason for keeping the lid on public discussion is that the official neo-Darwinian theory is having serious trouble with the evidence. This is covered over with the vague claim that all scientists agree that 'evolution has occurred.' Since the Darwinists sometimes define evolution merely as 'change', and lump minor variation with the whole creation story as 'evolution', a few trivial examples like dog-breeding or fruitfly variation allow them to claim proof for the whole system. "

Defeating Darwinism

"Politically astute scientific naturalists feel no hostility toward those religious leaders who implicitly accept the key naturalistic doctrine that supernatural powers do not actually affect the course of nature .. The most sophisticated naturalists realize that it is better to say that statements about God are 'religious' and hence incapable of being more than expressions of subjective feeling. It would be pretty ridiculous, after all, to make a big deal out of proving that Zeus and Apollo do not really exist." p100-101

"The conflict between the naturalistic worldview and the Christian supernaturalistic worldview goes all the way down. It cannot be papered over by superficial compromises .. It cannot be mitigated by reading the Bible figuratively rather than literally .. There is no satisfactory way to bring two such fundamentally different stories together, although various bogus intellectual systems offer a superficial compromise to those who are willing to overlook a logical contradiction or two. A clear thinker simply has to go one way or the other." p111.

Exposing Naturalistic Presuppositions of Evolution

"He who is a skeptic in one set of beliefs is a true believer in another set of beliefs."

Cited by Frank Turek in "Stealing from God", pxxiii.

Johnson does a reflection at the end of Three Views on Creation and Evolution,p267.