Larry Caldwell

Reading Barbara Forrest’s impassioned plea on Richard Dawkins’ website against the Louisiana Science Education Act, one might get the impression she opposes injection of religion in biology classes (even though the Act isn’t intended to do that).

Indeed, when I followed the link to her Louisiana Coalition for Science “open letter” to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, I found the following statement, with which I agree wholeheartedly:

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is violated when the government endorses a sectarian doctrine. . .

On the other hand, Forrest is on the board of directors of the National Center for Science Education.

Last month the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments on Jeanne Caldwell’s appeal from the District Court’s dismissal of her lawsuit against the University of California and the National Science Foundation regarding religious statements made on the University of California’s “Understanding Evolution” website. (Full disclosure: Jeanne Caldwell is my wife.) The website, which is programmed and hosted by the University of California in conjunction with the National Center for Science Education, was created with over $500,000 in financial support from the National Science Foundation. The District Court had dismissed Jeanne Caldwell’s lawsuit on the basis of her alleged lack of standing to bring the action. The District Court’s ruling, if upheld on appeal, would essentially render the internet an “Establishment Clause-free zone” by barring citizens from suing to stop a governmental endorsement of religion that occurs on the internet. The District Court did not reach the merits of Jeanne Caldwell’s Establishment Clause claim.

The key part of the UE website targeted by Jeanne Caldwell’s lawsuit is a webpage titled, “Misconception: Evolution and religion are incompatible,” in which the UC gives K-12 teachers suggested responses to students in their classroom who ask whether evolution is inconsistent with their personal religious beliefs. Prior to the announcement of the lawsuit in the media, the UC religious response webpage read:

If only Darwinists could come up with a body of convincing scientific evidence to support Darwin’s theory: after 150 years of assuring us, such evidence surely must exist. As recently as May of this year, the best that a Darwinist as prominent as Professor Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine could come up with as examples of evolution in action was: (1) bacterial resistance to antibiotics; (2) insect resistance to pesticides; and (3) the evolution of fur coloring of desert rodents. (Ayala, “Darwin’s Greatest Discovery: Design without designer,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 2007).) These examples of “evolution” appear to be microevolution in action; none of them even approach the level of one species “evolving” into another species. On the other hand, there are aspects of the fossil record, such as the Cambrian Explosion, that appear to contradict Darwin’s theory of small gradual changes over time, and for which neo-Darwinism still offers no plausible explanation. (Ayala wisely avoids the subject in his article, by starting his history of modern life after the Cambrian Explosion.) Stasis and “living fossils” are another paradox of Darwinian evolution. Yet according to Ayala, the bacteria that are the oldest organisms on Earth have not changed at all in the billions of years of their existence! This observation does not help Darwinian evolution explain the origin of new types of living organisms.

One of the key expert witnesses for the ACLU in the Dover trial was Barbara Forrest, a Professor of Philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. She recently authored a paper entitled “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals,” (May 2007) in which a major theme is that, since nearly all of the leading intelligent design proponents are Christians who have expressed a preference for a Christian influenced culture, their scientific efforts cannot be trusted as bona fide science. Forrest’s claim, echoing a common theme of Darwinists, is that since the vast majority of intelligent design promoters are Christians, their scientific work must necessarily be so biased by their religious beliefs as to be compromised. On this basis, Forrest essentially argues that anything Christian proponents of intelligent design say about science must be rejected as real science.

Forrest focuses exclusively on the alleged religious biases and motives of Christian proponents of intelligent design. This isn’t surprising, given Forrest’s role as one of the ACLU’s hired guns in the Dover trial. It is Forrest’s status as an ACLU hired gun that should cause us to question the objectivety of her own academic work.

Links of Interest:

Hoax of Dodos, a response to inaccuracies in Flock of Dodos
Haeckel’s Bogus Embryo Drawings (Clip on YouTube)

The late Stephen Jay Gould was one of the most prominent and enthusiastic cheerleaders of biological evolution during the later decades of the Twentieth Century. As a Harvard professor who published many scholarly articles and books and taught biology, geology and the history of science, Gould was often viewed as a spokesperson for science and one of the most prestigious scientists in the world. As a frequent essayist in the popular press, Gould was also well known to the general public.

To the consternation of fellow Darwinists, Gould often told the truth about Darwin’s theory of natural selection and how it measured up against the real world. In 2000, he published an article, entitled “Abscheulich (Atrocious!): Haeckel’s distortions did not help Darwin” (Natural History, March, 2000), that gave a frank assessment of Ernst Haeckel’s infamous embryo drawings and the ethics of using them to sell Darwin’s theory to students and the public.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that the Sacramento Unified School District has not yet officially acted on the name change to its middle school.

Like most mainstream American newspapers, the Sacramento Bee is a strong and uncritical proponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution. The Bee recently demonstrated its devotion to the Darwinist cause with two news articles spotlighting the celebration of Darwin Day in Sacramento.

Ironically, the day after Darwin Day, the Bee included an editorial that rightly condemns the American eugenics movement and that rightly supports a proposal to remove a famous Sacramentan’s name from a school based on his enthusiastic support of eugenics.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is currently running a refreshing op-ed piece entitled, “Why Can’t We Discuss Intelligent Design?,” by J. Scott Turner, arguing for open discussion of ID on university campuses. The twist: Dr. Turner is a an associate professor of biology at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry who thinks intelligent design is “wrongheaded,” but nevertheless deserves to be discussed in academia.

In his commencement speech at Dickinson College, Judge John Jones said: “Each day as a federal trial judge . . . I am at risk of deciding a case incorrectly if I accept that which is presented to me at face value.” (Emphasis added.) Judge Jones’ statement is ironic in light of his decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, in which he appears to have copied incorrect facts supplied by the ACLU attorneys without having his clerk check those facts against the actual evidence in the record. I understand that federal judges and their staff are busy. However, given how important — indeed, even historical — Judge Jones believes the Kitzmiller case to have been (just ask him), one Read More ›

Meet Mark A. Farmer, Ph.D., of Winterville, Georgia.

Dr. Farmer is a Professor and Head of the Department of Cellular Biology at the University of Georgia. His research is on the “origin and evolution of eukaryotic cells.” Until recently, Dr. Farmer also held the position of Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, with the National Science Foundation, with responsibility for soliciting grants for the NSF’s “Assembling the Tree of Life” project.