Science Reporting

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.

This final installment of the response to National Geographic‘s recent evolution article will discuss both Carl Zimmer’s scientific arguments regarding the evolution of the eye, and his theological arguments which he uses to claim the eye was not designed. Before Zimmer discussed “conservation” among genes controlling eye development in widely different types of eyes (reminiscent of common design), he does some blocking by using theological arguments against eye design. Up to this point, Zimmer avoided typical evolutionary icons, but once he started to make the dysteleological argument that the eye is “far from perfect,” he slipped into classical Darwinist iconography. Zimmer cites 3 lines of evidence which he thinks count against design of the vertebrate eye: (1) our retinas may Read More ›

Science writer Denyse O’Leary has just published a four-part series about peer-review on her Post-Darwinist website. It is a thorough overview of what peer-review is and what some of the problems are with the current system. She has some interesting ideas on how this may be resolved in the future, but it is her identification of one major problem that is of most interest to the ID/evolution debate.

In Part I, I discussed how Carl Zimmer’s recent article, “From Fins to Wings,” in National Geographic quoted a biologist in a fashion that sounded like an advertisement for evolution. While the article obviously was not pro-ID, it ironically discussed much evidence which ID-proponents often contend supports intelligent design. This segment of the 3-part response will discuss evidence for design from “conservation” in developmental genes. Evolutionarily Conserved Genes or Common Design? “From Fins to Wings” discusses many examples of similar genes controlling similar developmental processes in widely different organisms. ID-proponents have taken this re-usage of genetic coding components as indicative of common design. Pro-ID scientist Mike Gene has noted that we have to be careful when advancing arguments about common Read More ›

CSC Senior Fellow John West is featured in Human Events this week, offering a reality check and a history lesson on the debate over Darwinian evolution. The debate over Darwinian evolution is typically framed by the news media as a clash between “right” and “left.” Conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, while liberals are presumed to be supportive of it. As in most cases, reality is more complicated. There always have been liberal critics of Darwin. In the early 20th Century, progressive reformer William Jennings Bryan fought for women’s suffrage, world peace–and against Darwinism. More recently, left-wing novelist Kurt Vonnegut, a self-described “secular humanist,” has called our human bodies “miracles of design” and faulted scientists for “pretending Read More ›

Recently Francis Collins, the renowned scientist and harmonizer of Darwin and faith, lectured before a packed auditorium at George Mason University in Virginia. One attendee and avid ENV reader, unimpressed with the harmonization, sent me this report:

SEATTLE — While conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, many on the right, such as George Will, James Q. Wilson, and Larry Arnhart, have mounted a vigorous defense of Darwinism. As Discovery Institute’s John West explains in his new book, Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest (Discovery Institute Press, 2006), their attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology misunderstand both.

Discovery Institute senior fellow and nationally acclaimed bioethicist Wesley J Smith is having it out with NRO’s John Derbyshire over human exceptionalism.

In the wake of US elections, which largely focused on international issues such as terrorism and the war in Iraq, there have been some who think that this somehow means that scientists should ignore evidence for intelligent design, such as the fact that digital code in DNA and molecular machines in cells exist. Canadian science writer Denyse O’Leary (first of Post-Darwinist, now of Mindful Hack fame) commented on our tendency in the US to think that elections here set the pace for everything else in the world. I hope no one will mind me saying this but many American intelligentsias are very, very parochial. Do they think they have a patent on the ID controversy? Do they think everyone knows Read More ›

Cornell Professor Emeritus Richard A. Baer has an opinion piece in the Cornell Daily Sun that is right on target in several areas but completely lost when it comes to freedom of scientific inquiry and intelligent design. Baer rightly points out instances where staunch Darwinists such as Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins have clearly crossed out of the realm of science and into philosophy by making dogmatically materialistic statements such as Sagan’s famous line that “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Baer explains that in his experience:

A far more serious problem at Cornell and at most universities is the many illegal border crossings that go on in the opposite direction: claims made by scientists, speaking as scientists, that are really theological, philosophical or ethical claims, rather than scientific ones.