Science

Download the Complete “Truth or Dare” with Dr. Ken Miller Lecture GuidePermission Granted to Copy and Distribute for Educational Use. Links to our 7-Part Series Responding to Ken Miller: • Part 1: Science and Religion: Is Evolution “Random and Undirected”?• Part 2: Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design• Part 3 (This Article): Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution• Part 4: The Name-Dropping Approach to Transitional Fossils• Part 5: Spinning Tales About the Bacterial Flagellum• Part 6: Misrepresenting Michael Behe’s Arguments for Irreducible Complexity of the Blood Clotting Cascade• Part 7: Ken Miller and the Evolution of the Immune System: “Not Good Enough”? Update 8/7/13: Since this response to Ken Miller was posted, even stronger evidence of Read More ›

In less than two weeks we will witness the rematch of the decade as Stephen Meyer and Michael Shermer face off on the question of intelligent design versus evolution. These two men have met several times before, most recently at Freedomfest in Las Vegas in 2008 (click here for video). They also sparred in 2005 at Westminster College and appeared together on Lee Strobel’s Faith Under Fire program (video here). It will be interesting to see the new insights into the questions at hand as this debate has matured and developed. The debate is hosted by the American Freedom Alliance and will take place at the prestigious Saban Theater in Beverly Hills on Monday, November 30, at 7:30pm. Dr. Meyer Read More ›

Signature in the Cell makes 2009 list of top ten bestselling science books. Today Amazon.com announced their bestselling books of 2009 and Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne) by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer made the top ten in the science category. According to Amazon.com, books on its 2009 list of best sellers are “[r]anked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.” The book’s publisher, HarperOne, reports that the book is entering its fifth printing in as many months, and continues to sell strongly both online and in stores. “Here we are, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, a book Read More ›

Monday, Nov. 16th, Stephen Meyer and Chris Mooney will be on The Michael Medved Show (second hour, 1pm PT/4pm ET). Mooney is a diehard Darwin defender that various Fellows here at the CSC have debated in the past, and he’s someone we’ve reported about over the years. His view of science is elitist and arrogant, and he has recommended such things as suppressing dissenting views from the media, to spinning science in such a way as to manipulate public opinion. He considers anyone who disagrees with him to be ignorant about science. It will be interesting to see how he does with Meyer, a Cambridge PhD who clearly disagrees with Mooney on … well, practically everything.

With the anniversary of Darwin’s opus nearly upon us, a question that keeps coming up is whether the scientific community is any closer to figuring out the origins of life now than when Darwin published his theory 150 years ago? To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, advocates for intelligent design and Darwinian evolution will be squaring off at the end of the month to debate the origins of life, the challenges to Darwin’s theory of evolution and the alternative theory of intelligent design. The American Freedom Alliance is sponsoring this debate as a part of their series of events celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origins this month. The debate will Read More ›

Download the Complete “Truth or Dare” with Dr. Ken Miller Lecture GuidePermission Granted to Copy and Distribute for Educational Use. Links to our 7-Part Series Responding to Ken Miller: • Part 1: Science and Religion: Is Evolution “Random and Undirected”?• Part 2 (This Article): Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design• Part 3: Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution• Part 4: The Name-Dropping Approach to Transitional Fossils• Part 5: Spinning Tales About the Bacterial Flagellum• Part 6: Misrepresenting Michael Behe’s Arguments for Irreducible Complexity of the Blood Clotting Cascade• Part 7: Ken Miller and the Evolution of the Immune System: “Not Good Enough”? At the Dover trial, Ken Miller asserted under oath that intelligent design is merely Read More ›

ENV: In the past, you’ve remarked about mathematicians and their opinions of Darwin’s theory of evolution. They were skeptical, you said; very skeptical. John Von Neumann was an example. How do you know that about him and about other mathematicians?

DB: How do I know? Here’s how:

I have been close to a number of mathematicians, and friends with others: Daniel Gallin (who died before he could begin his career), M.P. Schutzenberger (my great friend), René Thom (a friend as well), Gian-Carlo Rota (another friend), Lipman Bers (who taught me complex analysis and with whom I briefly shared a hospital room, he leaving as I was coming), Paul Halmos (a colleagues in California), and Irving Segal (a friend by correspondence, embattled and distraught). Some of these men I admired very much, and all of them I liked.
I had many other friends in the international mathematical community. We exchanged views; I got around.

Among the mathematicians that I knew from very roughly 1970 to 1995, the general attitude toward Darwin’s theory was one of skepticism. These days, I do not get around all that much, and whatever the mathematician’s pulse, I do not have my finger on it. But the reactions of which I speak were hardly surprising. Until recently, mathematicians have been skeptical of any discipline beyond mathematics, and I say until recently because attitudes as well as times have changed.

In talking of the mathematician’s skepticism, I mentioned Von Neumann because his name was widely known. I might have mentioned Gian-Carlo Rota. He despised the enveloping air of worship associated with Darwin; he thought biology primitive and dishonest.

Download the Complete “Truth or Dare” with Dr. Ken Miller Lecture GuidePermission Granted to Copy and Distribute for Educational Use. Links to our 7-Part Series Responding to Ken Miller: • Part 1 (This Article): Science and Religion: Is Evolution “Random and Undirected”?• Part 2: Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design• Part 3: Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution• Part 4: The Name-Dropping Approach to Transitional Fossils• Part 5: Spinning Tales About the Bacterial Flagellum• Part 6: Misrepresenting Michael Behe’s Arguments for Irreducible Complexity of the Blood Clotting Cascade• Part 7: Ken Miller and the Evolution of the Immune System: “Not Good Enough”? Introduction Brown University biologist Dr. Kenneth Miller is the kind of person you naturally Read More ›

Q: Many of the most important and lengthiest essays in The Deniable Darwin were originally published in Commentary magazine. How did that fruitful partnership, or patronship, come about? Did you encounter any resistance from the Commentary readership?

DB: My association with Commentary was a stroke of good luck. I wanted a wider readership. Who doesn’t? So I wrote [editor] Neal Kozodoy a letter. It was 1994. Neal, for reasons of his own, thought it important to broaden Commentary‘s intellectual horizons. We had been struck by the fact that science as an institution lacks for critics. To a very surprising extent, it gets a free pass. So our association began. I’ve never known a better editor. “The Deniable Darwin” provoked a great deal of controversy when it was published. It still does. Bloggers still feel obliged to waddle into Blogginess with a counter-critique. Some readers found my Commentary essays difficult, especially those dealing with the origins of life and the evolution of the eye. They objected, perhaps rightly so. They are difficult. But Commentary, you must remember, is a Jewish magazine, and it was the thought that I might in some way be offering encouragement to Christian evangelicals that some of Commentary‘s readers found troubling. They were fearful that in the very next issue I might be found speaking in tongues or eagerly handling snakes.