Casey Luskin

An editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post, “Nothing Wrong With Kansas“, contains many inaccurate statements about the Kansas Science Standards and intelligent design. First, it wrongly frames the Kansas issue as being about intelligent design: [T]he conservatives regained the majority in 2004 and moved to promote intelligent design — a challenge to Darwinian theory based not on biblical inerrancy or overt creationism but on purportedly scientific flaws in the theory. (“Nothing Wrong With Kansas,” Washington Post, Sunday, August 6, 2006) But the standards are not about intelligent design. Not only do they clearly state, “the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design” (Kansas Science Standards, pg. ii), but the standards only require teaching about scientific criticisms of Neo-Darwinism in a Read More ›

Previously I wrote about problems with John Derbyshire’s TalkOrigins webpage, which I discussed here (Part I) and here (Part II). Where’s the Citation? The TalkOrigins webpate asserts that The Design Inference doesn’t count because it was reviewed by “philosophers, not biologists.” Even if correct, why should that matter? The book was reviewed by the relevant experts in the field which relates to theoretical design-detection, the subject of the book. Moreover, where is the citation on the TalkOrigins page so we can verify their claim? And why should one assume that The Design Inference, published as a part of “Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction, and Decision Theory” and containing many technical mathematical arguments, was not reviewed by mathematicians? Obfuscating the Facts Read More ›

I report with great sadness that my friend Wesley Elsberry of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has a publicly stated a strategy of trying to paint ID-proponents as liars: If you want to drive a wedge between an audience of evangelical Christians and the professionals in the ID movement, you need a third approach: show that the ID advocate on stage with you has been lying to his followers. Show misquote after misquote; demonstrate error after checkable error, and make the audience understand that if the ID advocate claims that the sky is blue, their next step had better be to look out the window to see for themselves. Evangelicals do want to take Christ’s message to the Read More ›

In Part I, I responded to John Derbyshire’s points about ID and peer-review. Part II will rebut some of the false claims on the TalkOrigins webpage cited by Mr. Derbyshire. I will finish this post with Part III later this week. Firstly, the TalkOrigins webpage claims there should be more pro-ID peer-reviewed papers “especially considering the long history and generous funding of the movement.” This statement is highly ironic! The money available for ID research is dwarfed by evolution-funding. Tens of millions of dollars in grants are given to evolution research each year. Because Darwinists hold the purse-strings, design theorists have little-to-no chance of obtaining an NSF grant to explicitly investigate ID. Indeed, the NCSE got over $450,000 from the Read More ›

Having spent a lot of time in the Spanish-speaking world and with those in the Spanish-speaking community in the U.S., I’m very excited to announce an excellent new website, Ciencia-Alternativa.org, which is providing resources on intelligent design in Spanish. Headed by Mr. Mario Lopez, with collaborating scientists from around the world, the site boasts many ID-resources in Spanish. While some aspects of the site are still being developed, they already have extensive resources, including: Here’s a blurb about the site, from their website: Ciencia Alternativa es una organización nueva en la que los científicos introducen un paradigma alternativo a los presupuestos materialistas de la teoría de la evolución. La alternativa que proponemos no es una ciencia nueva, sino simplemente revolucionaria. Read More ›

I appreciate that John Rennie has posted a response to my response to his original post about Kansas on the Scientific American blog. (And I happily forgive the accidental misspelling of my name.) A common tactic in debate is to condescendingly say, “Thanks for proving my point,” when your debate opponent actually refuted all of your points. Other tactics include name-calling, changing the issue at stake, making false accusations, and appealing to authorities as if they are correct simply because they are “authorities.” John Rennie used all of these tactics in his response. Once again, there will be a major difference between my response to Mr. Rennie and his response to me: I will continue to cite scientific literature without Read More ›

The Talk Origins Bumper Sticker John Derbyshire gave a brief review of Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision at National Review Online. Unfortunately, Mr. Derbyshire misses our point about peer-review and ID, and repeats typical Darwinist goalpost-changing tactics on the issue of peer-review.Regarding peer-review, Derbyshire claims that “Judge Jones has way the better of the argument.” Let’s see exactly what Judge Jones says regarding ID and peer-review: “It has not generated peer-reviewed publications” (Kitzmiller v. Dover, 400 F.Supp. 707, 735 (M.D. Pa. 2005) “A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory.” (Id. at 744) “The evidence presented in this case demonstrates Read More ›

On the Scientific American Blog, John Rennie has perpetuated various myths about the Kansas Science Standards (KSS) promoted by “Kansas Citizens for Science.” Mr. Rennie upholds a recent KCFS news post which says the following: Q. How have the standards changed?The KBOE (Kansas Board of Education) Standards:— Change the definition of science so that it can include supernatural causes.— Change the definition of evolution to imply that evolution conflicts with belief in God.— Add solidly refuted criticisms of evolution that are only part of the creationist literature. It’s difficult to call these anything but plain old fabricated lies. Before delving in, please note that there will be a major difference between my post and Mr. Rennie’s post: my post will Read More ›

Some Darwinists have sometimes argued that if ID were taught in schools, then that would risk opening the science classroom to a floodgate of religious ideas about origins, wreaking havoc upon the classroom and turning it into a platform for religious proseltyzation. (For an older example of this objection, see Robert Pennock’s Tower of Babel, pg. xviii.) David Brin repeats this red herring in “The Other Intelligent Design Theories: Intelligent Design is only one of many ‘alternatives’ to Darwinian evolution,” which is the cover story of the current Skeptic Magazine. Brin suggests that if ID is taught, the science classroom will be opened to an onslaught of other “‘alternatives’ to Darwinian evolution” (which he thinks would might offend the sensibilities Read More ›

After I moved to college, my mom turned my bedroom into her quilting room. Though mom now makes very nice quilts, I am sadly stuck with a long-standing grudge against quilters (who are usually very nice people). Because of my personal history, I found it particularly amusing when I read in “The art of quilting” that a woman named Barbara West (picture, left) won the National Award of Excellence for Innovative Quilts from the Canadian Quilters Association for her quilt, entitled “Myths of our Time: Intelligent Design.” The anti-ID quilt parodies the old story where the famous atheist / agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell was told that the earth rested on the back of a turtle. Russell then challenged his objector, Read More ›