Robert Crowther

The Great Derb, John Derbyshire, has spoken. And again he’s muddled things badly. This time he’s got himself all in a twist over a response by Tom Bethell to his letter responding to a recent column by Bethell about last spring’s ID debate at AEI. (whew!)

He still can’t understand the obvious differences between creationism and intelligent design, continually conflating the two and looking like an ill-informed crank. And the meandering rantings don’t help.

Derbyshire insists on equating intelligent design and creationism because a judge agrees. “Intelligent Design is creationism. This has been proved to courtroom standards of evidence.” He would be well served to read Traipsing Into Evolution.

Even thoughtful Darwinists understand that ID and creationism are simply two different things. Leonard Susskind, hardly a creationist or IDist, writes in his book The Cosmic Landscape:

This Just In: People are smarter than monkeys. Film at 11.

According to CSC senior fellow and leading ID theorist William Dembski, what follows is: “[A] big story, perhaps the biggest story yet of academic suppression relating to ID. Robert Marks is a world-class expert in the field of evolutionary computing, and yet the Baylor administration, without any consideration of the actual content of Marks’s work at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, decided to shut it down simply because there were anonymous complaints linking the lab to intelligent design.” Read on if you care at all about academic freedom and protecting the right of scientists to freedom of scientific inquiry. What a difference a year or two makes. Or not. The ugly specter of academic suppression seems incapable of being dispelled at Read More ›

Regular visitors to ENV know well the recent trials and tribulations of astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, who was denied tenure in spite of his stellar credentials. Now it seems the rest of the world will learn about Gonzalez’ persecution for being a proponent of intelligent design. Expelled, the forthcoming film that explores the academic persecution of pro-ID scientists, apparently will be featuring some of Gonzalez’s story. After his tenure was denied earlier this year, a faculty member at ISU on the tenure committee admitted he voted against Gonzalez because of his support for, and research into, intelligent design theory. While he didn’t teach about ID in his classes at Iowa State University, Gonzalez did co-author an important ID book, The Privileged Read More ›

CSC Senior Fellow David Berlinski talks about the evolution of cows from whales. This short clip is just a sample of a much longer interview available from Access Research Network.

Over at ID The Future we are featuring the first part of an interview with Premise Media’s Walt Ruloff, the executive producer for the new Ben Stein film, Expelled, due out in February of next year. In this installment, Ruloff gives a brief overview of Expelled, explains how he came to spend over two years making the film, talks about intelligent design as a disruptive technology compared to dogmatic Darwinian evolution, and tells how the film will show that Darwinian evolution is a science stopper. Rather than get mired in the politics of the debate, Ruloff explains that Expelled gets to “where the rubber meets the road, where the science is being done.”

Dallas Morning NoNewsNo News To Report About Texas School Stance on Science Education Dallas — In a stunning development there is no news in Texas. There is no news. Nothing to report. “I don’t see any news here,” said the board president.However, another board member said, “The board hasn’t created news yet, but just wait there’ll be some news eventually.” News was sought across the state, but unable to be found.“We haven’t been making news, I don’t see any news now, nor is there any news forthcoming” said one board member.“I like news,” commented another, “but we’re not making any.” In the past both President Bush and Governor Perry have made news. “The news must be there, no matter what Read More ›

No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence
By William A. Dembski
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 404 pages
ISBN 0-7425-1297-5

No Free Lunch, the sequel to mathematician and philosopher William Dembski’s Cambridge University Press book The Design Inference, explores key questions about the origin of specified complexity. Dembski explains that the Darwinian search mechanism of random mutation coupled with natural selection is incapable of generating novel complex, specified information (CSI).

There’s been a lot of handwaving about a study out of the University of Oregon that purports to refute Michael Behe. You might think this is deja vu (vu, vu, vu), but it isn’t.

New York Times science writer Ken Chang reported this week on how “scientists have pinpointed mutations in an ancient protein that transformed its shape and function more than 400 million years ago.” One of the researchers even claims to have discovered “how evolution sculpted the protein structure to produce a new function.”

Really? With such claims having been bandied about before with little basis in reality, I sought out a biologist working in a research lab and asked her about this paper and she responded:

Expelled is a disturbing new documentary that will shock anyone who thinks all scientists are free to follow the evidence wherever it may lead.

Two years ago when we hosted an event at the National Press Club to raise the alarm about the persecution of pro-ID scientists and educators, I was quoted as saying:

“There is a disturbing trend of scientists, teachers, and students coming under attack for expressing support in the theory of intelligent design, or even just questioning evolution. The freedom of scientists, teachers, and students to question Darwin’s theory, or to express alternative scientific hypothesis is coming under increasing attack by people that can only be called Darwinian fundamentalists.”

Well, it is nearly two years later and it’s sad to say, but the Darwinist inquisition is spreading. Things have gotten worse, not better. Academic freedom is under intense attack by Darwinists across the country.

Finally someone is fighting back, and that someone is Ben Stein. Stein is perfectly situated to weigh in on this issue, as he is an actor, a pop-culture icon, and at the same time a serious economist who has worked in academia and the government.
Today the website was launched for Stein’s next film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, due out in theaters nationwide next February.