January 2009

In 2002, the Ohio State Board of Education (SBOE) invited in science experts to testify about teaching both evidence for and against Darwinian evolution. In 2005 it was the Kansas SBOE’s turn. The New York Times reported that the board’s hearing turned into “a forum on one of the most controversial questions in education and politics: How to teach about the origin of life?” The stunning thing about the Kansas SBOE meeting was that Darwinists refused to defend their theory, instead opting not to attend at all. Now it is 2009, and next week the Texas SBOE will host its own meeting on the matter of how best to teach evolution. This time the board will hear testimony from six Read More ›

Medieval alchemists searched for a legendary “philosopher’s stone” capable of turning lead into gold. Modern Darwinists have given us a different “philosopher’s stone” — one that turns gold into lead.

Darwinism is the doctrine that all living things are biological descendants of common ancestors that have been modified by unguided variations and natural selection. Although Darwinists claim that their doctrine is supported by “overwhelming evidence,” nothing could be further from the truth. The fossil record shows that living things originated in a particular pattern, but Darwinists themselves (when they’re being candid) admit that the pattern tells us nothing about the process of origination. As for the process, variation and selection are well-documented in existing species, but Darwin didn’t write a book titled How Existing Species Change Over Time. He wrote a book titled The Origin of Species — and no one has ever observed the origin of a single species by variation and selection.

Empirical science tests hypotheses by comparing them with the evidence, but Darwinists never allow evidence to jeopardize their basic claims. Darwin called The Origin of Species “one long argument,” but his followers are engaged in one long bluff. Books and articles promoting Darwinism invariably make inflated claims based on little evidence — or worse, evidence that is misrepresented or even faked.

Darwinist and University of Toronto biochemistry professor, Larry Moran, who has called publicly for the expulsion of Christian college students who, despite passing all exams, don’t personally believe in atheism and materialism, has commented on my recent post on qualia in the mind-body problem. I had used a famous traditional philosophical argument on the mind-body problem called the ‘knowledge argument.’ The knowledge argument, first articulated explicitly by Frank Jackson in his ‘Mary’s Room’ thought problem in 1982, highlights the hard problem of consciousness, which is the problem of subjectivity. Why is it that we have subjective first-person experience, whereas all that we know about the brain is objective third person knowledge? The knowledge argument points out that there are things about mental states — subjective experience called ‘qualia’ — that are knowledge that is not material. The denouement of the knowledge argument is that materialist monism is an incomplete description of the mind because it is inadequate to explain subjective experience. Some sort of dualism is necessary for a satisfactory understanding of the mind.

The knowledge argument is a profound problem for strict materialism, and materialist philosophers of the mind such as Daniel Dennett have devoted considerable effort to refuting it. The primary materialist recourse has been to deny the reality of subjective mental states. Most philosophers — and most other people — find such denial hard to take seriously.
I formulated a question for Dr. Steven Novella, who is a materialist with a dogmatic approach to the mind-body problem, that is based on the knowledge argument. My question is this:

Austin, TX — The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has scheduled a hearing of scientific experts, including three scientists who are recommending that students should learn about scientific evidence that challenges Darwin’s theory of evolution.

On Wednesday, January 21st, six experts selected by the SBOE to review a proposed update of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for science will give testimony to the board. Three of the scientists will recommend that the board retain long-standing language in the TEKS calling on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories in order to strengthen students’ critical thinking skills. The other experts are on record supporting repeal of the language.

“We’re very pleased that in this Darwin bicentennial year Texas has invited scientists on both sides of the evolution debate to testify about the scientific status of Darwin’s theory,” said Dr. John West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

In his book The Language of God, theistic evolutionist scientist Francis Collins contends that diversity within populations of stickleback fish demonstrates that there is no distinction between “macroevolution” and “microevolution.” According to Collins, “It is not hard to see how the difference between freshwater and saltwater sticklebacks could be extended to generate all kinds of fish. The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is therefore seen to be rather arbitrary; larger changes that result in new species are a result of a succession of smaller incremental steps.” (p. 132) Aside from the fact that this provides another example refuting the Darwinist myth that ID proponents invented terms like “macroevolution” or “microevolution,” a closer look at the facts shows that Collins’ story Read More ›

There is a lot to be said on the passing of Father Richard John Neuhaus, dean of the theoconservatives, of whom I count myself one. The phrase he is most associated with, which has to do with giving religion a place “in the public square,” has become a cliché. Yet clichéd phrases can still refer to profoundly important ideas. The idea that faith has a role to play in public discussions of public issues, notably in politics, did not seem obvious at all when Fr. Neuhaus wrote his controversial 1984 book The Naked Public Square. It’s an idea that still has legions of enemies, including among some political conservatives, even as it continues to guide those of us who followed the lead of this brilliant, principled, immensely influential Catholic priest and intellectual.

His many friends and admirers will remember different things about him. Speaking for myself, he was both an inspiration and an irritant — one that sometimes inspired by irritating — a story I told in my first book, The Lord Will Gather Me In. I knew him from New York, when I was an editor at National Review, and he and I had a couple of intense disputatious and personal conversations about Judaism and Christianity that had a definite impact on my spiritual future, if not the one he intended.

What readers of ENV need to know, and what they probably won’t read elsewhere, is that Fr. Neuhaus was among the few prominent conservative intellectuals who, when it came to the Darwin debate, really “got it.” In his journal First Things he published articles by ID writers like Stephen Meyer and Phillip Johnson on subjects where other conservative journals still fear to tread.

Dr. Novella, the dogmatic neurologist from Yale who can’t fathom why his materialist ideology isn’t accepted as truth by all, concludes his latest mind-brain problem post (after calling me intellectually dishonest, a creationist, etc.) with this rhetorical flourish:

Dr. Egnor’s three pillars of neuroscience denial – dualism of the gaps; denying the inferences from brain-mind correlation; and confusing the question of how the brain causes mind with the question of does the brain cause mind – have all been shattered.

My ‘”three pillars of neuroscience denial have been shattered”?

!

Well, it’s time for me to unshatter them.

Texans for Better Science Education just posted an enlightening analysis of the recent push-poll by Darwinists at the far-left advocacy group Texas Freedom Network and the polls of the public’s views on what should be taught in science classes regarding evolution. In a transparent attempt to support their campaign TFN has conducted and has been promoting a clearly biased and misleading survey. TBSE feels it is critical for the public to see how TFN’s “results” compare to other polls across America, which have been conducted by unbiased and nationally recognized pollsters. (In contrast, TFN not only picked their own pollster but they also supplied the list of people to survey!) Read it all here.

Eric Lane, head of the local San Antonio chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, makes bold — and bogus — assertions in the San Antonio Express about the current debate over how to teach evolution, and what he imagines might be the reasons behind it. Not surprisingly, Lane apparently didn’t bother to do a shred of research, instead seeming quite satisfied to let his imagination come up with all sorts ridiculous things. It isn’t as if you can’t read what Discovery’s views are on science education, or even specifically what my own views are (they’re all over this blog after all). So there’s really no excuse to so blatantly misrepresent our position, and what our motivations Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] In his book Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul, author Edwards Humes makes many inaccurate claims about science education policy. Humes’ partisanship comes through clearly in these discussions, as he contends that those who would not teach evolution in a one-sided pro-Darwin-only fashion are engaged in a “concerted attack … on the teaching of evolution and other bedrock principles of modern science.” (pg. 25.) Humes’ repetition of common Darwinist rhetoric Read More ›