Two Reviews

http://www.stnews.org/archives/2002[…]tures.html#5

In the same issue of Science and Theology News, there’s remarkable interview with William Dembski and John Haught. John Haught is a theologian who believes evolution is essentially correct, ID is not a valid concept and has certain theological difficulties—hardly the raving lunatic atheistic Darwinist that Philip Johnson attacks as the only supporters of evolution.

Here’s John Haught:

My position is that the Darwinian revolution is a great opportunity and a great gift for theology. I agree with Dembski that Darwinism does not tell us everything, but it has uncovered things about the natural world we did not know about before.

Here’s Dembski in response:

I do not think Darwinism is the whole show, though it is part of the show. I am often called an anti-evolutionist, but I could be comfortable with common descent that can be squared with the Christian tradition. The problem is that common descent, or common ancestry, has been tied to the Darwinian mechanism… Perhaps it is only over the adequacy of the Darwinian mechanism, or the extent to which it applies, that we disagree.

Haught is amazed at this and responds:

Well, this is an interesting clarification! As I have talked to people who are critical of your work, they often say that the biggest problem with intelligent design is that it suppresses the massive amounts of evidence found in the fossil record, biogeographical distribution, radiometric dating, embryology, comparative anatomy and so forth. The thing that causes intelligent design to seem somewhat marginal to the scientific enterprise is that the data which scientists work to gather is not fully taken into account by the movement.

Haught continues and gets another surprising answer from Dembski. Haught asks,

Is there solidarity inside the intelligent design movement? For example, I attended a conference at Calvin College [Design, Self-Organization, and the Integrity of Creation] and listened to Jonathan Wells and his very vehement denial of the possibility of common descent. I wonder how you can get along with people within the movement who are apparently so much more anti-evolutionist than you claim to be.

Dembski:

John Roche describes intelligent design as a big tent with many people under it from young-earth creationists to Michael Behe who accepts common descent. I am not sure that he would go to the mat for it, but he says there is good evidence. So there is a broad spectrum and that is just within the Christian world!

So, apparently Dembski concedes common descent and is a crypto evolutionist! Does Philip Johnson know this?