From:    Jeffrey Shallit
To:      All                                    Dec-23-93 01:42PM
Subject: Johnson's publisher

Organization: University of Waterloo
From: shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit)
Message-ID: 
Newsgroups: talk.origins

Didn't Phillip Johnson tell us that the publisher for the new edition of
his book, _Darwin on Trial_, was InterVarsity Press?

I assume this is the one based in Downers Grove, Illinois, and not the
one in Leicester, England, although perhaps they are related.

If so, they are a fundamentalist Christian publisher.  Among the other gems
they put out are:

      For Christ and the university : the story of Intervarsity Christian
      Fellowship of the U.S.A.

      The Variety of American evangelicalism

      Marriage and divorce : when is divorce permitted? : what about
      remarriage?

      Homosexual partnerships? : why same-sex relationships are not a
      Christian option

      Hard sayings of the Old Testament

      Confronting the new age : how to resist a growing religious movement

      Completely pro-life : building a consistent stance

Strange that an author with a "scientific" attack on a scientific
theory would choose such a publisher.  Or is it that Johnson was
unable to get a reputable scientific publisher to distribute his
drivel?

While it is certainly conceivable that such a publisher could put
out a valid work of science or philosophy, many will interpret Johnson's
choice of publisher as a tacit admission that his objections are
religious and not scientific... which, of course, they are.  Perhaps
Johnson felt that the fees charged by Vantage Press were too high.

As a colleague, a professor at a major American university, once
remarked to me in e-mail:

      Just got "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson.  I thought
      it would be a history of all the monkey trials, but it seems to
      be a thinly disguised plea for creationism.

Jeff Shallit


Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but
a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning
but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.
      -- James Watson, winner of the Nobel prize for his co-discovery
      of the structure of DNA