Customer Reviews

Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

My doctoral dissertation is an investgation into the beliefs of scientists. Briefly I found that most scientists hold very metaphysical beliefs . When it comes to evolution most of them accept the current materialistic worldview but few of them defend it strongly. It is rather held because nothing else is around.

I started my investigation into Darwinism expecting to gradually understand it better and deepen my confidence in it. Naturally I began with the experts- Dawkins, Gould, Mayr, simpson . To date I have read over 50 books - some very detailed indeed. I have also taught biology at undergraduate level. The opposite has happened , it seems the more I study the more it appears that much of Darwinism, especially the overall materialistic , chance driven worldview seems to be held on faith rather than convincing evidence. Certainly it is a valid viewpoint but I was given to believe that there was little doubt in the matter.

Johnson's book is an enormous pleasure to read. His writing is beautifully lucid. He is honest about his Christian bias and , I feel, he gets right to the heart of the matter. Really this book deserves to be read by everyone. I personally find belief in God eeven less likely than Neo-Darwinism but I admire the way Johnson reveals his faith. I would love to correspond with a man like this - after reading his book I feel he is wise friend indeed.

I wonder whether the negative reviewers have actually read Johnson's book. This scientist (B.S. Chemistry, Caltech, M.A.Physics, Harvard, Ph.D., Chemical Physics, Harvard; 30 years of research in biophysical nmr and MRI) believes Johnson has made a strong case against the Darwinian model for evolution and ethics. As he points out, people are wedded to the philosophical assumptions, not the science.

This book is by no means casual bedside reading, but Phillip Johnson is brilliant in bringing to light the basis of naturalistic philosophy and the logical assumptions made by those who practice it. Johnson gives illustrations of how this brand of thought has played itself out in science, law and education.

With a master's background in the hard sciences, I've found a steady mentality through school that evolution is fact and God has no place in science. Phillip Johnson helped me to understand how the logic of evolutionists works and how hollow and circular their reasoning often is. Understanding naturalists' logical assumptions has dispelled my fear of making a sound arguement in favor of intelligent design and seeing through those arguements made by those advancing a naturalistic worldview.

I found this book a joy to read. Johnson leads the reader carefully and clearly through his well-reasoned arguments. I now have a heightened awareness of the very real danger of naturalism to science and many areas of Western culture. Rather than succumb to the naturalist mind-set as so many theists have regrettably done, Johnson demonstrates how to stand firm and fight back! If science is defined to exclude God (as it is) then science is limiting itself and may no longer be searching for truth (as it does not).

On the face of it, evolution appears as a 19th century, white, Victorian imperialist creation myth that reflects their views of "progress", making man in the image of a biological industrial revolution. So how has the hypothosis, imminently unprovable either way by traditional scientific method, become the foremore cultural weltanschauung preached by all media? Johnson tackles evolution head-on in other books, but here he deconstructs the modernistic worldview that have become dogma in some scientific circles. That Johnson is a long-time Berkeley law professor is not a drawback. Coming to the problems without the baggage of losing his credibility or being ostracized by his peers, he looks at his subject rationally and makes decisions by the weight of evidence rather than "Because that's what we were taught." (Certainly I've read enough books on astronomy, a favorite field of mine, where the otherwise learned professors misconstrue and woefully misunderstand medieval science and scholastics, and maliciously misrepresent some of the manifestations of Renaissance humanism, esp. its firm genesis in medieval scholasticism, and particularly the cases of Galileo and Bruno, where their own scholarship broke down entirely). It's hard to be open-minded (open-minded meaning capable of weighing valid options to be persuaded of one or the other) in either theistic or scientific circles, especially with the "circle the wagons" mindset of the latter. Certainly all disciplines, whether scientific, historical, theological, philosopical, literary, etc. have the jargon they use to keep outsiders from entering their inner sancta, and Johnson has the stigma in biological cliques of not being among the annointed. But the reason I give less than the highest rating is because his book is far too short. More history, more subtly developed, would be welcomed. Nevertheless, Johnson weighs his words carefully so as not to be ultimately combative or exploitative, and that's a welcome change from all sides. It's not for the "I believe in God and that's that" or "I believe in a totally mechanistic universe" crowds. But it may help anyone who is honestly open-minded to weigh how the materialistic doctrines reasonably, without simply accepting them as Truth.

REASON IN THE BALANCE is one of Phillip Johnson's follow up works to his book DARWIN ON TRIAL. REASON originated in the discussions and debates that Johnson partook while promoting DARWIN ON TRIAL and some of his experiences in the evolution versus creative design debate.

The book illustrates the far reaching affects of naturalism in everything from education to the law. Naturalists place their trust in reason, yet, as Johnson also points out they often arrive at conclusions and take place in discussions in a very unreasonable manner. The book examines how naturalism has eroded away the ethical and moral foundation on which much of our society was based and how decisions based upon a naturalistic world view are often far from reasonable and very unlogical.

The book is not light reading and mixes terms from law, philosophy, and science. A person who hasn't had much reading experience may find the book difficult to get through. However, if one reads the book with and open mind and heart, it is worth the while.

