i am weak...I can't help it

Well, more interesting stuff with Bill Dembski. How long did I last without mentioning him?? A couple days? Shit. Oh well.

I posted another comment to a post in his blog where he misrepresents Michael Ruse (which is easy to do honestly). The first line was "Please don't delete this. Respond to it."

Hopefully he will.

Anyway, did you know that Rick Santorum is writing the forward to the Phillip Johnson festschrift? The one edited by Dembski? Well, the forward is hilarious. What an idiot. I have reproduced it below...perhaps illegally? My favorite part is the last paragraph where he says that Johnson has fought to "return science to a sure philosophical grounding in the nature of things as they really are."

Hey, I'm all about the noumenon, I'l be honest, but this just sounds funny.

From here:

"Foreword
By Senator Rick Santorum
This volume celebrates Phillip Johnson’s leadership in the Intelligent Design (ID) movement Scholars who have known Phil best and worked with him most closely assembled in April of 2004 at Biola University to present him with a collection of papers in his honor. I wish I could have been there to offer my congratulations and thanks in person. Instead, I have the privilege of writing this brief foreword from Washington.

Since the publication of Darwin on Trial more than 10 years ago, Phillip Johnson has provided extraordinary leadership for an extraordinary cause, namely, to rid science of false philosophy. The importance of the cause is clear: what could be more important than showing that only a shallow, partisan understanding of “science” supports the false philosophy of materialist reductionism, with its thoroughly unscientific denial of formal and final causes in nature and its repudiation of the first cause of all being? As the decline of true science has been a major factor in the decline of Western culture, so too the renewal of science will play a big part in cultural renewal.

Johnson’s extraordinary leadership also is clear: rather than fall into the trap of building a cult of personality around himself and his own considerable talents, he has instead helped raise up and promote a whole group of intellectual leaders in the cause of scientific renewal. This kind of selfless Christian leadership is a shining example to us all, young and old.

Speaking of the young, I personally wish to commend Phil for the great help he has given me in my efforts to inject a renewed and unbiased understanding of science and its practice into the curricula of our public schools. There is much more for us to do, but working with Phil’s colleagues at Seattle’s Discovery Institute, we have begun the difficult fight for removing the stranglehold of philosophical materialism on textbook science.

Phil, I congratulate and praise you for your tireless work to return science to a sure philosophical grounding in the nature of things as they really are. Please know that during your Biola celebration, I was with you and your colleagues in spirit. As much as I was delighted when I first heard about this celebration in your honor, I am again delighted now that the proceedings from that celebration have appeared in book form.

Senator Rick Santorum
R-Pennsylvania
Washington, DC"