Talk:Shaun Johnston

"The bad news is, if evolution consists of only the creation of new variation, and no selection, then variations must come as improvements ready to use, and that seems to amount to intelligent design. Whether or not that’s a problem depends on how you feel about intelligent design." "Johnston is also developing a secular version of intelligent design as a separate project at evolvedself.com" Link

I see that Johnston has finally admitted intelligent design. Why did it take him so long to come out the closet? DinoCrisis (talk) 00:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Speaking for myself...
I was born into a clergy family, which had the effect as if often does of making me a hard-bitten atheist. I studied biochemistry at University College London, and became a professional medical writer in NYC. I have since started my own publishing imprint, "Evolved Self Publishing," for which I have written and published five books on evolution. I publish two web sites: www.evolvedself.com to support my book publishing; www.takeondarwin.com for to foster criticism of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution and the development of replacements.

My major interests are science, art and history.
 * I am a science enthusiast and rationalist, my primary interest being in evolution, particularly the implications of we ourselves being evolved.


 * I paint and draw and have written and published two novels. I experience being creative as part of human nature to be accounted for.


 * History of both art and science is my main source for beliefs about human nature.

My attitude to evolution: I am a dualist, believing in the existence of both mind and matter. Matter I accept as physics describes it. Mind I see as necessary to account for other aspects of reality:


 * Our experience of consciousness and free will, that I experience as free to some extent of physical determinism


 * Our ability to be creative, that I also believe to be free to some extent of physical causation


 * Processes of evolution.

Since I experience my own conscious experience and creativity as not entirely bound by physics, the process by which they evolved I also cannot assume to be entirely bound by physics. Natural selection I see as a premature attempt to account for evolution by limiting oneself to already-known physical principles. If I am right, that it is in error by not (even in principle) being able to account for the evolution of mental processes free to some extent of physical determinism, then it could have harmful consequences:


 * Our understanding of the world will be impaired by our errors in conception concerning evolution, surely a key manifestation of reality.


 * Our understanding of human nature will be impoverished by our expecting of ourselves no more powers than current physics can account for.

My writing is based on the assumption that our experience of our own nature is an indication of reality just as reliable as the current state of phjysics. As well as assuming physics I start with our experience of consciousness and our powers of free will and independent judgment, and our ability to be creative, and I ask myself, what must the world be like for these to exist? It is in terms of that world that I try to account for us having evolved. If that world includes powers of thinking and consciousness and creativity, which I know it does since we experience them, then those powers are available to be elements in the process of evolution--I have no reason to exclude them.

To me, this is adequately logical. Accusations that I am creationist appear to be from people who identify conscious experience with the supernatural; since I attempt to account for the evolution of conscious experience they appear to assume I must be a Christian. I see no way to answer that criticism, since you either experience conscious thinking and free will and independent judgment as free, to some extent, of physical determinism, or you don't. If you don't, then I suppose those experiences are bound to seem supernatural. This identification of experiencing consciousness with the supernatural may be what makes Darwinists see creationists everywhere, since almost everyone may experience consciousness as I do and wonder aloud why Darwinism isn't concerned with accounting for their origin.

I am a vitalist. I believe mind is a property exclusively of living cratures. Since I assume it's my possession of mind that makes me capable of intelligent design I see that as potentially true of minds in general. If evolution also participates in properties of mind I see it as potentially capable of intelligent design. I therefore, as a rationalist, arrive at the conclusion that evolution may proceed through intelligent design, rather as we do when we create something.

I differ from most vitalists in positing an agent for evolution through intelligent design--the genome. Genomes are the second-most complicated structures we know of in the universe after brains. The genome's been evolving for around one thousand times as long as our brain tripled in size and gained all our distinctive new mental powers following our ancestors' parting company with those of chimpanzees. I expand on this idea in the Project at my evolvedself website.

In conclusion: I believe I am fully rational once one lets rationality encompass an acknowledgement of conscious experience as not entirely accountable for by contemporary physics. I believe I am drawing rational conclusions from that acknowledgement in seeing evolution as capable of employing intelligent design, for example in each of us developing powers of conscious experience, creativity and free will. And in proposing the genome as the agent exerting that intelligent design I am pointing to a phenomenon that can be explored rationally.

The point at issue is extremely important. The non-Western world does not seem to be converging on an alternative to Western philosophy, key to which is science, one key to which is evolution. If we are wrong about the mechanism of evolution we threaten the entire world with a potentially disastrous misconception capable of corrupting all existing cultural traditions with the seeds of determinism/fatalism. I am committed to raising alarm at this potential threat of Darwinism. For me it is has nothing to do with religion, it is about the course of civilization.


 * You said "Accusations that I am creationist appear to be from people who identify conscious experience with the supernatural; since I attempt to account for the evolution of conscious experience they appear to assume I must be a Christian."
 * That is not true. You have been called a creationist becuase you deny common descent and evolution and becuase you publish creationist intelligent design articles.


 * This is what you wrote in 2012:


 * "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."


 * You are no different than a Christian creationist. DinoCrisis (talk) 22:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Change needed
New--April 10, 2021. Change needed. I've just posted an anti-creationist review of Stephen Meyer's latest book at evolutionforthehumanities.com. Proves I am not a creationist. Please take all references to me being creationist from your entry on me. I'm anti-Darwinist, but Google won't link to me because of your references to me being creationist.&mdash; Unsigned, by: Shaun2000 / talk / contribs
 * On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~ ) or by clicking on the sign button: SigButt.png on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you.


 * What exactly is your stance? Would you consider yourself a proponent of intelligent design? A lot of people don’t like the “creationist” label but have functionally identical beliefs. Not saying that’s you as I’d never heard of you until a few days ago, but it is common.


 * If Google have blacklisted you, it’s not because of us. Christopher (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)