Casey Luskin

[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.] Any book with an icon of evolution on its cover — in this case, the fanciful diagram of ape-like skeletons transitioning into a human skeleton — is bound to be unfriendly towards intelligent design (ID). When I received my copy of Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul, Edward Humes’ book about the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, I expected no less. Humes’ FAQ on evolution and ID on his website made 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 early 2007, I wrote a three-part series of blog posts where I discussed how Darwinist author Edward Humes misrepresented himself when trying to convince me to do an interview with him for his book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul (Harper Collins, 2007). (That series of prequels can be found at the following links: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.) When Humes first contacted me in 2006, he Read More ›

At the beginning of 2008, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences stated in its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism, that “Evolutionary biology has been and continues to be a cornerstone of modern science.” It seems that their assertion did not pan out very well for the rest of 2008. Two groups recently released lists of top science news stories and breakthroughs for 2008: The Access Research Network and the leading journal, Science. None of their top breakthroughs came as a result of evolutionary biology. Science‘s top breakthrough was a method where scientists discovered how to harvest stem cells from living patients, a find which has huge potential for treating diseases. This is an extremely important scientific breakthrough, to be sure, Read More ›

During the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial three years ago, biologist Kenneth Miller claimed that biochemist Michael Behe’s arguments in Darwin’s Black Box regarding the irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade were false. Miller’s testimony led federal district court judge John Jones to assert in his decision that “scientists in peer-reviewed publications have refuted Professor Behe’s predication about the alleged irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade.” But an analysis of Miller’s arguments demonstrates that he refuted Behe in no way whatsoever, and that in fact it was Behe who refuted Miller at trial, although Judge Jones ignored Behe’s testimony. Miller continues (I am told) to go around lecturing on this topic, claiming that the blood-clotting cascade of lower vertebrates demonstrate that Read More ›

A news article at ScienceCentric.com reports that single-celled protists have left tracks and grooves in the ocean-bottom that resemble fossil grooves or “trail” fossils that are found in some pre-Cambrian strata. Darwinists have asserted that such pre-Cambrian track or trail fossils must have been produced by complex, multicellular, worm-like animals, thus implying that the Cambrian explosion was not really as explosive as the fossil record makes it appear. Actual fossils of the alleged pre-Cambrian worms that supposedly made the trails are yet to be found, but Darwinists have claimed that the track fossils are smoking gun evidence that they existed. The Darwinists’ story is challenged by this new find: if tracks can be produced by single-celled protists, then pre-Cambrian track Read More ›

Multiple choice quiz. Where did the following words first appear? “We need to move forward in our human evolution and not regress to the flawed passions of the crusades, the suppression of science by religion, or the intolerance of theocracy over freedom of the human spirit.” Was it:A. The latest blog post from PZ Myers?B. The bumper sticker on some 1968 VW Bus owned by a hippie commune?C. The manifesto of the Allied Atheist Alliance?D. The latest Dean’s newsletter from Philip A. Pizzo, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine? If you guessed… …D, you’re correct. As I reported recently, Dean Pizzo’s latest December 1, 2008 newsletter extols those who would make scientific research “free” by keeping it “protected Read More ›

The recent Dean’s Newsletter from Philip A. Pizzo, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, announces a statement from the “Scientific Advisory Board” of the Koch Foundation that recommends creating a brave new world of censorship. According to Dean Pizzo’s newsletter, when giving an award recently to a biology researcher, the Koch Foundation’s “Scientific Advisory Board” stated: “Research must remain free and therefore has to be protected from non-scientific influences such as ‘Creationism,’ ‘Fundamentalism,’ ‘Intelligent Design,’ or other non-scientific ideas or religious convictions.” Ignoring their inappropriate lumping of intelligent design with “creationism,” “fundamentalism,” “non-scientific ideas” and “religious convictions,” it seems that in the Koch Foundation’s vision of the future, being “free” means that ID cannot have any influence upon Read More ›

Recently I went to a public library to do some work, and I saw a book featured on top of a reference desk titled Life on Other Planets (by Rhonda Lucas Donald, Watts Library, 2003). The title page featured little green men with big alien bug-eyes, the kind of picture you might see on some nutty UFO website. The book and its display were clearly aimed at students — perhaps junior high or high school-aged. Fun and silly pictures don’t bother me if they get kids interested in reading about science. The problem here was that when I opened the book, what I found was not science, but science-fiction. Where Does Your Information Come From?The second page of the first Read More ›

Three of the six reviewers of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are recommending that students apply less, rather than more, critical thinking when studying evolution. In Part 1 I discussed the recommendations of David Hills, and in Part 2, I discussed the recommendations of Ronald Wetherington. Like Wetherington and Hillis, TEKS reviewer Gerald Skoog wants the TEKS to include many more standards on evolution which dogmatically only present the evidence for evolution. Here are some of the new standards he wants the TEKS to include: “EXPLAIN HOW NATURAL SELECTION AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY CONSEQUENCES PROVIDE A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION FOR THE FOSSIL RECORD OF ANCIENT LIFE FORMS, AS WELL AS FOR THE STRIKING MOLECULAR SIMILARITIES OBSERVED AMONG LIVING ORGANISMS.” and Read More ›

In Part 1 I discussed how some Darwinist reviewers of the Texas Science Standards are opposing giving students the opportunity to use critical thinking skills when learning the modern Darwinian theory of evolution. One glaring difference between the reviews submitted by those opposing critical thinking on evolution and the reviews of those supporting it is the lengths of the respective sets of reviews. The TEKS reviews submitted by Stephen Meyer, Ralph Seelke, and Charles Garner in support of students applying critical thinking skills to evolution were each over 25 pages in length. In contrast, two of the three Darwinist reviewers submitted reviews that were 8 pages or less. It seems that some of the Darwinist reviewers didn’t take much time Read More ›