Science and Culture Today | Page 1242 | Discovering Design in Nature

WorldNetDaily has been covering the lawsuits filed against the California Science Center by the AFA and Discovery Institute over the cancellation of the pro-intelligent design film Darwin’s Dilemma and the suppression of public documents concerning the Center’s decision: The newest action comes from the Discovery Institute, which is accusing the California Science Center of unlawfully refusing to disclose public documents sought under the California Public Records Act. Discovery officials filed the request for the documentation about the center’s decision-making process when it rejected the video “Darwin’s Dilemma” Oct. 9. The center canceled a contract with the American Freedom Alliance to show the film Oct. 26. The center released 44 pages of documentation Nov. 2 and claimed “no documents have been Read More ›

Sometimes Jerry Coyne makes me spray my coffee. This gem from a post of his on detente in the new atheist-theist wars:

Atheists have been “humble” for centuries (who was more humble than Spinoza?) and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. It’s that crop of new atheist books that have finally created a climate in which atheists need not feel like pariahs…

Humble? Atheism’s first assumption of power at the level of the nation-state was in the French Revolution. “Humility” doesn’t do justice to the carnage wrought by French atheism-in-power, nor to the Napoleonic wars and millions of dead that followed in the ensuing decades of “atheist humility.”

In the 19th century “atheist humility” incubated in the minds of men like Marx, and again gained the reins of power in 1917. The 20th century was the century of atheism in power. Here is the death toll of its “humility” (from The Black Book of Communism):

The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century [go to the link to see the graphs; the fraud is astonishing]

But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result [go to link above to see graphs]

Read More ›

From Anthony Watts at Watts Up With That

The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century [go to the link to see the graphs; the fraud is astonishing]

But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result [go to link above to see graphs]

Read More ›

Now this is settled science:

A pampered hereditary monarch of a tiny ‘playground for the rich’ statelet has announced that anthropogenic global warming is for real.

Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco (Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi), head of the House of Grimaldi and the current ruler of the Principality of Monaco, son of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco and his princess consort, Grace Kelly, has ended the controversy over global warming. Albert, known for flying in private jets around the world in order to appear for global warming photo-ops and to encourage people to forgo heavy carbon footprint activities like driving to work and heating their homes, has announced:

“There is no more room for doubt.”

ClimateGate has drawn it’s first political blood: So the great climate e-mail fiasco has drawn blood — that of an opposition leader, no less, on the other side of the world. Australian Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has been replaced by a climate sceptic, Tony Abbott, after ten of its most senior politicians resigned over its support for the Government’s plans for fighting global warming. They were, it seems, fired up by the hacked communications from the University of East Anglia… Just the beginning. Just as the political and ideological motivations of the global warming movement dwarfed the meager and largely fraudulent science (cf. Darwinism), the blowback from the revelation of the fraudulent science will be largely political. In many countries, Read More ›

Jerry Coyne has an amusing post on philosopher Thomas Nagel’s Times Literary Supplement review of Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the evidence for Intelligent Design. Nagel is a world class philosopher and University Professor of Philosophy and Law at NYU who has made seminal contributions to philosophy of the mind, political philosophy, and ethics. Nagel has chosen Meyer’s book as one of the best books of the year for 2009:

This morning Discovery Institute announced their lawsuit against the California Science Center for unlawfully refusing to disclose public documents requested by Discovery Institute under the California Public Records Act. The petition, filed December 1, 2009, is available for viewing here.

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 2 — Discovery Institute has filed a lawsuit against the California Science Center (the “Center”) for unlawfully refusing to disclose public documents requested by Discovery Institute under the California Public Records Act. Discovery Institute filed the public documents request on October 9, 2009, following the Center’s October 6, 2009 cancellation of a contract with the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) to screen a pro-intelligent design video, Darwin’s Dilemma, at the California Science Center’s IMAX Theatre on October 25, 2009. On November 2, 2009, the Center released 44 pages of documents claiming to have disclosed “all documents” and that “no documents have been withheld,” apart from a few e-mail addresses that were redacted. “California Science Center’s claims are not Read More ›

The Investor’s Business Daily gets it:

The CRU’s Criminal Conspiracy

ClimateGate: Britain’s Climate Research Unit now says it will release all its data. Does that include the data that have been shredded, deleted and denied publication?

Peter Hannaford has a great essay in Human Events on Obama’s Science Advisor John Holdren and ClimateGate. As you may recall, eco-activist Holdren has a long history of advocacy for coercive measures to reduce human population, and in the 1970’s he advocated forced sterilizations and even putting sterilants in public drinking water. His policies in support of forced sterilization were put into practice by India and China several decades ago, and millions of people were involuntarily sterilized. Holdren has also said that he was open to criminal prosecution of people who disagree with some of his eco-policies.

Hannaford’s essay:

Meet the White House’s Alarmist in Chief

If you had devoted your entire scientific career to predicting the end of the world, what do you think would be the symbol of success with which to crown that career? Why, to be President Obama’s choice as White House Director of Science and Technology. That’s his formal title, but what John Holdren is, in fact, is the nation’s Alarmist in Chief.

Al Gore thinks he invented global alarmism, but he’s a Johnny-come-lately compared with Mr. Holdren who, back in 1971 edited (with population alarmist Paul Ehrlich) a book titled Global Ecology. Also, he supplied one of its essays, “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide” in which he predicted that such human-caused phenomena as agricultural dust, jet exhaust and smog would cause a new ice age. Thus, he wrote, “…a sudden slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”

Nowadays, of course, the giant tidal wave will be caused by melting ice caps, not growing ones. One must move with the times.