Objections Sustained: Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture (Paperback)

by Phillip E. Johnson (Author) "THIS FIRST ESSAY IN THE VOLUME, A REVIEW OF ADRIAN DESMOND'S Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest (Addison-Wesley, 1997), was actually the last..." (more)
Key Phrases: naturalistic evolution, scientific naturalists, evolutionary naturalism, Stephen Jay Gould, Maynard Smith, Richard Dawkins (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Phillip E. Johnson has been called "our age's clearest thinker on evolution" and the "principal lay critic of Darwinism." Indeed, some of his most persuasive writing has been penned in opposition to the sacred cow of modern secularism. Here, for the first time, are collected several of Johnson's pithiest essays attacking the idolatry of Darwin.Here also, however, are his stimulating thoughts on a wide variety of other topics, including "pop" science, religious freedom, American pragmatism, Paul Feyerabend, Winston Churchill, postmodernism and natural law.If you have read and appreciated Johnson's previous books, you'll enjoy this gathering of his finest work written for magazines and journals. Even if you haven't read Johnson before, though, Objections Sustained will be an excellent introduction to a thinker who has become one of the foremost cultural critics of our day.

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830822887
• ISBN-13: 978-0830822881
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,215,069 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very readable overview of issues related to modern culture, October 24, 1999

By	Robert Harris (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Objections Sustained : Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture (Hardcover)

A readable style, combined with short sentences and short essays overall, make this volume of book reviews and essays just the prescription for a busy person interested in some of the cultural and philosophical issues surrounding the origins debate. Johnson's basic position can be summed up by a sentence on page 61: "Darwinism is a lot stronger as philosophy than it is as empirical science." He demonstrates this fact by coming at it from several angles in the various articles. One of the interesting facts Johnson reveals is that some evolutionists use the same scorn and ridicule (rather than evidence) to attack each other as they do to attack the hated "creationists." The punctuated equilibria evolutionists call the natural selection evolutionists "Darwinian fundamentalists," while the natural selection evolutionists call the punctuated equilibria folks, "Punk eeks" and call the theory "evolution by jerks." Johnson believes that Darwinism has ten more years only before it gets relegated to history classes. Whether or not that is the case, the next ten years should prove very interesting in this arena.

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darwin Was Wrong, November 29, 2000

By	R. A. Miller (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Objections Sustained : Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture (Hardcover)

Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that a Chinese paleontologist touring the U. S. was puzzled at the hostile reception he received in this country when he told of the lack of fossil evidence in China for Darwin's evolutionary theory. He said, "In my country, it's OK to criticize Darwin, but you can't criticize the government. In America, it's OK to criticize the government, but you're not supposed to criticize Darwin."

Reading Philip Johnson opens your eyes to the fact that although Darwin's work was insightful in certain matters pertaining to natural selection, his theory of evolution has almost no fossil evidence to back it up. Darwin admitted as much when he formulated his theory, hoping that future discoveries in the world's fossil beds would prove him right. So far, that evidence has never been forthcoming.

Many reviewers seem to take issue with Johnson for his lack of scientific credentials. However, we tend to forget that Henry Ford revolutionized personal transportation in this country, having had only an eighth grade education. It took a Nathan Pritikin, who lacked a formal medical degree, to get doctors in this country to admit that diet plays an important role in preventing heart disease. Even Albert Einstein flunked mathematics and never finished a legitimate Ph.D. Abraham Lincoln had only one year of formal schooling, yet was one of the most capable leaders this country has ever seen. To me, what a man has to say and the truth with which he says it carry more weight than how many degrees he has hanging on the wall.

"Objections Sustained" is an easy to read introduction to the ideas behind Johnson's problems with Naturalism. If that intrigues you, then go back and read "Darwin on Trial" and "The Wedge of Truth".

This issue is larger than just a battle between the status-quo scientific establishment versus Christian Fundamentalists. This is not a question of either-or. It is a matter of getting to the truth of how life really came to exist on this planet. Philip Johnson will do as much as any writer to stimulate your enlightened thinking on this subject. The real truth may turn out to be a little different than either our most brilliant scientists or the most devoted Creationists had in mind.

36 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Johnson's Competence to critique Evolution, March 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Objections Sustained : Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture (Hardcover)

Some of Reviews of this book, while praising Johnson's efforts, conclude that he should stick to the field of his expertise, and not write about "science". We are then urged to read "Origin of the Species" and note how reasoned it is etc. I did read Origin of the Species a couple of times years before Johnson came along. One of the things that bothered me about it was it made such quantum leaps from simple premises to complex conclusions. The problem is with the logic and that is an area that a law professor is eminently equipped to analyze and criticize. It is not difficult to show flaws in logic when Darwin argues from micro changes within a species to the conclusion that macro evolution has occurred from one species to another. As a matter proof, Darwin's logic is flawed. He was lionized primarily because he gave the scientific community something to hang their hats on so that they could espouse a theory (now called fact) that could be substituted for a creation. Johnson should continue his efforts to expose fuzzy thinking.