Shaun Johnston

Shaun Johnston is an American author and intelligent design (or creationism) advocate. Johnston is a humanist and claims to be a "science writer" yet does not have any qualifications in science. He is the author of a number of intelligent design books such as Save Our Selves from Science Gone Wrong: Physicalism and Natural Selection.[1]

The divine comedy
Creationism
Running gags
Jokes aside
Blooper reel
v - t - e

Intelligent design

Johnston claimed on the internet for a few months that he only rejects natural selection, since in his opinion natural selection denies "the conscious self" and "free will" of humans. However, Johnston later admitted that he rejects biological evolution in favour of intelligent design. According to Johnston in other publications, evolution and natural selection cannot explain consciousness or the biodiversity of life on earth, so metaphysics instead of science is needed to explain it.[2][3]

He is the owner of a website called "Take on Darwin", where he pretended in some articles to be a "non-Darwinian evolutionist", yet it was later revealed he denies evolution and supports intelligent design. He has described himself as a creationist, yet in another publication writes he has proposed a "third alternative" to replace both creationism and "Darwinism".[4] Johnston has shown his anti-evolutionary views by writing that no scientific mechanism at all can ever explain evolution.[5][6] Johnston is a creationist who rejects all scientific evidence for evolution based on his personal beliefs, yet sometimes pretends to be a secular evolution theorist to try and get more readers to his articles and books.

Johnston also owns an intelligent design website where he claims science fails to explain free will.[7] He is a radical dualist and writes that mind and matter are both completely separate but somehow interact with each other, though his publications never explains how or why.[8] Johnston calls his theory the "intelligent genome theory", however his theory does not involve evolution like he claims it does; it is actually no different than the ideas shared by the Discovery Institute. His "intelligent genome" is no different than the "intelligent designer" of the creationists and ID advocates.[9][10] Johnston admitted his support for intelligent design in an article in July, 2012.[11]

In August, 2012 he published an article titled Urging Evolutionists to Rethink Intelligent Design. According to Johnston:

"I know enough not to take what evolutionists say at face value… I know that to them denial of intelligent design is just a flag they muster behind. But I do think it makes them look silly. It's obviously not true. But it's also silly because they’re saying that they, and you and I, are also not intelligently designed, though we, as human beings, obviously can design intelligently. In fact, that's almost the definition of 'sapiens' in 'Homo sapiens.' Tool making is definitely an example of intelligent design.[12]

Science

Johnston openly rejects science, but on his website has copied and quote mined many articles from scientists. None of the scientists in his articles would support his intelligent design beliefs or his metaphysical dualism. Johnston also claims no natural mechanism can explain any part of evolution, however speciation is perfectly natural and has been observed.[13] Shockingly, Johnston is totally silent on this matter.

gollark: Probably, but oh potatOS those function names.
gollark: I'm sure you'd like to think so.
gollark: It might be a potatOS compatibility bug.
gollark: Programming!
gollark: If you plan to be feeding it bad URLs or expect it to experience errors of some sort, you can add checks for those.

See also

References
  1. Biography for Shaun Johnston
  2. Author Explains How Science Alone Can Never Account For How We Evolved
  3. Take on Darwin Article
  4. Book by Johnston
  5. Evolution Issue of the Month 2. Natural Selection — Not the Best Idea Anyone Ever Had
  6. Blog post about Shaun Johnston
  7. Evolved Self
  8. New Theory of Evolution, New Method of Studying Evolution, Applied to Finding Meaning in Consciousness Having Evolved
  9. "The Intelligent Genome" by Shaun Johnston
  10. Robert Wright and Free Will
  11. Johnston admits his support for intelligent design
  12. Evolution Issue of the Month 4, Urging Evolutionists to Rethink Intelligent Design, Published at Take On Darwin Website
  13. Evidence for speciation
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