The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism

by Phillip E. Johnson

Book Overview

Phillip E. Johnson highlights the deficiencies in science and the philosophy (naturalism) that undergirds and outlines a cognitive revolution.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0830822674
• ISBN13: 9780830822676
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

When will the truth be acknowledged?

I have just finished reading this book and also attending one of Dr. Johnson's lectures. Like many other people I am tired of being force fed the orthodox evolutionary theories as indisputable "fact". I am also tired of the vicious censorship and character assassination that typifies the response of the science establishment to any criticism of their "positions of faith" regarding Darwinism, evolution and atheism. You can usually tell the confidence a group has in their postion on a subject by the stridency with which they reply to criticism. The stridency of the establishment's response to Dr. Johnson and others in the "design" movement should give their supporters pause to wonder that if the establishement is as comfortable with their position and "science", why are they responding as they are? If the critics are wrong, why the need to destroy them personally? The simple answer (and correct) is that both are postions on this subject are postions of faith, not of science. Dr. Johnson correctly points out in his book that science supports the design theory and that the evolutionary establishment is simply defending their faith - not logic and not science. The pendulum is beginning to swing back and it terrifies the powerbrokers of the evolutionary establishment. If you want a fair, thought provoking analysis on this subject, read this book. If you prefer being told what to believe, then continue to keep you head in the sand and watch MTV.

A-L or A-Z its you choice

First of all let the reader of these reviews beware. The majority of the writers have not read or simply do not have the cerebral quotient to conceive the thesis of the book. First lets delineate what this book is NOT about:It is NOT about trying to disprove Evolution. It is NOT about a lawyer trying to prove he knows more about science than true scientist do. It is NOT a treatise on Intelligent Design.But this is how the book has been characterized by many of the negative reviewers before me. SO WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?This book is about two different philosophical worldviews and how these two worldviews impact science and scientific theories. It delineates between the two opposing philosophies at hand. The book shows clearly how science and scientist are forced to accept dogmatically the philosophy of naturalism or be spurned from the scientific community. The sad part of naturalistic belief system is that it precludes the scientist from using all of the available empirical and verifiable data as his or her disposal. It insists that they sit in a box and are only allowed to view the items in their naturalistic box. Anything that falls outside the box, even if they know it is true and has been proven to be true has to be at best ignored or at worst falsified into a non-eventuality. The bottom line is that the naturalistic scientist cannot use all the evidence at his disposal so his theories or constructs are at best weak due to the inability to view the panoply of events around him. The most curious item about naturalistic scientist is their insistence that their philosophical presuppositions make them unbiased. When in reality they are being controlled by materialistic ideals and not allowed to venture out of there box. This in a nutshell is what this book is about, would you prefer a teacher who is teaching you child how to write to be constrained by a philosophy that the only letters in the alphabet are A-L and anything after L just doesn't exist. Or would you rather have a teacher that says balderdash; We have 26 letters and they are A-Z. Mr. Johnson is an A-Z person. What are you?A-L?OR A-Z?

Rationality vs rationalization

This book presents a serious challenge to the modern naturalistic worldview that all answers to reality are to be found in empirical investigation, including the question of origins and even questions of morality. It rests on the (usually unacknowledged) *assumption* that nature is all there is.Much that is claimed as rationality by adherents of naturalism is in fact mere rationalization, but since they pull the strings behind the scientific establishment (and hold the purse strings), they usually succeed in stifling open debate. Their refusal to face up honestly to the challenge posed by the origin of life and the origin of information is an illustration of this. But their refusal to engage their critics in open debate also betrays their lack of confidence in their position. Their uneasiness sometimes degenerates into paranoia, as evidenced by the irrational knee-jerk reaction over the Kansas board of education amendment of the evolution section of the science syllabus. Their frequent resort to authoritarian bully tactics to 'protect' science is an inherent contradiction. Often, materialistic naturalists are so deeply indoctrinated in their dogma that they are quite unable to comprehend their opponents' viewpoint, as when they demand their critics to provide a better *naturalistic* explanation of origins than the one they criticise, when the whole point is that there is no satisfactory *naturalistic* explanation. Atheistic science prefers to cling to an intellectually bankrupt theoretical position rather than relinquish naturalism. But "claiming to have knowledge is not a truimph for science unless it is true knowledge, and admitting that we don't have answers is an improvement on dogmatically retaining the wrong answers."A frequent naturalist assertion is that scientific progress would be retarded by accepting a theistic position. This is false on at least two counts. Firstly, many of the founders of modern science were theists who believed that the universe was designed by an intelligent creator, and this belief *motivated* their scientific investigations. Secondly, many contemporary scientists, including many working in the medical and biological sciences, have only a rudimentary knowledge of evolutionary theory, and do their research without reference to it.The author is an old hand at taking on the bastions of naturalism, and it is a pleasure to read a book that argues its case so cogently.

