February 2007

A recent law review article by self-described “liberal First Amendment theorist” Arnold H. Loewy argues that it is constitutional to teach intelligent design in public schools. Writing in First Amendment Law Review, Loewy points out that “[t]o allow all ideas about the origin of man that do not presuppose an intelligent designer, but forbid all theories that explore the possibilities of such a designer, expresses hostility, not neutrality, towards religion.” Similar to the position of Discovery Institute, Loewy does not believe that intelligent design should therefore be required in schools. But he does think that it should not be prohibited simply because many will perceive it has having “partial congruence with religion”: I believe that teaching intelligent design in public Read More ›

A 2005 New York Times article asserted that ID proponents failed to respond to a call for research proposals from the John Templeton Foundation, a group that funds research dealing with origins. The New York Times reported that Templeton’s Charles Harper claimed that he had requested research proposals from ID-proponents, proposals which “never came in.” A new report now calls the veracity of the New York Times‘s story into “grave doubt.” According to both ResearchID.org and UncommonDescent, Harper now claims that the New York Times completely invented this story.

I recently found myself in a conversation with two college undergraduates, both of them seniors in the natural sciences (physics and biochemistry, respectively). At one point we were discussing alchemy, which they knew as a pre-modern attempt to transmute lead into gold. I asked them whether they could name any famous alchemists. They could not, though one of them dimly recalled hearing of “someone whose name began with A.” I then predicted that Darwinian evolution would eventually fade into the same obscurity that now shrouds alchemy. Although I knew from previous conversations that my young friends were skeptical of Darwinian theory, they expressed considerable surprise at my prediction, if only because Darwinism is presently held in such high esteem by Read More ›

Mike Gene has put together some excellent material at TelicThoughts where he explains why Nick Matzke is wrong to go around using his “ID=Creationism” talking point. It’s a seductive meme for Darwinists, but these arguments don’t impress Mike Gene, who looks at how ID is formulated and finds that it is not creationism. Be sure to read some of Mike Gene’s work: “The ID=Creationism Meme” or ID 101 or ID 102 for details.

When the Kitzmiller ruling was issued, Darwinists were quick to give it nothing but unyielding praise, while many ID-proponents immediately observed that Judge Jones made findings outside the scope of the judicial system. For example, I critiqued the ruling because “[i]t overreaches the judicial arm by ruling that the nature of science is characterized by methodological naturalism and that intelligent design is not science.” Darwinist Tim Sandefur replied, using irrelevant examples to claim that “surely a judge can decide that science is characterized by methodological naturalism.” A little over a year later, one of the most prominent anti-ID legal scholars has agreed in print with my position on this question. Wexler, an associate professor at Boston University School of Law, Read More ›

Cross-posted at Discovery Blog. “Defcon,” the Campaign to Defend the Constitution (such a high sounding name!), put out a press release and blog post this week that attempted to sandbag Sen. John McCain, criticizing him for speaking to a Seattle policy luncheon today where Discovery Institute was one of the “co-presenters”. Defcon scolded McCain for attending an event in which Discovery was involved and for thereby “lending credence (sic) to this organization”. Defcon called on McCain to cancel the speech. At the definitely un-cancelled event today I asked Sen. McCain if he had heard of Defcon. He hadn’t. Defcon is a creature of Fenton Communications, the left and far-left operation that backs the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Moveon.org, the Council Read More ›

National Geographic recently posted “Francis Collins: The Scientist as Believer,” an interview by John Horgan. The interview is nearly all about religion, but I have two comments touching on evolution.

What happens when a professor of neurosurgey who is a Darwin-skeptic and just happens to be a brain surgeon visits a popular Darwinist blog? He leaves with unanswered questions. Last week Rob Crowther highlighted how Dr. Michael Egnor visited Time magazine’s science blog where a reporter admitted his Darwinist bias and was unable to answer Egnor’s question: “how much new information can Darwinian mechanisms generate?” Egnor is professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook and an award-winning brain surgeon who has been named one of New York’s best doctors by New York Magazine. Egnor recently took his questions to P.Z. Myers’ popular science blog Pharyngula, where Egnor continues–unanswered–to press Darwinists for how Darwinian mechanisms Read More ›

Last fall I posted a response to Chris Mooney’s chapter in The Republican War on Science where I rebutted much of what he said in his book against intelligent design (which can be read here). Recently, Mooney wrote an article in the LA Times, co-authored with Alan Sokal, where he stepped up the rhetoric against Darwin-skeptics, calling them “the worst science abusers.” Mooney always equates Darwin-skeptics with “religious fundamentalists” and even goes so far as to invoke the “denier of evolution” name-calling approach: Antibiotic-resistant bacteria do not spare deniers of evolution, and global climate change will not spare any of us. As physicist Richard Feynman wrote in connection with the space shuttle Challenger disaster, “nature cannot be fooled.” Apart from Read More ›