The very nature of the negative reviews on this book prove Johnson's point: people committed to a system are unwilling to examine that system. This book's detractors have--in this review space--called Johnson a multitude of names (ad hominem), called his credentials into question by saying he's not worthy to question their god, science (poisoning the well), and pathetically parodied him to make his arguments appear backward (straw man).

Once and for all: Johnson is not attacking science. He is attacking the assumption that, when it comes to explaining our origins, only philosophical naturalism and materialism are available to explain it. It is not testable, falsifiable, or observable that only materialist means created (or developed) the universe, and therefore defining evlution as the only valid scientific theory is outside of the realm of science (indeed, origins are in some sense outside the realm of science). If scientists and their supporters really wanted to be as objective as they love to claim, there would be no hesitation in admitting this. The fact that they don't is, once again, proof of Johnson's theories. The evolutionists have an agenda: explain our origins without God. They cannot give this up. They can say, "well, God created the universe and then it evolved." But yet they have no proof for evolution that cannot be explained in other ways (namely, I.D./creationist theory). And many things are explained BETTER by I.D. theory; so why push evolution if there's not a prior committment to materialism? The creationists are being the real scientists...

I read this about a year ago and a propos for a book of this nature, it has garnereed scowling criticism and adoring praise, but not much in between. Well, here I come to fill the dearth.

I am an evolutionist, but I have, like Johnson, grown tired of scientism (the belief that everything non-science is nonsense) and an over-reliance on naturalism (calling everything that is merely naturalistic a full-fledged science). On issuese related to this he stands his ground well (better than any other IDer I've read). His point is this: science and naturalism have become increasingly synonymous and we are living in an age that craves for naturalism and naturalistic explanation even at the cost of accuracy or coherence. What does this lead us to? An uber-reductinism that, as William James puts it, leaves room for nothing we can care about: those intangibles like feelings, moral thought, ideals and such. They are dismissed as frivolity and 'touchy feely'. Instead we get 'selfish genes', reduction of the mind solely to matter (even though thoughts themselves are intangible as such), and our new moral code: game theory.

Another area Johnson picks up on is that science is starting to pass the threshold of being contingent on experiment and sense data. Rather, disciplines like sociobiology and theoretical physics are so theory based and oriented not on matter, but models, that they are hardly 'sciences' anymore. Johnson hits that on the head too. But instead of calling them philosophy (where they may better belong, being so theory based) we call them science; not becuase they are experimental, but because they are naturalistic.

But here is where I part ways with him. From here he assumes that science should not 'rig the game' by only allowing naturalistic explanations. Instead (this is where he gets sneaky) we should look at supernatural causes as a possible explanation (and his favorite, Intellegent Design theory). But what Johnson fails to hit on is that even the theoretical disciplines above a.) try to explain (rather than postulate and stop there) even if it is by model rather than experiment, and b.) that the above disciplines he castigates as 'not sciences' are at very least falsifiable (sociobiology might be, for example, by the fossil record or further DNA evidence). Intellegent Design merely replaces the mystery of matter's origin with the mystery of the 'designer' it posits but does not attempt to start explaining. And it is literally unfalsifiable because it lacks content other than "a designer did it".

From here, it goes far downhill as Johnson gets into all the supposed moral consequences of naturalism: moral relativism, nihilism, secularism in law and education, etc. He shows, though, only that these are POSSIBLE consequences of naturalism but never seems to come around to why - if one does not posit an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibonevelent creator - that one has to end up a relativist and a nihilist. In fact, he failse even to cite the most embarrasing fact to his case: most sociobiologists are as stertnly committed to fighting relativism and nihilism as he is (and sometimes, as in the case of Dawkins, more vigorously)!!

In conclusion, I gave the book 3 stars because despite the fact that I disagree with much in this book, the perceptions about naturalisms connection to science and vice versa are spot on, and the rest of the book is, if anything, quite learned. I think that even those into science and naturalistic philosophy should at least benefit by reading some of Johnson's adroit criticisms particularly in the first half of the book. Unfortunately, outside of those good points, there is much passionate asserting and little explaining.

Philip E. Johnson details America's full-fledged embrace of Naturalism within recent contemporary history. The book is an accurate doccumentation of our nations' radical ideological shift towards a non-theistic world view and of course the price of this stupidity, what it looks like, who sells it.

Johnson shows that "the fact of evolution" is neither fact nor science, but rather a dogmatic, naturalistic world-view that dominates every aspect of our culture. Evolutionists' fundamental presumption is that rational thinking begins with "God does not exist (or if He does exist, existing is all that He's done)". This presumption logically leads to the conclusion that anything based on the idea that God does exist is irrational and consequently, not worthy of serious discussion. Johnson shows the devastating outworkings of this naturalistic philosophy and how it has impacted science, law and education. This book is especially convincing when supplemented with Johnson's Darwin on Trial, Stephen Carter's The Culture of Disbelief, and Ravi Zacharias's Can Man Live Without God