Science and Culture Today | Page 1338 | Discovering Design in Nature

A roundtable symposium was recently held at by John Brockman entitled, “Life: What A Concept!” discussing how life arose. Participants included some huge names in origin of life research and genomics, such as Freeman Dyson, J. Craig Venter, George Church, Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, and Seth Lloyd. None of the participants are favorable towards intelligent design, but the transcript of their conversations suggested that the ribosome may exhibit “irreducible complexity” (their words). It’s clear that these anti-ID scientists don’t even understand exactly how life works, much less do they know how it arose naturally, but that they are nonetheless taking an evolution-of-the-gaps approach, assuming that complex micromolecular machines like the ribosome will (despite their present appearances) indeed turn out to Read More ›

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is a religious theory in the sense that it is based on powerful theological claims. Over the past four centuries these beliefs have influenced and even dominated science, and if anything have grown even stronger since Darwin. They form the foundation and ultimate justification for today’s theory of evolution. As evolutionist Ken Miller rhetorically asked, would God “really want to take credit for the mosquito?” Evolution, in one form or another, must be true.

But theists are not the only ones using religion to mandate this rigid form of naturalism. Ironically, religious skeptics are just as capable of making God-wouldn’t-create-the-species type arguments. David Hume is a well known historical example, though many of his ideas trace back to English skeptics from earlier in his century. Today, the likes of Richard Dawkins continue the tradition of atheists proclaiming theological truths in the name of science.

Over at Culture Watch, American born, Melbourne living, blogger Bill Muehlenberg provides yet another good review of John West’s Darwin Day in America. ‘Social Darwinism’ is a term which refers to the social and political ramifications of biological Darwinism and the materialism which it is imbedded in. Darwin regarded humans as basically higher animals, and as the social sciences became more and more tinged by the Darwinian outlook, humans increasingly began to be treated as mere animals, or machines. This volume looks at how the materialistic worldview of Darwinism has impacted on a wide range of fields. As academics, scientists and politicians apply the Darwinian view of man to various social sciences, some very negative outcomes have ensued. We have Read More ›

“Theodore Dalrymple” not only has one of the most droll pen names I have seen (the man is a doctor who enjoys his privacy), but he also is one of England’s best writers on social issues–and its finest contrarian. One of his favorite targets is scientism and the ways it ravages the poor and ignorant. In this review in The New York Sun he is singing a song whose tune I know well and whose lyrics I never tire of: “Marx is Dead, Freud is Dead, and by the way, so is Darwin.”

Technology often aims to imitate biology. But sometimes engineers find that biology itself is a superior replacement for our best technology. This may increasingly be the case for nano-technology, as MSNBC reports that the “[f]lagellum could potentially provide locomotion … to send future nanobots or other tiny medical devices zooming around the human body.” According to the article, engineers have found that a useful mechanism for transporting ATP, an energy-molecule of biology, is found within the energy-transport system that runs along the cilia of sperm (cilia are also sometimes called flagella, as is the case in this MSNBC article). The article reports that there are plans to integrate other components from biology into nano-biomedical devices. The integration of biology into Read More ›

Like rain dancers, Darwinists in Texas are busily engaging in political cloud seeding, trying to whip up a storm of controversy about science education. As usual they mistakenly equate creationism with intelligent design, knowing full well that the two are very different.

The drum beat of these evolutionary rain makers started up last summer when the Dallas Morning News published a thumb-sucker of a story about the majority of the state board of education’s oppostion to inserting ID into Texas science classes. Even though it was clear that no one was proposing inserting ID into the curriculum, all of sudden Darwinists began chanting that the sky was falling. Throughout the fall they picked up the tempo, constantly, falsely claiming that there was an effort to revise Texas science standards to include ID. (And not just in Texas, they’re dancing their pants off in Florida as well.)

Salvo magazine’s latest issue is out just this week and it’s almost entirely focused on ID. James Kushiner, publisher of Touchstone Magazine, opens the issue by asking, Are these really the last days of Darwin? and suggesting that readers let the evidence speak and then decide for themselves. The magazine has a number of excellent articles pertaining to all the different aspects of the debate over intelligent design, penned by a veritable who’s who of intelligent design scientists and scholars, including: Michael Behe, John Bloom, Raymond Bohlin, Larry Caldwell, Seth Cooper, Caroline Crocker, William Dembski, Michael Egnor, Logan Paul Gage, Guillermo Gonzalez, Phillip Johnson, Casey Luskin, Angus Menuge, Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson, Denyse O’Leary, Jay Richards, Ralph Seelke, Geoffrey Simmons, Read More ›

CSC senior fellow John West will be speaking at a number of events in conjunction with Darwin Day. Wednesday, February 6, 20084:30-6:00 pm at Discovery Institute, Seattle If you are in Seattle you can hear Dr. West at the taping or our annual ID The Future Darwin Day Event, Proselytizing for Darwin’s God in the Classroom. If you can’t attend the taping, be sure to tune on Tuesday Feb. 12 and watch the event at www.idthefuture.com. More info here. If you are in Washington DC there will be two chances to see Dr. West. February 8, 2008, NoonGod, Science and the Presidential Campaign of 2008 A public lecture by Dr. John West, Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute, and author of Darwin Read More ›

Media see, media do. And when it comes to the fossil record, the elite Darwinists of late seem unable to see evidence that challenges evolution. With the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and PBS forcefully promoting Tiktaalik to the public as proof of an evolutionary transition from fish to land-walking animals, the media is following closely in their footsteps (no pun intended). A recent article on Canada.com pushes a pro-evolution book titled “Your Inner Fish,” which tries to use Canadian- found fossil Tiktaalik to promote evolution and influence American presidential politics. It’s the Canadian Darwinist’s dream. But this is strange behavior: why are the scientific elite so forcefully pushing this one fossil, especially when it so poorly documents the evolution Read More ›

Every so often the Darwinists get all riled up about the Scientific Dissent From Darwin list, which lists over 700 PhD scientists who publicly affirm: “We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian Theory should be encouraged.” As statements go, it’s simple and straightforward. And that perhaps is what concerns Darwinists. People instantly understand what it is saying, what the scientists are courageously endorsing, and why it matters. In 2006, New York Times science writer Ken Chang wrote an article claiming “Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition,” which turned out to be not true on both counts. Read More ›