The survival of the fittest: Darwinism won't survive

As a law professor in Portugal, I have been deeply inspired by Phillip Johnson's life and work. He has made it clear to me that lawyers should take part in this debate and give their own contributions. Phillip Johnson's contribution has been outstanding, as even his adversaries concede. In this particular work, Phillip Johnson shows clearly that Darwinism (in a broad sense) cannot aspire to become a "total theory" or a "metanarrative" of reality. It's flaws on the methodological and scientific levels are more than enough to render it's metaphysical extrapolations as nothing less than a philosophical fraud. Richard Dawkins obsession with chance explanations for natural events, for instance, reminds me of someone who tries desperately to cause the "appearence of an accident" (planting, faking and explaining away the relevant evidence), just to collect the money from the insurance company. Men like Phillip Johnson, William Dembski and Michael Behe, among others, just won't let him get away with it. The Wedge of Truth allows us to see the "ideological design" (not a very intelligent one, by the way) that lies behind the whole naturalist project. Needless to say that this project has devastating effects on the realms of politics, law, human dignity, human rights, freedom and responsability,and so on. Everything would be about the purposeless life of amoral and selfish genes. This form of materialistic rationality, certainly a kind of absolutism or fundamentalism, would mean the end of reason as we know it. Fortunately this is too stupid to be true. The fact is that Darwinism tends to run away form competing ideias, maybe because it fears becoming a standard case of extinction as a result of competition. Phillip Johnson and Wedge show clearly that human reason is ultimately founded on some form of absolute Reason. The nature of this Reason seems to be far beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, but it's presence is palpable and overwhelming in nature's huge amounts of information, something both as immaterial and as real as "intellectual property" (original work of authorship in a tangible form). Information is detectable and measurable by falsefiable and scientifically sound criteria. Nature and life are not just about matter, mutations and selection. They are also about intelligence and information. Thus, the design argument has nothing (and I mean nothing!) to do with "miracles" of the "God of the Gaps", but with the intrinsic form and substance of nature (much like the original work of authorship in tangible form), something that we, as intelligent beeings have a natural capacity to recognize (v.g. intellectual property is not a monkey business)and to study. This explains the misterious continuity between the objective structure of reality and the working of our subjective reason (Darwinists just take it for granted, that which makes science both possible and meaningful. Please read The Wedge of Truth. As Immanuel Kant would put it: "Sapere aude!"

On the money

Phillip Johnson's best book yet -- the one I'd been waiting for. In this book he deals more with the philosophical issues and Christianity's response to those issues.What is science? A search for TRUTH, at all costs? Or is it instrinsically bound to naturalism, a belief system? Why do evolutionists need to defend their beliefs by resorting to obfuscation and cheap propaganda?Answers to these questions, and more, await you. This is a must-read book for anyone concerned about a philosophical movement which has had enormous negative consequences in recent history and promises worse to come; a movement dominating our culture today with little real criticism. Johnson offers the criticism, and begs for more. He also brings up what is becoming the key scientific issue (real science!): can the mechanism Darwinism describes actually create information from raw, inanimate materials (e.g., create cells with DNA and the ability to reproduce, which are necessary for natural selection even to start)?When I was an undergrad, folks had bumper stickers that said things like "Challenge authority." It's high time we challenged the cultural "authority" of evolutionism and its negative view of the value of human life.This book is an extension of the lead article in Touchstone magazine's double issue last summer on evolutionism (July/Aug 1999). Most of the other authors in that issue have books (Dembski, Behe, etc.) well worth reading.