April 2008

Tonight the ever entertaining David Berlinski will continue his cross-country trek presenting his new book The Devil’s Delusion with a stop in Seattle. Even though he seems somewhat charmed with Berlinski, Daniel Engber, writing for Slate, is doing his part in warning America not to be taken in by the professional skeptic. According to Daniel Dennett, Berlinski exudes a “rich comic patina of smug miseducation”; Richard Dawkins implies that he may be wicked to the core; and blogger-ringleader P.Z. Myers has called him a “pompous pimple” and a “supercilious snot.” (Berlinski, for his part, makes no effort whatsoever to remain above the fray; he delivers some colorful rejoinders in the course of this interview he conducted with himself for an Read More ›

People such as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and author Susan Jacoby have been calling for an improved intellectual climate and reasoned, informed debate on hot topics such as the question of origins. OK, let’s give it a try. Did you know that most of the evidence claimed for evolution is actually not evidence for evolution? That’s right. Remember the mountain of evidence that evolutionists say is supposed to make evolution a fact? Well, most of it consists of biological findings that merely have been interpreted according to evolution. Here is an example: a prestigious scientific journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published last week detailed findings about how DNA information is used to make proteins Read More ›

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

The National Center for Science Education has just unveiled its expanded website denouncing the upcoming movie “Expelled,” but the website’s clunky attacks merely provide confirmation that the film’s essential thesis is correct: Darwinists really don’t believe in academic freedom regarding evolution, and they’re more than willing to smear any scientist who disagrees with them.

The basic thrust of the NCSE’s website seems to be the preposterous claim that pro-ID scientists never, ever face harassment, intimidation, or persecution. Not ever! Scientists who claim otherwise—such as biologist Richard Sternberg, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, and Baylor University engineering professor Robert Marks—must be cry-babies or worse.

[Note: For a more detailed response to attacks on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
With the attacks on Expelled from distraught Darwinists coming faster and sharper, I thought I’d ask Discovery senior fellow –and columnist for the Jewish Forward— David Klinghoffer to provide us with some commentary to help put various aspects of the film into context. Here then is his first installment.

This week I’ll be blogging about a contentious issue raised by Expelled, its linking of Darwinian theory with Hitlerian ideology. Critics have misconstrued the point Ben Stein makes in the film. Expelled does not — repeat: DOES NOT — try “to blame Darwin for the Holocaust,” as the subhead on an attack piece at the Scientific American website puts it.
Instead it shows the indebtedness of Nazism to ideas expressed in Darwin’s writing.
Darwin’s theory of evolution is enmeshed in a worldview, Darwinism, that emerges clearly in The Origin of Species and, more so, in The Descent of Man. Hitler gave to Darwinism his own evil twist. Yet Hitler without Darwin’s influence, however indirect, would not have been the same Hitler we know from history. Without Darwin’s legacy to draw on, Hitler would have been compelled to frame his appeal to the German people in greatly altered terms.
That’s different, it should be obvious, from blaming gentle Charles Darwin for genocide.
Yet the author of the SciAm review, editor-in-chief John Rennie, feels that the movie should have given a fuller picture of Nazism’s philosophical genealogy:

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins and the evolution lobby do not see eye to eye on strategy. But it seems that the National Center for Science Education and “Expelled Exposed“, the NCSE’s website assailing the film Expelled, don’t want you to know that. The situation is evident in the film that opens Friday, for all to see. The interviews with Dawkins are dispositive. First we meet Eugenie Scott of NCSE, sounding so invincibly cheery that one suspects she must moonlight for the Oakland, CA Chamber of Commerce. She relishes telling about all the nice religious people she has lined up around the Read More ›

I recently wrote about evolution indoctrination on a test given to measure science knowledge and intelligence in high school students. One of my friends, who is no religious fundamentalist but is a smart young pre-med student who is a skeptic of Darwinism, is presently studying hard to take the medical school entrance examination: the MCAT. Like most MCAT takers, he is studying by taking practice tests with real questions from actual MCAT tests given in the past. The MCAT has a section that tests reading comprehension skills: you read a passage, and then you answer questions about the passage. You don’t have to agree with the passages to answer the questions; you just have to be able to accurately explain Read More ›

According to The Orlando Sentinel, today the schools and learning committee of the Florida House of Representatives passed 7-4 an amended version of a proposal originally designed to protect the rights of teachers to present scientific evidence relating to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution. This means that versions of the bill have been passed out of committee in both the House and Senate, making floor votes much more likely. The amended version adopted by the House committee is not yet online, but the amended proposal that the committee was scheduled to vote on today would have changed the bill from simply promoting academic freedom to requiring teachers to provide a “thorough presentation and critical Read More ›

Much to my surprise, when I opened my email this morning, I found this letter, obviously not intended for me. It was intended for Larry Moran, from one ‘C.D.’ (a pseudonym no doubt). I guess it’s about the latest kerfuffle among Darwinists.

I decided to pass it on.

To: Larry Moran, PhD.
Professor of Biochemistry
University of Toronto
From: The Central Committee
Office of Framing

Dearest Larry,
It’s hard for me to write this, given my affection for you and my admiration for all of your work for our cause. But the Central Committee is not pleased. Brayton and Myers aren’t talking to each other. Mooney keeps shouting ‘framing…framing’ at our meetings, and Nisbet, in particular, is beside himself. It’s fratricide. You really must do something to rectify this.

‘Rectify what?’, you ask.

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] Richard Dawkins has been ranting that he’s outraged (I’ll just bet he is) that Expelled exposes for all to clearly see the connection between Darwinism and Nazi ideology.According to Dawkins: The alleged association between Darwinism and Nazism is harped on for what seems like hours, and it is quite simply an outrage. We are supposed to believe that Hitler was influenced by Darwin. Actually the discussion of the influence of Darwinism on the Nazis in Expelled lasts only about ten minutes, and outside that segment of the film there’s no references at all to the Nazis. Dawkins of course has Read More ›