Casey Luskin

Darwinist blogs are infamous for ridiculing those who question the party line until they change their mind, stop posting, or leave. But is this strategy employed by those higher in the Darwin-defense hierarchy? Richard B. Katskee, Assistant Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorney for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller case, illustrates in his article in First Amendment Law Review how this Darwinist tactic of ridicule and name-calling goes all the way to the top. Mr. Katskee attacks those who do not oppose ID as “succumbing to the basic deceit at the heart of intelligent design,” saying they “have been deceived.” He uses language to ridicule ID as uncool and evil, calling it a Read More ›

Dave Thomas has published an op-ed in the Albuquerque Tribune entitled “Intelligent design supporters find new, creative ways to get their message out.” Predictably, Thomas uses invectives and misrepresentations to oppose a legitimate bill which would simply give teachers “the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory.” I predicted that Darwinists* would attack the bill by trying to claim that it brings creationism, intelligent design, or religion into the classroom. As I’ve noted before, Darwinists* have no legitimate reason to make such attacks because the bill would protect the teaching of science, and science only, in the science classroom, as Read More ›

A recent article entitled “Scientists say Darwin’s ‘Tree of Life’ [TOL] not the theory of everything,” published on Physorg.com, explained that increasingly, “a minority of biologists and evolutionists have questioned the accuracy of the TOL hypothesis.” The basic problem is that similar genes appear in organisms in patterns which do not fit a universal “tree.” As one of the scientists quoted, W. F. Doolittle, elsewhere stated: “Molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the ‘true tree,’ not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree.” Doolittle attributes his observations to gene-swapping among microorganisms at the base of the TOL, and tries to Read More ›

Imagine that you purchase a “build it yourself” computer kit, and all the instruction manual said is “Step 1: Collect all necessary parts into a box.” This is essentially as far as evolutionary explanations by co-option get: Darwinists assume that by simply identifying the possible origin-location for one or a few structural components that they have explained how all of the parts became properly assembled to interact and produce the final functional structure. Mike Gene has a funny post where he links to computer assembly instructions which simply tell the user to tape the necessary computer parts inside a box. “Exiled from Groggs” thinks that this shows “The limitations of co-option.” It appears that scientists would agree. As one scientist Read More ›

Some Evolution News & Views (ENV) readers may have noticed that yesterday we posted Michael Egnor’s response to a pro-evolution essay contest for students. Who is Michael Egnor? We recently reported how Egnor has been asking Darwinists how much information can be produced via Darwinian mechanisms, but has not been receiving satisfactory answers (see here and here). Michael Egnor, M.D. is professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook and an award-winning brain surgeon who has been named one of New York’s best doctors by New York Magazine. He is now an official part of the ENV team, and we’d like to welcome him on board.

A student at Boise State University recently published an opinion article in the campus newspaper, the Arbiter Online, defending intelligent design. In the article Aaron Vandenbos observed that there is a difference between how ID-proponents and evolutionists behave when in debate: “In my experience, IDists, knowing that they are the underdog, are careful to be objective and factual. On the other hand, I have noticed that evolutionists tend to spend most of their time questioning their opponents’ credibility, belittling their opponents’ intelligence, demolishing straw men and then doing victory laps.” He then explained that evolutionists have defined the terms of this debate so as to settle it before it has even begun. Mr. Vandenbos wrote: Now, I certainly do not Read More ›

A couple weeks ago I watched some video footage of the American Museum for Natural History’s 2006 Darwin Exhibit, which showcased a number of Darwinian scientists who were religious. These included Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Richard Fortey, all of whom were portrayed discussing their acceptance evolution and some form of religion (their specific religious persuasions were not specified in the exhibit footage I saw). No Darwinists were shown stating views which opposed religion. I also recently purchased John Dupré’s book Darwin’s Legacy: What Evolution Means Today (Oxford University Press, 2003). It’s a fairly short book, and given that Dupré is both professor of philosophy of science and Director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society at the University Read More ›

As I recently noted, anti-ID legal scholar Jay Wexler believes that Judge Jones went too far by trying to address whether ID is science. Continuing this line of argument, self-described “liberal First Amendment theorist” Arnold H. Loewy makes a point that Judge Jones missed: “it is not the Court’s job to distinguish good science from bad in the realm of education.” (pg. 85) Our form of government requires a separation of powers. During lawsuits alleging violations of the Establishment Clause in school curricula, courts are allowed to determine if the curriculum establishes religion, but that’s it. Yet Judge Jones found that ID’s claims have allegedly “been refuted by the scientific community” as he sought to address scientific questions about whether Read More ›

See http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife.html for a computer demonstration of how our bodies respond to sites of inflammation. See also here. I find it amazing that Darwinists cite mere sequence similarity between different genes as evidence that such complexity of the cell originated from a random and blindly-selective process.

On Wednesday, February 28, Bryan Fischer debated Kitzmiller plaintiffs’ attorney of the ACLU, Witold “Vic” Walczak, over teaching intelligent design in schools. The debate was sponsored mostly by the ACLU. Mr. Fischer reports that the pro-ACLU crowd cheered supportively when Fischer read a statement by Darwinist biologist P.Z. Myers advocating academic intolerance towards proponents of ID. Fischer reported: Of course Fischer read aloud P.Z. Myers’ quote with the intention of shocking the “pro-ACLU crowd” because Fischer assumed that they would value academic freedom, tolerance, and civil discourse. Apparently Fischer’s assumption was wrong.