Science

In science, theories are tested and debated almost constantly. As silly as it may sound, there are scientists who are still researching gravity. This isn’t as absurd as you might think. While no one doubts that mass attracts mass and apples fall down, not up, scientists are still debating the nature of the underlying physical laws and fundamental particles that cause gravitational attraction.

There are always scientists curious about one aspect or another of any theory under scrutiny, and so they challenge it. There’s nothing wrong with that; in fact, it is the very nature of science to challenge things.

Except when it comes to neo-Darwinism. Then scientists are supposed to shut up, not ask questions, not challenge anything. That isn’t science. It isn’t even what Darwin himself envisioned for science.

Editor’s Note: This special post comes to us courtesy of CSC Fellow Dr. Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany.

In the heated struggle over the teaching of evolution in the state of Florida, some have suggested that Darwinism is dangerous. They claim it has produced odious ideologies, most prominently, Nazism. Michael Ruse has castigated those trying to connect Darwinism and Nazism in his op-ed piece for the Tallahassee Democrat, “Darwin and Hitler: A Not-Very-Intelligent Link” (February 6).

Ruse, a philosopher by profession, claims that the anti-evolutionists are “not very good historians.” However, he commits some serious historical gaffes himself, undermining his claim to be setting the record straight.

It’s clear that with Expelled coming to theaters in April that we will probably hear more from Ben Stein about what he thinks of Darwin and modern evolutionary theory. In his latest writing on the subject over at News Blaze, Stein says that Darwin created “a scientific theory that rationalized Imperialism.” Darwin offered the most compelling argument yet for Imperialism. It was neither good nor bad, neither Liberal nor Conservative, but simply a fact of nature. In dominating Africa and Asia, Britain was simply acting in accordance with the dictates of life itself. He was the ultimate pitchman for Imperialism. Now, we know that Imperialism had a short life span. Imperialism was a system that took no account of the Read More ›

Somewhere a dialogue is presently taking place concerning intelligent design, and it may be going something like this: ID Proponent: DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Intelligent design. Darwinist: Wedge. ID Proponent: Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Intelligent design. Darwinist: Wedge. ID Proponent: Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Intelligent design. Darwinist: Wedge. ID Proponent: Human intelligence. Creative Genius. Love. Music. Art. Leonardo da Vinci. Beethoven. Darwinist: Wedge. ID Proponent: Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Intelligent design. Darwinist: Wedge. ID Proponent: Science. Evidence. Data. Observations. Intelligent design. Darwinist: Wedge. ID Proponent: Atheism: Richard Dawkins. Daniel Dennett. Sam Harris. Eugenie Scott. Barbara Forrest. Stephen Jay Gould. E.O. Wilson. Michael Ruse. P.Z. Myers. Many others. Wedge? Irrelevant. Darwinist: Read More ›

I recently picked up Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science by Oxford chemist Peter Atkins. It’s a 2003 book, and on the plus side, it offers enjoyable and concise explanations of many important scientific theories, including some lucid diagrams explaining Einstein’s ideas about relativity. In his chapter on evolution, Atkins boldly states, “The effective prediction is that the details of molecular evolution must be consistent with those of macroscopic evolution.” (pg. 16) I’m willing to accept that “prediction.” However, Atkins unfortunately goes on to dramatically overstate the evidence for molecular evolution by asserting, “That is found to be the case: there is not a single instance of the molecular traces of change being inconsistent with our observations of Read More ›

We are often told by Darwinists that design cannot be detected in biology. But an article entitled “Wired Science Reveals Secret Codes in Craig Venter’s Artificial Genome” reports that “Wired Science has ferreted out the secret amino acid messages contained in ‘watermarks’ that were embedded in the world’s first manmade bacterial genome, announced last week by the J. Craig Venter Institute.” In biochemical jargon, each amino acid is ascribed a letter. Thus, one can encode sequences of amino acids that effectively spell out words. (The IDEA logo has done this since 1999 by using a chain of 4 amino acids that spell out “I.D.E.A.”) These are the words that Wired‘s sleuths discovered in the “manmade” parts of the bacterial genome Read More ›

After debating whether Dan Brooks’ recent post at Panda’s Thumb should be dignified with a response, I’ve been persuaded that clearing away the worst of the dross is worth some of my time. Dan Brooks, a parasitologist in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, was invited by the Discovery Institute to participate in a private symposium held in Boston in early June 2007. The symposium revisited the issues raised at the 1966 Wistar Institute conference on mathematical challenges to the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution with a view toward assessing any progress that has been made in the last forty years. Brooks’ post at PT not only evinces poor etiquette in its attempt to discuss Read More ›

Dr. Steven Novella has laid down the gauntlet. In a recent post, Dr. Novella, a materialist who asserts that “every single prediction” of materialism has been proven by neuroscience, listed the predictions of his theory that the mind is caused entirely by the brain: He goes on: What Egnor has not done is counter my claim that all predictions made by the materialist hypothesis have been validated. If he wishes to persist in his claims, then I openly challenge Egnor to name one prediction of strict materialism that has been falsified. To be clear, that means one positive prediction for materialism where the evidence falsifies strict materialism. This does not mean evidence we do not currently have, but evidence against Read More ›

Dogmatic materialist Dr. Steven Novella, assistant professor of neurology at Yale, president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society, and my interlocutor in an ongoing debate on the mind-brain problem, has issued a challenge to me regarding his theory that the mind is caused entirely by matter:

Prove me wrong, Egnor.

A bit of background helps explain Dr. Novella’s pique. In an earlier post arguing for a pure materialist understanding of the mind, Dr. Novella made this astonishing claim:

The materialist hypothesis – that the brain causes consciousness – has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated. Every single question that can be answered scientifically – with observation and evidence – that takes the form: “If the brain causes the mind then…” has been resolved in favor of that hypothesis.

I noted:

A bit of advice: whenever a scientist says of his own theory that “every single prediction has been validated,” you’re being had. No scientific theory has had “every single prediction” validated. All theories accord with evidence in some ways, and are inconsistent in others. Successful scientific theories prevail on the preponderance of the evidence, not validation of “every single prediction.” Real science lacks the precision of ideology.

Dr. Novella replied:

The January 2008 issue of Christianity Today contained a letter from Randy Isaac titled “Providence and Evolution.”

In his critique of Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion? [“The CT Review,” November], Logan Paul Gage fails to distinguish between scientific randomness and metaphysical randomness. By insisting that these two concepts are inextricably linked, Gage concludes that McGrath (and Francis Collins) maintain a position that precludes divine providence. Evolution is not a purely random process,

Ahem: something I never denied. But I interrupt.