OOPSY

It's better to admit when you're wrong, or when you may have shown poor judgement, than to pretend that all is hunky-dory.

A couple of days ago, I seized upon some copy that appeared in the Fresno Bee, did a little research, and posted rather assertively about what I found concerning a local M.D. (who is semi-retired) penning a book on 'The Boundaries of Evolution.' You can read my rather self-satisfied prose here.

Well, hold your horses. I may owe the author (Theodore Johnstone, M.D.) a bit of an apology after speaking to him by phone today. It turns out that his book is a bit of a work in progress from a publishing house that allows authors to continually tweak their works and print the number of volumes that it has orders for at the time. Dr. Johnstone explained that since the initial publication, he has begun a process of revision to address what he frankly admitted were errors (technical or otherwise) in the first printing, errors that have been pointed out by legitimate biologists who are reviewing his work. This gives me the impression that perhaps the ad copy which appeared on Amazon.com oversold his claims, or at least failed to nest them in the proper context. Thus, I have to concede that the Dr. Johnstone I spoke to on the phone may have been unfairly characterized by my previous post.


That wasn't my intention, and I regret any misunderstanding. So, let me for the record publicly apologize if anyone has received the impression that Dr. Johnstone is a conventional creationist with young-earth views, or any other sort of pseudoscience. That is not really warranted by the evidence that was available to me, and I leaped into the fray with more zeal than sense. Dr. Johnstone has been more than gracious to me in explaining his position and offering me an opportunity to review his works, and he wanted me to know that he is still actively engaged in seeking feedback from legitimate scientists in a project that, as he describes it, is an outgrowth of self-education. As an autodidact of sorts myself who came to science education as a second career, I sympathize and I genuinely hope to learn something from reading Dr. Johnstone's (dare I say it) evolving work.