Casey Luskin

Today the Florida State Board of Education voted 4-3 to adopt science standards that call evolution “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology.” While it is good that students will learn about evolution, these standards will make for bad science education because they elevate Darwin’s theory to a dogma that cannot be questioned. Even worse, some board members thought that they could rectify the dogmatic tone of the standards by calling evolution a “scientific theory.” Some news articles are even calling this a “compromise.” Those board members were tricked into a false compromise: inserting the word “scientific theory” before the word “evolution” is a meaningless and impotent change that will do absolutely nothing to actually inform students about the scientific Read More ›

In Part 1 I discussed the eminent and late origin of life theorist Leslie Orgel’s criticisms of theories that self-sustaining metabolic pathways could spontaneously come into existence on the early earth and evolve into life. Orgel’s was skeptical that this could occur because “the chance of a full set of such catalysts occurring at a single locality on the primitive Earth in the absence of catalysts for disruptive side reactions seems remote in the extreme.” Indeed, according to Orgel, the type of complexity we normally find in the metabolic pathways of life require “a skilled synthetic chemist.” But what if we assume that such pathways could come into existence? Even if such pathways existed, they would still be far from Read More ›

Rob Crowther recently discussed the fact that the proposed Florida Science Standards take an extremely dogmatic approach towards evolution education. The proposed standards assert that evolution is “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology,” and they claim that it “is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.” There are no mention of any scientific problems with neo-Darwinism anywhere in Florida’s proposed standards. Notwithstanding the extremely well-organized efforts of the Darwin-only contingent in Florida, Fred Cutting, a member of the Framing Committee for Florida’s science standards, has written and submitted a Minority Report to the State Board of Education that would introduce objectivity into the evolution curriculum. Some time ago, Mr. Cutting inquired with us for information about solid evolution education, Read More ›

Last year I blogged about Robert Shapiro’s excellent article in Scientific American that gave cogent critiques of many standard models of the chemical origin of life. Shapiro critiqued the view that a primordial soup existed on the early earth that ultimately gave birth to a self-replicating molecule, which eventually evolved into RNA and then DNA. After critiquing this standard model, Shapiro gave his alternative explanation, proposing that life evolved from metabolic pathways that naturally occurred on the early earth. As I wrote at that time, Shapiro “gives scant explanation for how these life-like metabolic networks can come into existence naturally, and he gives no details as to how these thermodynamic states produce real life–life as we know it today.” Now Read More ›

A roundtable symposium was recently held at by John Brockman entitled, “Life: What A Concept!” discussing how life arose. Participants included some huge names in origin of life research and genomics, such as Freeman Dyson, J. Craig Venter, George Church, Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, and Seth Lloyd. None of the participants are favorable towards intelligent design, but the transcript of their conversations suggested that the ribosome may exhibit “irreducible complexity” (their words). It’s clear that these anti-ID scientists don’t even understand exactly how life works, much less do they know how it arose naturally, but that they are nonetheless taking an evolution-of-the-gaps approach, assuming that complex micromolecular machines like the ribosome will (despite their present appearances) indeed turn out to Read More ›

Technology often aims to imitate biology. But sometimes engineers find that biology itself is a superior replacement for our best technology. This may increasingly be the case for nano-technology, as MSNBC reports that the “[f]lagellum could potentially provide locomotion … to send future nanobots or other tiny medical devices zooming around the human body.” According to the article, engineers have found that a useful mechanism for transporting ATP, an energy-molecule of biology, is found within the energy-transport system that runs along the cilia of sperm (cilia are also sometimes called flagella, as is the case in this MSNBC article). The article reports that there are plans to integrate other components from biology into nano-biomedical devices. The integration of biology into Read More ›

Media see, media do. And when it comes to the fossil record, the elite Darwinists of late seem unable to see evidence that challenges evolution. With the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and PBS forcefully promoting Tiktaalik to the public as proof of an evolutionary transition from fish to land-walking animals, the media is following closely in their footsteps (no pun intended). A recent article on Canada.com pushes a pro-evolution book titled “Your Inner Fish,” which tries to use Canadian- found fossil Tiktaalik to promote evolution and influence American presidential politics. It’s the Canadian Darwinist’s dream. But this is strange behavior: why are the scientific elite so forcefully pushing this one fossil, especially when it so poorly documents the evolution Read More ›

This past summer I backpacked with some friends through Switzerland, and spent a few days in the beautiful Swiss capital city of Bern. Bern is a city of extremes: extreme beauty (see a photo I took on a bridge over the River Aare at left), extreme night-club partying, and extremely empty museum-like churches. I had a great time in Bern–my favorite event was crashing a party with a Bluegrass band playing at a corporate party along the Aare. But Bern could use some moderation, especially when it comes to the teaching of evolution. According to an article in Swiss Info, Bern school officials are facing a choice between teaching evolution dogmatically or including young earth creationism in the curriculum. Since Read More ›

I have written an extensive response to the National Academy of Sciences’ new anti-ID booklet, Science, Evolution, and Creationism. The full response, The Facts about Intelligent Design: A Response to the National Academy of Sciences’ Science, Evolution, and Creationism, can be read online here or downloaded as a PDF. Permission is freely granted to reproduce the document for educational use. Below are some excerpts from the rebuttal: IntroductionA 1982 poll found that only 9% of Americans believed that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes. Two years later, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued its first Science and Creationism booklet, stating that science and religion occupy “separate and mutually exclusive realms.” Public skepticism of evolution remained high–a 1993 Read More ›

One could write many pages correcting the inaccurate information in the National Academy of Science’s (NAS) new version of Science, Evolution and Creationism. One of its most egregious errors is that it blatantly misrepresents the flagellum. It states, “For example, in the case of the bacterial flagellum, there is no single, uniform structure that is found in all flagellar bacteria.” (pg. 40) While technically this statement may be true if one looks at the fine-grain of the amino-acid sequence of every single protein among flagellum-bearing bacteria, there most certainly are highly conserved flagellar parts. In this regard, this statement is extremely misleading and inaccurate. Consider the conclusions, directly to the contrary of the NAS, of Mark J. Pallen et al.‘s Read More ›