Science and Culture Today | Page 1320 | Discovering Design in Nature

Well, it’s official. The Florida House of Representatives refused today to pass the academic freedom measure on evolution previously passed by the state Senate, and so the measure is now dead because the legislative session has ended. Supposedly, the Florida House refused to pass the Senate bill because it favored a stronger measure to require the critical analysis of evolution. As a former political science professor, I can tell you that this explanation doesn’t hold water. If the Republican House leadership in Florida really supported academic freedom on evolution, they would have passed the Senate bill. Instead, they shamefully passed a bill earlier this week with language that the Senate had previously rejected, knowing full well this would likely mean Read More ›

Today’s Wall Street Journal is running an article about the growing battle over academic freedom on evolution. For the establishment media, the article is pretty standard-issue — which means it’s fairly shallow, conflates lots of things, and is written almost entirely from the Darwinists’ point of view. But the fact that the Journal is highlighting this issue at all shows how the academic freedom issue may be reaching a level that is hard to ignore. A couple of the specific problems of the Journal piece: In the article proper, the reporter doesn’t allow us to respond to the phony claim that there are no scientific criticisms of Darwinism, although we were allowed to briefly make our points in an internet-only Read More ›

There are people who apparently have a deep-seated need to believe that Intelligent Design proponents are really creationists in disguise, and that once they have control over the nation’s schools, they’re going to rip off their clever scientist disguises to reveal men in short sleeve dress shirts and horn-rimmed glasses who believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. Acting on a preordained set of instructions, this view seems to suggest, they will proceed to outlaw any mention of evolution in schools, and will execute plans that involve, among other things, taking students on weekly field trips to Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.

It is a frightening vision of the future: a flood of creationism let loose on the nation’s schools. The end of science is near, and to ride out the crisis, ID critics are building themselves a rhetorical ark and bringing the fallacies aboard two by two.

The charge that ID is part of some creationist conspiracy was recently reiterated by Larry Arnhart, the author of Darwinian Conservatism. Arnhart, a professor at Northern Illinois University, writes in a recent post about the “Rhetorical Blunder in Ben Stein’s ‘Expelled’,” a blunder which has to do, he thinks, with what is really behind Intelligent Design.

According to a press release just issued, the Fair Use Project of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society has announced that it will defend Premise Media’s use in Expelled of a clip from John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” Yoko Ono, EMI and Columbia have all filed suit against Premise, which has claimed they used the clip under the fair use doctrine. “The right to quote from copyrighted works in order to criticize them and discuss the views they may represent lies at the heart of the fair use doctrine,” said Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project. “These rights are under attack here, and we plan to defend them.” You might want to get out and see Read More ›

David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (reviewed brilliantly by George Gilder in the new National Review) is just arriving in book stores, while in Paris an entirely different, and also invaluable, book, Origines (Origins), has been published this week in French by Saint-Simon. Read the rest here.

Florida citizens who support academic freedom legislation on evolution might want to ask some tough questions of House Republican leaders in their state. Rather than pass an academic freedom bill previously adopted by the state Senate, the Florida House earlier this week adopted its own seemingly tougher measure that would actually require critical analysis of evolution. But wait: the Florida Senate had previously rejected the House approach, and with only a week left in the legislative session, Florida House members had to know that it would be extremely difficult to hammer out a new bill that could pass both houses within the remaining time. If the Florida legislature adjourns without passing an evolution academic freedom bill — after both legislative Read More ›

The Missouri House of Representatives’ Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education just approved a proposed academic freedom act on evolution by a bipartisan vote of 8-3. The bill now moves to the full House for consideration. Sponsored by Rep. Wayne Cooper, the bill reads in part: The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, superintendents of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including such subjects as the teaching of biological and Read More ›

The quadrennial international convention of the Methodist Church, meeting in Fort Worth, today adopted an historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of Darwinian eugenics that saw its 20th century extreme expression in the theories of Adolf Hitler.

Yes, that would be the Nazi ideology that the Darwinists of today–and major media–pretend sprang on the world fresh from the head of Hitler, wholly unconnected to the history of Darwin’s theory, Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel. For the ten minutes it spent on this topic, the current film Expelled, starring Ben Stein, has been the target of unstinting left wing media attack and revisionist history.

The Methodists’ resolution–adopted by a vote of 836 to 28–apologizes for the denomination’s own failure to resist the eugenics movement in this country in the 20th century. They were not alone, as John West explains in Darwin Day in America. But no other mainline Protestant denomination has yet had the courage to admit to the racism of Darwinist eugenics and the supine attitude that leading American religious leaders, as well as the scientific establishment, adopted towards it.

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]

MSNBC.com columnists sure have it in for Expelled. What about the movie exactly has all their knickers in a twist? It might be easier to ask what doesn’t infuriate them about this film. Last week it was Art Caplan’s ridiculously absurd charge that Ben Stein is a Holocaust denier. This week it is Alan Boyle taking aim at the film, albeit in a less inflammatory manner. At least he, unlike some critics, appears to actually have seen, and reflected on, the movie.

Five states are currently considering adoption of academic freedom legislation designed to protect teachers who teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. Introduction of similar legislation is being considered by legislators in several other states, indicating the national scope of this movement.

“Often in this debate the issues at hand get misrepresented, and so our goal is to fully and straightforwardly explain that this is about science and helping prepare the best scientists of the future for our state and for our country,” said Rep. John Moolenaar, sponsor of academic freedom legislation in Michigan. “And a big part of that is enabling them to have the academic freedom to explore and critically examine scientific theories.”

Many of the bills have been adapted from sample legislation developed by Discovery Institute, including a model statute posted online at www.academicfreedompetition.com.