Science and Culture Today | Page 1335 | Discovering Design in Nature

In the recently published booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism, the National Academy of Sciences claims that science must be limited to naturalistic explanations:

In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations. (p. 10)

Evolutionists have always been dogmatic about naturalism. They believe that science must, in principle, be absolutely constrained to naturalistic explanations. This is a philosophical position — there is no scientific evidence that could make evolutionists think twice.

Darwin Day is finally here, which means the second annual Darwin Day broadcast is now available online at ID the Future. The video “Proselytzing for Darwin’s God” presents the outrageous story of evolution activists who are inviting theologians into public schools. After years of accusing Darwin’s critics of trying to bring religion into science class, this willingness to undermine the separation of church and state is hypocritical to the core.

Click on image to watch the video.

As schools and museums celebrate the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday today, a new push is being made to inject religion into the nation’s science classrooms.

But it’s not coming from those you might think.

After years of accusing Darwin’s critics of trying to insert religion into biology classes on the sly, leading defenders of evolution are now campaigning to incorporate religion explicitly into classroom lessons on evolution.

Every so often there’s a report about teachers who are under pressure not to teach evolution. With Darwin’s day nearly upon us (have you finished all your shopping?) and the debate over how to teach evolution at a tipping point in Florida, here it comes again.

This article makes many, many assertions without ever giving any real hard data to support the claims that 1) teachers don’t teach evolution, and 2) they skip it because they are afraid.

The closest they come up with are NSTA polls from 2005, which I reported about then. Then, like now, the results are cleverly communicated with misplaced emphasis to imply that teachers are under overwhelming pressure to not teach evolution. It just isn’t so. Here they report that, according to the poll, 31% feel pressured to avoid teaching evolution or to include other theories. What they don’t report is that the vast majority, more than 2-to-1, 69% don’t feel pressured to teach other theories.

Way back when Evolution News & Views was launched in 2005, Rob Crowther pointed out that “there’s nobody else in the blogosphere right now holding the media accountable for how the debate over evolution is reported.” Thankfully, things have changed since then — just take a look at the latest from Salvo Magazine’s blog, “The Media and Evolution,” where Bobby Maddox takes on the latest issue of Wired magazine:

Having just completed Salvo 4 on intelligent design, I have been thinking a lot lately about how evolution is presented to the public by the popular media. Most typically, it comes in the form of off-hand comments in articles or columns on topics that have little or nothing to do with evolution itself. These pieces affirm Darwinism in passing, as though the matter has been fully settled–is as proven as gravity–and only a scientific Neanderthal would disagree.

Atheist-materialist Dr. Steven Novella is confident: all of our experiences and awareness arise from brain matter. There is no soul, no immaterial mind, separate from the brain itself. According to Dr. Novella, a neurologist at Yale, the debate is over, and all that is left to do is to eradicate a few stubborn pockets of resistance to the theory that the mind is merely a secretion of the brain, just as bile is a secretion of the liver. Dr. Novella declares:

Should scientists who believe the universe is the product of intelligent design be fired? Should science teachers who tell students about evidence that challenges Darwin’s theory of evolution be reprimanded? Should students who want to explore both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution be discouraged from doing so? If you answered no to these questions, click here and sign the Academic Freedom Petition.

If you answered yes, then keep reading and hopefully you will change your mind.

The Board of Regents of the State of Iowa has denied the tenure appeal of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University (ISU). Dr. Gonzalez’s appeal has been ongoing since the summer of 2007, when he was first denied tenure by ISU. “We are extremely disappointed that the Board of Regents refused to give Dr. Gonzalez a fair hearing in his appeal,” said Gonzalez’s attorney Chuck Hurley. “They say in Iowa that academic freedom is supposed to be the ‘foundation of the university.’ That foundation is cracked.” ISU has consistently maintained that Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure denial has nothing to do with intelligent design (ID). But secret e-mails exchanged by ISU faculty who voted against his tenure Read More ›

Ed: Dr. Simmons sent us the post below, asking us to publish it in response to ongoing discussions of his recent debate with Dr. Myers. Against Stupidity, God Himself Is Helpless — Old Jewish Proverb Before the recent KKMS (MN radio) debate, Dr. P.Z. Myers blogged on Pharyngula that he would decimate me. Within minutes of the show’s conclusion, he blogged that he accomplished his goal, never conceding a single point from an hour long show. It is worth one’s while to read his blogs and those that follow as they readily speak to the character of these folks, much moreso than I could ever do. Richard Dawkins was also quick to compliment the professor and add to the feeding Read More ›

In Part 1 I discussed the eminent and late origin of life theorist Leslie Orgel’s criticisms of theories that self-sustaining metabolic pathways could spontaneously come into existence on the early earth and evolve into life. Orgel’s was skeptical that this could occur because “the chance of a full set of such catalysts occurring at a single locality on the primitive Earth in the absence of catalysts for disruptive side reactions seems remote in the extreme.” Indeed, according to Orgel, the type of complexity we normally find in the metabolic pathways of life require “a skilled synthetic chemist.” But what if we assume that such pathways could come into existence? Even if such pathways existed, they would still be far from Read More ›