Science and Culture Today | Page 1293 | Discovering Design in Nature

AUSTIN, TX–As I noted in my other blog post on Dr. Stephen C. Meyer’s testimony today before the Texas State Board of Education, you can always tell a strength of a person’s position based upon the arguments they make. In this regard, Texas Darwinists apparently scripted 2 questions for hostile Texas State Board of Education members to ask Dr. Meyer. Both questions were asked by Board Member Bob Craig and dealt with, you guessed it, personal attacks on Dr. Meyer. The first question the Texas Darwinists asked was whether Dr. Meyer has a Ph.D. in biology. No, Dr. Meyer answered, he merely holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and History of Science from Cambridge University that focused on the history of Read More ›

I’m posting the following report for Casey Luskin, who is currently in Texas at the expert hearing before the Texas State Board of Education. AUSTIN, TX—The NCSE and their friends at the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) are here in Texas and they have one main argument. Or maybe two. The first argument basically says this: Don’t listen to any of these guys because they’re creationists. Creationists. Creationists. Creationists.Creationists. Did I mention that they’re just creationists? The logical fallacies and falsehoods in this short sound-byte argument are legion. They include: motive-mongering, false premise, the genetic fallacy, and perhaps most of all hypocrisy. As Meyer testified, he fully accepts a billions of years old earth. He doesn’t fit Eugenie Scott’s “creationist” mold. Read More ›

If you want to hear it for yourself, the live stream for the hearings is available here.

When asked whether or not she would entertain whether evolution has any weaknesses, Eugenie Scott invited scientists with scientific evidence to show her. “Let them come and talk to people like professor De Lozanne [Ed: who testified earlier] — let them come and talk at the universities.” Note to Eugenie: You kick people out of universities. It seems to happen a lot in Texas especially, for some reason — remember the SMU Darwin v. Design conferences, or the controversy over Bob Marks at Baylor? In fact, one of the expert reviewers on your side — Ron Wetherington — led the charge against allowing ID scientists to speak at SMU.What people say is one thing — what they do is sometimes Read More ›

We’re down in Austin, covering the Texas Board of Education hearings today, and this morning’s public testimony is… well.. interesting. To say that there is interest in this issue is an understatement — the room is packed with people standing along the walls and sitting with their laptops on the floor, waiting for their turn to get a word in on this controversy. It’s interesting to hear the testimonies from both sides in the public. We just had a mother speaking in favor of keeping “strengths and weaknesses” in the science standards who shared how her children’s AP biology teacher would not allow any questioning of Darwin’s theory — the Board members called it “intimidation,” and that doesn’t seem far Read More ›

In previous posts in this brief series, we’ve been looking at the relationship between Marx and Darwin, who developed parallel theories of historical or natural law. In a religious context, law is perceived as static and eternal: God’s law, higher than any man, worthy of judging kings and tyrants by its light. Marxism and Darwinism, as materialist philosophies, believe they have succeeded in obviating the need for God, or metaphysics generally. For them, there is no such thing as a static, eternal moral law. Thus in the Descent of Man, Darwin describes the process by which morals evolve, just like animal bodies. He finds nothing absolute or God-given even in a seemingly fundamental moral instinct like that against incest: “We Read More ›

In 1891 in Gori, Georgia, a 13-year-old choirboy with dreams of becoming a priest, Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, was discovered by his mother at dawn, having stayed awake through the night reading Darwin’s Origin of Species.

“I loved the book so much, Mummy, I couldn’t stop reading,” he explained. He later told a friend that God “doesn’t actually exist. We’ve been deceived.”

“How can you say such a thing?” the friend exclaimed, to which the boy, the future Joseph Stalin, replied by handing him a copy of Darwin.

In this little series, we are asking, among other things, what came from Stalin’s precocious appreciation of evolutionary theory? Hitler and Stalin alike sought to create a new race of supermen. Where did they both happen to get this idea? From Darwinian theory, in the broad sense, of course.

Darwinists are quick to claim there is no controversy over Darwinian evolution, and indeed often claim there are no weaknesses whatsover with Darwin’s controversial theory. Take the case of Texas firebrand, and Darwinian activist and evolution defender Dr. Steven Schafersman. Schafersman is opposed to students learning about both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. When it comes to weaknesses of evolution, Schafersman has –over time– transitioned his position from one point to another so many times that his tree of evolution looks more like a bush. First there were no weaknesses, then there were only a few certain weaknesses. Of late, he has ended up again defending the position that there are no weaknesses whatsoever. John West outlines how Schafersman Read More ›

If you live in Texas and would like to let the state’s board of education know where you stand on teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution, you can do so here. You can support academic freedom by signing this statement: I agree that the current wording of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) that specifies teaching both “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution and other theories, having the effect of both interesting students in the subjects and in developing critical thinking skills, and having withstood TWENTY YEARS of good service in Texas without a single lawsuit, should be retained.

So, Darwinists are admitting that up until Friday, Jan. 16 2009 @ 4:10PM, evolution was “mostly theory.” Interesting. I am now certain that dogs adapt to their environment, too. Last night my dog kept barking and I shook my finger and spoke very firmly to her and made her sit on her bed. She stopped barking. So, at 7:10 pm I had a perfect example of evolution. Or was it adaptation? Or was it bad parenting? Whatever, we now see that dogs evolve, which previously had been believed to be “mostly theory.” My peers, who were there reviewing the moment, are skeptical because they think my dog is asexual. Regardless, this is all speculation — except for poor Kali. She Read More ›