March 2008

The media in Florida are all aflutter this week on a bill introduced into the state legislature by state senator Ronda Storms, called the Academic Freedom Bill. Discovery Institute has recommended such legislation in the past. We even maintain a website at www.academicfreedompetition.com that has a model of an academic freedom bill. So we’re happy that Storms has taken the ball and run with it.

Not everyone is happy though, which is clear from reading the newspaper stories on this latest development in the debate over how to teach evolution. Darwinists are downright unhappy, so much so those at Florida Citizens for Science think academic freedom is “smelly crap.”

This academic freedom stuff is merely the next evolutionary step as anti-science folks continue their attempts to shove creationism into the public school classroom. First, there was blatant creationism. Next there was intelligent design. Both failed miserably. Now comes along academic freedom. Same smelly crap, different packaging.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the media got the story wrong. They’ve been fed some “smelly crap” from FCS.

CT Movies reviewer Brett McCracken has seen Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and his thoughtful review is available online. It’s worth noting that McCracken, in his own words, “came into this film very, very skeptical . . . But I was pleasantly surprised with Expelled on a number of levels.”

McCracken seems to get the point of the film, that it’s an argument against censorship.

Indeed, the film hits a nerve in its critique of the contemporary American academy. As a graduate student immersed in academia and all its idiosyncrasies, I can attest to the pervasive and disturbingly hypocritical sense of close-mindedness that stifles the spirit of progressive discourse. It goes beyond the scientific communities in higher education and touches many disciplines. Quite simply: if you are not on the “right” side of the wall (whatever wall it may be), your voice is stifled, your work discredited, and your intelligence questioned. It’s gone beyond political correctness and is now something altogether more militant and sinister. Sadly, the academy today is less about the sharing and discovery of truth as it is about the wielding and protecting of power.

As Johnny Cash reputedly once said, “It’s good to know who hates you, and it’s good to be hated by the right people.”

Darwinist bloggers P. Z. Myers and Ian Musgrave hate me. In fact, Myers writes, “My animus for Jonathan Wells knows no bounds.” Well, at least he (unlike Musgrave) spells my name right.

The most recent outbursts by Myers and Musgrave were provoked by my February 29 blog on Evolution News & Views, in which I predicted that Darwinists would try to take credit for a recent French discovery regarding antibiotic resistance. And indeed they did.

In the course of claiming credit for Darwinism, Musgrave claims that I completely misrepresent evolution, molecular biology, genetics and history. Wow. At least I get points for comprehensiveness. As proof of my misrepresentations, Musgrave cites Wikipedia, which everyone involved in this controversy knows is about as balanced and reliable on this issue as P.Z. Myers’s Pharyngula or The National Center for Science Miseducation’s Panda’s Thumb.

The main points in my original blog post were these:

At Scoop freelance reporter Suzan Mazur pulls back the veil on one of science’s dirty little secrets — Darwinism is dead as a theory of evolution. This won’t be surprising to the early adopters here at ENV, but it will come as a surprise to many in the media who have lazily just regurgitated the tired old refrain of the NCSE that Darwinian evolution is the be-all and end-all of modern biology.

Mazur reports on an upcoming conference at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria which she thinks will be the Woodstock of evolution.

What it amounts to is a gathering of 16 biologists and philosophers of rock star stature — let’s call them “the Altenberg 16” — who recognize that the theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence. It’s pre the discovery of DNA, lacks a theory for body form and does not accommodate “other” new phenomena.

Say what? Sixteen scientists who recognize that the theory of evolution, which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence. (Suzan, shhhh, don’t tell anyone, there’s hundreds more over here.)

Mazur seems a bit surprised to find out something that intelligent design advocates have known for years. It is not safe to doubt Darwin.

The International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR), a group founded in 2002, recently issued an ill-informed statement attacking intelligent design as a “science stopper.” But as today’s guest columnist, Dr. Angus Menuge, points out, ISSR got things backwards. A professor of philosophy at Concordia University-Wisconsin, Dr. Menuge is author of the excellent study, Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science (Rowman and Littlefield) and a contributing author to Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge University Press).

Intelligent design does not necessarily mean optimal design. Yet the realm of human technology is a realm of intelligently designed objects, many of which strive to optimize energetic efficiency. It is therefore intriguing that designers of human technology would find solutions to technological needs from the biosphere–a realm which neo-Darwinian scientists tell us is the result of blind, random processes. I recently discussed how biologists are turning to natural flagellar biochemical pathways to help improve biomedical technology. A new article in Business Week confirms that this is a common trend in industry, observing that engineers are increasingly turning to nature for guidance and inspiration in producing human technology: Spot the common theme: a bullet train with a distinctly bird-like nose; Read More ›

Minnesota Public Radio just posted online an hourlong program featuring actor, comedian, speechwriter, economist and historian Ben Stein. It’s a delightfully funny interview. Stein is at his best when allowed to tell funny stories that are always quite insightful. One of the best such anecdotes is about his recent stint on VH1’s America’s Most Smartest Model and his opinion that there’s an education crisis today and it’s not the fault of teachers, but rather the fault of students themselves (about 10 minutes in). It’s a wide ranging discussion, including Q&A at the end, and only briefly touches on Stein’s involvement in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (about 46:00 minutes in). If an hour seems overly long, it isn’t. You’ll quickly get Read More ›