Daily Kos: Know Your Intelligent Design Creationists: Phillip Johnson

by DarkSyde
Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 05:46:07 AM PDT

Prof. Phillip E. Johnson is a Professor Emeritus of Law at UC Berkeley and a senior advisor and cofounder of The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (Catchy name for a right-wing think tank dedicated in large part to discrediting science). As the story goes, following an emotionally exhausting mid-life reevaluation of some sort, Johnson was born again and eventually set out to destroy what he calls materialist science.

The mission of the Intelligent Design PR movement as originally envisioned by Johnson is not limited to attacks on evolutionary biology. They see all science as lacking a proper theistic basis. As best I can discern, Johnson and his ilk want every field of science and indeed all public policy to be held hostage to some vague theocratic organization, with members of their own ultra-conservative religious faith occupying those seats of power. It is in this context that Johnson uses evolution to attack science. He calls evolution the 'thin edge of the wedge' with which to 'split the log of materialism open'. Much more below.