Scientific Freedom

Mark Farmer has responded to Larry Caldwell’s original post about Farmer’s e-mails to Quality Science Education for All. Readers can decide for themselves whether Farmer’s explanation of what he wrote fits the tone of his original e-mails to Caldwell where Caldwell reported that Farmer enthusiastically asked: “Specifically I would like to know whether or not you support the word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ being taught in our public schools. This is an issue I feel very strongly about and would need to know your position before making a decision to financially support QSEA.” Caldwell responded saying: Thank you for posting Mark Farmer’s response to my blog post. Farmer’s response is full of contradictions that might be amusing Read More ›

As noted here, Ouachita Parish around Monroe, Louisiana recently passed a policy on academic freedom for teaching controversial scientific subjects. Here is the text of Ouachita Parish’s new resolution on academic freedom as well as their new their curricular policy: From http://www.opsb.net/downloads/forms/Ouachita_Parish_Science_Curriculum_Policy.pdf

A common Darwinist myth is that the only people who are skeptical of evolution are Americans. A recent article in the Virginia Informer stated, “John Swaddler, UK native and associate professor of biology at the College [of William and Mary], noted that the media phenomenon of creationism/ID vs. evolution doesn’t happen in countries besides America.” Saddler is promoting a common Darwinist claim which is simply untrue: As we’ve noted recently, there has been a push to teach intelligent design in the United Kingdom. This summer an article in the London Guardian noted that over 30% of British students support non-evolutionary accounts of the history of life. Such skepticism extends far beyond the U.K. Nature reported that Poland is experiencing an Read More ›

(Editors Note: This Post Was Revised and Updated on November 28, 2006): Some people have contacted me insisting that not all freshmen were required to attend the lecture by Robert Pennock at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (first discussed here). In this regard, consider the following points: On a related matter, it seems that I misunderstood Ed Brayton’s recent report on his experience with Robert Pennock, where I thought Brayton provided further corroboration that the UCSD lecture was required of all first-quarter freshmen. Brayton has responded that he has no independent information that the UCSD lecture required all freshman to attend other than my original post. So I have retracted my prior post here on Brayton. It’s interesting Read More ›

We would like to welcome our newest addition to the Evolution News & Views reporting team, Larry Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell is a parent and attorney in Roseville, California. He is also president of Quality Science Education for All (QSEA), a non-profit organization which has advocated for quality science education policies in the Roseville school district to guarantee that science will not be taught dogmatically and that teachers will “help students analyze the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories, including the theory of evolution.” Under Larry’s leadership, QSEA has been involved in a lawsuit to end Establishment Clause violations by Darwinists who are using taxpayer money to promote pro-Darwinian theology via the Understanding Evolution website. More information can be Read More ›

Parents and students beware: the author of a leading college biochemistry textbook believes that pro-intelligent design students are not smart and should not be admitted to college. Discussing the UCSD Robert Pennock lecture, UncommonDescent reports that Larry Moran, professor of biochemistry at the University of Toronto and author of the widely used college biochemistry textbook, Principles of Biochemistry, thinks that UCSD should not admit students who are pro-ID. In a post entitled, “Flunk the IDiots,” Professor Moran wrote: I agree with the Dembski sycophants that UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place. Having made that mistake, it’s hopeless to expect that a single lecture–even Read More ›

On Tuesday, I reported that the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) required all freshmen to attend an anti-ID lecture by Robert Pennock. Apparently it was a packed house in the 5000-seat RIMAC arena, illustrating that thousands of freshmen did attend (as they were required). In my prior post I noted that Pennock’s “arguments are fairly standard misrepresentations of intelligent design” and tried to make “educated predictions about Pennock will say.” I know many pro-ID people were in the audience. One friend contacted me and confirmed that most of my predictions about Pennock’s arguments were correct. Pennock made the following arguments, as I predicted: Why Not Praise UCSD for Discussing ID? A friendly questioner e-mailed me asking why I Read More ›

We recently discussed how New Scientist reporter Celeste Biever unnecessarily used a fake identity to talk to the IDEA Club at Cornell. Over the past year, I’ve had a few analogous encounters where Darwinist biologists have used their positions at major secular universities to feign being pro-ID in an unnecessary deception to engage in dialogue. One very recent example is a biologist at Northeastern University in Boston named Donald M. O’Malley. In September, 2006, Dr. O’Malley wrote me an e-mail saying that he was pro-ID and that “the grandest of designs [is] the central nervous system.” He said that he shared this information “in confidence” because “there are certain parties that certainly would not be sympathetic to my views” and 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.

David Sepkoski’s recent literature review (“Worldviews in Collision: Recent Literature on the Creation*Evolution Divide”) in Journal of the History of Biology provides another illustration of the fact that many science journals are biased against intelligent design. He uses pejorative language against ID, claiming its proponents engage in a “guerilla campaign,” calling specified complexity “Dembski’s hobby-horse,” and asserting that Stephen Meyer’s article contains a “confused interpretation of the Cambrian explosion” (though Sepkoski provides no specifics to bolster his point). Given the pejorative language, could the anti-ID bias in the scientific community be any clearer? Sepkoski’s omissions are more interesting than what he includes. He reviews no books by scientific proponents of intelligent design, such as The Privileged Planet, which was published Read More ›