architecture

evolution

nature

space

nationality

American

sexual orientation

homosexual

occupation / innovator as

architect

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

art historian

American Academy of Arts and Letters

intellectual movement

Postmodern architecture

innovator in the field of

is always shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.

All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.

is a metaphysical precommittment rather than a fact because its logic is ultimately tautological... namely, the evolutionist necessarily starts with a prescientific commitment to naturalism (i.e. Explanation without reference to divine causes), which, in turn, constrains one to evolutionary process.

The much-cited critic of evolution the Berkeley lawyer Phillip Johnson (1991 , 1995), takes a somewhat different tack. He argues that evolution is less a fact in the sense of something empirically established and has status more as a kind of metaphysical precommitment to the study and understanding of organisms. Johnson argues that evolutionist start with a prescientific commitment to naturalism, that is to say, to explanation through unbroken law without reference to nonnatural (for instance divine) causes. But given such a commitment, argues Johnson, evolution follows as an inevitable consequence. If one is a naturalist of some form, then necessarily one is an evolutionist, since presumably the only way in which one can explain organisms is as a consequence of an evolutionary process.

is grounded in the assumption that it has been governed by the same rules at all times and places. This assumption makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began.

The assumption that nature is all there is, and that nature has been governed by the same rules at all times and places, makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began. Phillip E. Johnson

Philip Johnson

Authors(0)

Philip JohnsonThinkers

Philip Johnson