Phillip E. Johnson (June 18, 1940 – November 2, 2019) was a UC Berkeley law professor, opponent of evolutionary science, co-founder of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement, author of the "Wedge strategy" and co-founder of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). He described himself as "in a sense the father of the intelligent design movement". He was a critic of Darwinism, which he described as "fully naturalistic evolution, involving chance mechanisms and natural selection". The wedge strategy aims to change public opinion and scientific consensus, and seeks to convince the scientific community to allow a role for theism, or causes beyond naturalistic explanation, in scientific discourse. Johnson argued that scientists accepted the theory of evolution "before it was rigorously tested, and thereafter used all their authority to convince the public that naturalistic processes are sufficient to produce a human from a bacterium, and a bacterium from a mix of chemicals."
The scientific community considers Johnson's defense of intelligent design to be pseudoscientific.
Biography
Johnson was born in Aurora, Illinois, in 1940. He received a BA degree in English literature, from Harvard University, in 1961. He studied law at the University of Chicago, graduating top of his class, and received a Juris Doctor in 1965. He served as a law clerk for the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Earl Warren and Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court Roger J. Traynor. Johnson became a member of the California Bar in January 1966. From 1967 to 2000, Johnson was an active professor of law at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law and retained the title professor emeritus at the time of his death. Johnson served as deputy district attorney and held visiting professorships at Emory University and at University College London.
At the age of 38, Johnson became a born again Christian following a divorce, and later became an elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Johnson recounted that on sabbatical in England he sought, through prayer, inspiration for what he should do with the rest of his life, and then received an epiphany after he read Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker (1986) and Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985). Johnson later said, "Something about the Darwinists' rhetorical style made me think they had something to hide." Despite having no formal background in biology, he felt that he could add insight into the premises and arguments. Johnson stated that he approached the creation evolution dispute not as a scientist but as an academic lawyer by profession, with a specialty in analyzing the logic of arguments and identifying the assumptions that lie behind those arguments. He noted that what people think about evolutionism depends very heavily on the kind of logic they employ and the kind of assumptions they make. Further, he pointed out that four of the eleven members of the special committee appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to prepare its official booklet titled Science and Creationism were lawyers. (That first edition of the publication, which was finished in 1984, was prepared as an amicus brief in the Edwards v. Aguillard case that went before the U.S. Supreme Court.) In 1989 Of Pandas and People by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon was published as the first book to promote intelligent design.
The first edition of Darwin on Trial was published in 1991. In notes listing his sources, Johnson said about Of Pandas and People that "This book is 'creationist' only in the sense that it juxtaposes a paradigm of 'intelligent design' with the dominant paradigm of (naturalistic) evolution, and makes the case for the former. It does not rely on the authority of the Bible." Following that, Johnson sought supporters for his "Wedge Strategy". In the ID blog Evolution News, Casey Luskin described him as Godfather of the intelligent design movement, PBS said he was "known as the father of intelligent design". He is a critic of methodological naturalism (the basic principle that science can only investigate natural causes for observable phenomena), and espouses a philosophy he has coined "theistic realism." He is the author of several books on intelligent design, science, philosophy, and religion, as well as textbooks on criminal law. He has appeared on various programs such as PBS's Firing Line and a Nova episode, "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial."