In his book "Intellectuals", I thought Johnson was making the point that these academics had made up their minds before all the facts were in. You are right, Johnson does not take issue with the theory of evolution, or any theory presented, but merely with the idea that facts cannot be stated as facts until they are empirically proven.
True debate is FUN, and I think Johnson would agree. Two opponents with competing ideas, without lies, arguing their points and spectators making up their OWN minds which one to accept. Unfortunately that isn't what "debate" IS anymore. The side with the best press presents its ideas as facts without the opposing ideas. Those who don't accept them are painted in all manner of negative ways, particularly as "religious".
The tone of Johnson's book is negative. I think he would agree with the above statement. And he wouldn't be the only one.
You're right, it is a negative book for the most part other than its (very interesting) chapter on Edmund Wilson. I enjoy reading about debates between people such as G.K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. Here were two brilliant men who were able to disagree in the strongest terms on almost every issue yet did so without showing personal contempt for one another at any point.I thought this discussion between Phillip Johnson and Will Provine exemplefied that better sort of debate-- one of its most interesting points occurs when Provine explains why he rejects reductionism.
I think the other point of "Intellectuals" goes back to Plato and Aristotle: that the fact that a man may be a talented specialist in one area does not make him in expert in all others, no can the standards for excellence and evidence be always be carried over from one discipline to another, nor is it always the case that facts uncovered through one discipline may be reduced to facts in another one.
The thinkers on the Edge website (who tend to follow in C.P. Snow's footsteps by thinking that science alone can give us factual knowledge)such as Dennett tend to be examples of the sort of intellectual Johnson had in mind, which is why they will insist that, say literary critics who don't attend to the most current facts of biology will somehow have their critical abilities in their own field be impoverished, and that the Edge members, lacking any such lack, represent some new sort of "Third wave" uber-intellectual.
I remmber Christopher Hitchens was horrified that so many of his icons had received the same treatment they'd given to others in "Intellectuals", and therefore Hitchens apllied a withering attack to Paul Johnson, attacking him for his marriages, former leftism, etc. I'd like to think Johnson took it in stride and laughed. What a fantastic writer he is!