Orac finds a NEJM editorial that is largely critical of Intelligent Design creationism (good!) but that includes a grossly misplaced confidence in Phillip Johnson (bad.)

Some of the supporters of intelligent design are knowledgeable and sophisticated. Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the founders and financial backers of the intelligent design movement, can accurately pinpoint many problems that the theory of evolution has not come close to solving. His criticisms have merit, and his focus on precisely those things that we do not yet know blocks any rational dialogue. But Johnson and his followers always end up in the same blind alley: the problems are too complex to be explained by any proposition other than the existence of an intelligent designer.

Orac rakes the author over the coals for that; Johnson is one of the most contemptible members of that cast of frauds boosting Intelligent Design creationism. He gets up in front of crowds with his kindly old grandpa demeanor and his Berkeley professorship and he just lies his ass off. He's an HIV-denier, a junk science fan, a conspiracy theorist, and an incompetent phony who does not understand one thing about evolution, yet writes annoyingly legalist screeds against it. He's the kind of lawyer who thinks evidence doesn't matter, as long as you can fling enough emotional rhetoric, no matter how false, you deserve to win. His criticisms are neither meritorious nor accurate; they consist entirely of straw men and bogus misconceptions, all phrased to slander anyone who does not buy into his religious mumbo-jumbo.

He is not someone an M.D. should endorse in any way.

For a taste of Johnson's noise, read this recent account of a lecture in New Mexico.

Phillip Johnson said he believes that the complexity of living organisms alone is enough to disprove Darwinian theory.

Complexity does not disprove anything. A flu virus is complex, and the response of the cells of a human being to infection even more so; does that mean we should reject the idea that the virus causes the disease? Should doctors throw up their hands in surrender when a patient shows up with an infectious disease, abandon their training, and start prescribing prayer, exorcisms, and good ju-ju to restore health? Orac mentions cancer—now there is a complicated stew of scrambled genetic material with highly a variable progress and difficult outcomes, requiring that doctors marshal elaborate and often painful procedures to cope…but to a Phillip Johnson, all of that difficulty must mean it's caused by demons.

That whimpering reliance on the 'complexity' argument is one of the more pathetic traits of the creationists. Every time I hear it, I think of that talking Barbie doll that would whine, "Math is hard!" Big deal. Biology is complex. That doesn't make it wrong.

There are more inanities of that caliber in the account.

Johnson said the theory of evolution, or any theories like it, will not survive the 21st century because evolution is a philosophical theory.

He went on to say that one of the major flaws of the theory of evolution is that it excludes the possibility of divine intervention within the creation of living organisms.

See what I mean by "lying his ass off"? You could also claim that Christianity, capitalism, and democracy are "philosophical theories"—that doesn't imply at all that they are going to expire. Evolution is not speculation and faith and guesswork, there is evidence…and what evolution tries to do is explain the evidence. Johnson is in denial, and wants to pretend that all the scientific literature doesn't exist, or at least, will vanish in a puff of smoke if he closes his eyes and wishes real hard.

As for the exclusion of divine intervention, that's true enough, but is not a flaw. Science tries to restrict itself to the observable and the testable. God is neither. As soon as the IDists manage to scrape up some evidence for their designer, we'll use it. Personally, I'd like nothing better than to strap an angel down, take some dental drills to its skull, clamp it into a stereotaxic, and start diddling about in its divine cerebrum. But then I have a rather sadistic attitude towards religious concepts.

I'm not alone, though. Do read the rest of the article; Johnson was speaking in front of a hostile crowd, and his idiocies were savaged. When I heard him lecture a while back, it was in front of a large crowd of friendlies recruited from the local churches, and it was sad to see how happily they swallowed his goofball drivel.