April 2008

Dr. Steven Novella, the dogmatic materialist neurologist at Yale who has insisted that “…every single prediction [of the strict materialist understanding of the brain] has been validated” by science, has found even more scientific evidence for his personal ideology. Dr. Novella recently noted a report in Nature Neuroscience about fMRI correlates of decision-making in the brain.

In the report, “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain” authors Chun Siong Soon and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany show that brain activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex may precede conscious decision-making by as much as ten seconds before a decision is consciously made. Each subject was asked to push a button with either the right hand or the left hand. Seven to ten seconds before the conscious decision, brain activity appeared that appeared to correlate with unconscious decision making. Sixty percent of the time, the brain activity correlated with the hand used (no correlation would be fifty percent).

The study is an interesting demonstration that brain activity as measured by fMRI (which measures local blood flow and metabolic activity) correlates to some degree with unconscious processing, as well as the well-known but weak correlation between fMRI and conscious thought. Dr. Novella notes:

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an influential science organization, but lately it has moved beyond science and now apparently aims to influence people in their choices of movies and religion. This week the AAAS issued a press release officially condemning the documentary Expelled as an instance of “profound dishonesty” because it “badly misrepresents the scientific community as intolerant of dissent.” Ironically, the AAAS’s own behavior seems to demonstrate that the scientific community can be “intolerant of dissent”–at least when it comes to Darwinism: in 2002, the AAAS issued a press release condemning intelligent design (ID), Read More ›

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]

In the week since Expelled came out in theaters, I’ve been startled not so much by the juvenile name-calling directed at me for defending the movie (“self-hating Jew,” “Hitler sympathizer,” “Jewish Uncle Tom,” “hired hit-pen and journalistic hatchet job expert,” etc.). That’s something that publicly admitted Darwin-doubters quickly get accustomed to.

Much more surprising is the sheer flat-out lying done by critics bent on denouncing the movie’s controversial linking of Darwinism and Hitlerism.

Now, I happen to think that the Darwin-Hitler link is pretty darn well established, as I’ve argued on National Review Online, Jewcy, and in this space. The major Hitler biographers agree with me that Hitler in Mein Kampf and elsewhere used transparently Darwinian arguments to motivate fellow Jew-haters to actuate the Final Solution.

I don’t care if somebody insists on disagreeing with my interpretation of the relevant texts — though frankly that would be hard to do if your powers of reading comprehension rise above sixth-grade level. Just please don’t lie in your representation of what I’ve written.

From a press release sent out for the Expelled producers: Yoko Ono and others have now filed lawsuits challenging the film’s use and critique of John Lennon’s song Imagine. One of the suits seeks to ban free speech through preliminary injunctive relief which essentially means that they are trying to expel EXPELLED as it is now being shown in theaters. … But the irony of this lawsuit was not lost on the film’s star Ben Stein, “So Yoko Ono is suing over the brief Constitutionally protected use of a song that wants us to ‘Imagine no possessions’? Maybe instead of wasting everyone’s time trying to silence a documentary she should give the song to the world for free? After all, Read More ›

Those like Arthur Caplan who claim that Nazi ideology did not draw on Darwinism should watch this clip from a 1930s Nazi propaganda film justifying forced sterilization. Near the beginning of the clip the narrator warns that modern society is transgressing against a fundamental law in preserving the unfit. Just what law is he talking about? (Hint: You find it mentioned repeatedly in The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.) Display content from YouTube Click here to display content from YouTube. Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy. Always display content from YouTube Open video directly

Orlando Sentinel and Florida Baptist Witness report that the Evolution Academic Freedom Act was passed by the Florida Senate today.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEApril 23, 2008 Executive Producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Statement on Lawsuit by Yoko Ono The fair use doctrine is a well established copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism. We are disappointed therefore that Yoko Ono and others have decided to challenge our free speech right to comment on the song Imagine in our documentary film. Based on the fair use doctrine, news commentators and film documentarians regularly use material in the same way we do in EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed . Premise Media acknowledges that Ms. Yoko Ono did not license the song for use in the Film. Read More ›

The Center for Science and Culture supports Biologic Institute, a research lab opening new frontiers for scientific discovery. Biologic Institute demonstrates the value of intelligent design for the practice of biological science and tests specific empirical claims of neo-Darwinism, intelligent design, and other theories of biological origin.

Building off of the theoretical work of the scientists and researchers before them, scientists at Biologic Institute have been quietly and patiently working in the laboratory to test the predictions of intelligent design.

For those of you lucky enough to be National Review subscribers, you will be treated to an insightful review of David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion by our own George Gilder: The Devil’s Delusion is an incendiary and uproarious work of learned polemical writing, unique in its scientific sophistication and authority. Rather than criticizing science from the outside, Berlinski excoriates its atheist pretensions from within. Refusing to defer to scientistic credentialism, he makes the compelling argument that the anti-God fetish of modern science has driven many scientists into a mad nihilism that has crippled their scientific work as well. Gilder concludes: The Devil’s Delusion is a promethean work that clears away this debris of modern science and culture. It liberates conservatism Read More ›

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]

In an over-the-top “review” of the film Expelled, bioethicist and MSNBC columnist Arthur Caplan has made the preposterous claim that Ben Stein is a Holocaust denier. Caplan’s so-called review is so inaccurate that one can’t help but wonder whether Caplan even watched the film he denounced. If he did, he obviously didn’t pay attention. For the record, here’s a catalog of Caplan’s most egregious errors: