Re: Phillip Johnson wiki

On 8/30/2024 2:50 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

On 2024-08-30 02:39:01 +0000, Chris Thompson said:
 

RonO wrote:

On 8/29/2024 2:26 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

On 2024-08-29 01:16:08 +0000, RonO said:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson
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Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no valid reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I guess nothing has come of the request.

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No. I had a back-and-forth discussion with the editor in question, mainly consisting of me suggesting a wording that he would accept and refrain from editing it back to what it was. He objected to all of these, except the last, which he hasn't replied to. I thought I'd leave it a month and then fix it.

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If you do not get this guys buy in, can he just remove it again?  What were his reasons for removing a perfectly valid quote, and Johnson's admission about the ID scam when Johnson never retracted what he had said.
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In the previous thread I note other people using the quote including Ken Miller in a public presentation, and I do not recall any blow back from Johnson.
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It's instructive to look at Laurence Moran's attempts to correct Wikipedia on the subject of junk DNA. A long-term editor/contributor (who is not a biologist/chemist/biochemist) to Wikipedia put up a ream of garbage on the topic and Larry rewrote it. The editor deleted Moran's work and put his own back up. They went around a few times but of course Larry's expertise meant nothing and the buffoon's seniority at Wikipedia meant everything.
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If the person who changed the Johnson page is someone with an ax to grind and has been at Wikipedia for any length of time, it's probably useless to try to present anything (s)he doesn't like.

 In his User Page, GuardianH describes himself as follows:
 "I'm an American high school student from Massachusetts with a passion in history, philosophy, and law along with an additional interest pertaining to sociology and higher education. I write and edit primarily on topics concerning constitutional law and legal scholarship."
 No obvious expertise in Intelligent Design, therefore, but he has been a very active editor, with more than 40000 contributions to Wikipedia. I'm not sure he has an axe to grind, but he's just stuck his heels in.
 

In the transcript of Judgement day intelligent design on trial Johnson admits something similar in that he admits that change isn't going to happen in his lifetime, and the "force of the counter-attack" is a reference to the real science and supporting biological evolution.  This force just made him admit that nothing that they had was comparable. Johnson sat through every day of testimony to come to his conclusion. There was no comparison between the scientific theory of biological evolution, and the untestable hypothesis that was intelligent design.
QUOTE:
PHILLIP JOHNSON: I had thought, at one point, that we would make a breakthrough on this issue and change the scientific community in my lifetime. Now I'm somewhat sobered by the force of the counter-attack that we have received. And I see that it's going to be a longer process than that.
END QUOTE:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/judgment-day-intelligent-design-on-trial/
I usually use two quotes from the Berkeley Science Review article
QUOTE:
I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
world.
END QUOTE:
QUOTE:
For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any
efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at all.”
“In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now that the public schools are not going to change their line in my lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.”
END QUOTE:
Johnson never retracted these statements, and I do not recall him supporting the teach ID scam after Dover.  What your editor needs to do is find some retraction or later statement where Johnson changed his mind.
Johnson did make the claim that the judge should not have ruled about whether ID was science or not (though he admitted that ID was not comparable to the science backing biological evolution) but that was a stupid claim since both sides requested that the Judge rule on the matter.  The creationists wanted the ruling because the Supreme court had already stated that any valid science supporting creationism could be taught in the public schools, but what was then available was not considered to be valid science.  Intelligent design was just warmed over creationist stupidity.  The Top Six best evidences for ID were all god-of-the-gaps denial used by the scientific creationists, and the Supreme Court had stated that just because there was no current scientific explanation for something, that was not evidence for creationism.
Ron Okimoto