Science and Culture Today | Page 1304 | Discovering Design in Nature

The recent comments by a Royal Society scientist and education expert about creationism being taught in science classes in the UK have got PZ Myers’ panties all in a bunch. Of course, Myers’ panties are used to being in a bunch because it doesn’t take much to get his dander up.

To be clear Discovery does not support the inclusion of creation science in science curricula. However, teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of a scientific theory, such as Darwinian evolution, is a far cry from teaching creationism, or any other alternative views.

For Myers it is too much for anyone to even suggest discussing creationism with the intent to knock it down, and ultimately to uphold a dogmatic view of the Darwinian orthodoxy.

This is an important distinction that is blurred by most people who advocate that tired old slogan, “teach the controversy” or “teach both sides”. There is only one side, the pattern of the evidence. There are, of course, cases where the evidence is still open to interpretation, and there it is appropriate to present a more ambiguous answer and explain how scientists are still working to resolve the problem.

Indeed, we have long argued to follow the evidence where it leads. And in regards to science education policy specifically:

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“Bastion of ignorance”? “Right-wing political ideology”? “Pseudo-scientific claptrap”? Not exactly the sorts of taunts you expect from a purportedly calm, collected, objective scientific source like the president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). Undoubtedly, such over-the-top rhetoric brings coos of approval from ID’s most vehement critics, such as those at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Gregory A. Petsko, president of the ASBMB, recently published an article in ASBMB Today attacking intelligent design (ID) printing the rhetoric quoted above. But that’s not all he did. His article (which was also published in the journal Genome Biology) goes so far as to insinuate that people believe in religion due to “insecurity and need for certainty” and Read More ›

Those of you who read A.C. Grayling’s arrogant and intellectually vacuous thrashing of Steve Fuller’s new book, Dissent Over Descent: Evolution’s 500-Year War on Intelligent Design, will want to know that Fuller now has a reply available at the New Humanist. Grayling’s method is to simplify opponents’ arguments to the point of misrepresenting them. Just as bad, Grayling’s “review” reveals a woefully disappointing grasp of the the origins of modern science and the history of Christianity. One begins to wonder whether the days of truly intellectual atheists are over. Perhaps it is no longer possible for atheists, uneducated in the history of Christianity and its doctrines, to level serious, challenging criticisms of the faith. It seems they just have too Read More ›

Today a story on the new video game Spore in Education Week has some interesting comments from Barbara Forrest and commentary on evolution:

The game allows users to create living things, from their inception as “pond scum” to fully evolved beings, by choosing advantageous features. Players can also build civilizations and entire worlds.

The theory of evolution, advanced most famously by Charles Darwin, posits that humans and other living things have evolved over millions of years through the process of natural selection –basically, survival of the fittest –along with random mutation.

In allowing students to control how a creature evolves, Spore employs a process of “external manipulation” that mainstream scientists would reject as unscientific, said Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, in Hammond, who has written extensively about the history of evolution study. For instance, the scientific consensus is that “intelligent design,” or the idea that features of living things show signs of having been created by a master hand, is religion, not science.

So Spore is really a game about intelligent design, not unguided Darwinian evolution. Surely this makes Spore completely worthless to someone as concerned with science education as Barbara Forrest, right?

If you haven’t followed the evolution debate in England of late, this week the The Royal Society Director of Education, Prof. Michael Reiss, said creationism should be discussed in science classes. Of course, he recommended teachers attack it as unscientific. Even that suggestion “provoked fury” — to put it mildly — in dogmatic Darwinian circles in Britain. Or, as one British paper put it, this will kick off “a row amongst the country’s top boffins.”

That’s to be expected since this marks a virtual 180 degree change in policy from the Royal Society’s previous opinion that creationism should never be mentioned in science classes. Today Reiss clarified his remarks: “The Royal Society is opposed to creationism being taught as science.”

Not surprisingly, the media in the UK have largely conflated creationism with intelligent design, simply inserting the phrase intelligent design when in fact what is being discussed is clearly young earth creationism.
There is one notable exception.

Earlier this summer we highlighted Susan Mazur’s reporting about the Altenberg 16 conference, in which Mazur wrote that there are “hundreds of other evolutionary scientists (non-Creationists) who contend that natural selection is politics, not science, and that we are in a quagmire because of staggering commercial investment in a Darwinian industry built on an inadequate theory.” Many Darwinists, needless to say, did not like Mazur’s reporting, and they attacked her harshly. They probably are also not going to like Mazur’s latest article, where she interviews University of California, Santa Cruz origin of life researcher David Deamer. When asking Deamer about the “origin of the gene,” he replied, “I think genetic information more or less came out of nowhere by chance Read More ›

You may have seen the latest video making the rounds this week from Matt Damon, attacking Sarah Palin because he doesn’t know anything about her (his words, not mine). It’s like he read a bad Maureen Dowd column and regurgitated the unfunny parts — that is, the whole thing. The best comment, and the most relevant to our readers, Damon makes at the end: I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago. That’s an important — I want to know that, I really do, because she’s going to have the nuclear codes. You know, I want to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago… we can’t, we can’t have that. Whatever Read More ›

If it’s September, it’s time for creationism in schools. That’s how some would like it, anyway.

I’m beginning to the think that the some who want it this way are the Darwinists. Ever so often we’re subjected to the witty headline proclaiming the evolution of creationism. Scientific American doesn’t disappoint, trotting out this well worn cliche to top off their tired scare tactic of make-believing that every school in the land is on the verge of a year’s worth of teaching Biblical creationism. (Not to mention misrepresenting Sarah Palin.) Of course, no such thing is happening.
The truth is that …

Michael Behe and I have posted our first couple objections to the opening statements posted by critics of intelligent design (ID) on OpposingViews.com. Before I discuss those, I want to provide the insightful comments of a friend who read the debates, and wrote me the following: Just a quick perusal of the discussion page for the “Does Intelligent Design Have Merit” shows how the opponents of ID cannot even address the question from a scientific (methodological) standpoint. Eight of 12 comments on the Yes side deal with the scientific merits of ID and only one of 11 comments on the No side actually deal with scientific critiques of ID. Why can’t the opponents of ID respond in a scientific and Read More ›

The website OpposingViews.com is currently hosting an online debate between intelligent design (ID) proponents and critics on the question “Does Intelligent Design Have Merit?” Michael Behe, Jay Richards, and I (Casey Luskin) head up the pro-ID side. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), The Ayn Rand Institute, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AUSCS) take the anti-ID side. Last night they posted the opening statements from all parties. Now there are opportunities to make rebuttals, and then there will be final opportunities for surrebuttals, concluding the debate. Some highlights of the first round of posts include: Other opening statements from us can be found at OpposingViews.com. Below I’ve posted the text of my first opening Read More ›