Science and Culture Today | Page 1343 | Discovering Design in Nature

At festive Winter Solstice Luncheons across the country, determined atheists are gathering to celebrate one of the oldest and most superstitious holidays of human history. As speakers present lectures on the history of Solstice celebrations, participants give and receive Winter Solstice Cards. These vary little from the general theme of my favorite card, which depicts Charles Darwin as Santa Claus on the front. Apparently, Darwin is the Patron Saint of Solstice. Inside, it reads simply:

evolve your beliefs.
CELEBRATE WINTER SOLSTICE

After yesterday’s article in the Dallas Morning News portrayed Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education Don McLeroy’s Sunday school comments as if they were the basis for his science education policy, McLeroy has a response in the Dallas Morning News today.

McLeroy asks a simple question — what do you teach in science class? — then clarifies for the record his “motivations for questioning evolution:”

[Editor’s Note: This is slide 1 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” a response to PBS-NOVA’s online materials for their “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary.] PBS confidently instructs us that “evolution happens.” But should that matter? Even Darwin’s scientific critics agree that evolution happens. PBS is introducing equivocation into the discussion by failing to clearly define “evolution.” Some use “evolution” to refer to something as simple as minor changes within individual species that occur over short periods of time (Evolution #1). Others use the same word to mean something much more far-reaching, such as claiming that all living organisms are descended from a single common ancestor (Evolution #2), Read More ›

Fresh from our debate at Seattle Pacific University last month, Larry Arnhart resumed his on-again-off-again attack on Darwin Day in America—a book he alternately praises and condemns. Arnhart originally misrepresented (here and here) Darwin Day by alleging that I tried to tie every example of scientific reductionism in my book back to Darwin. As I pointed out in a previous blog, Arnhart’s claim is untrue, and I showed how he had misread or misrepresented the particular examples he had cited. Rather than correct his erroneous claim, however, Arnhart now asserts that I engaged in “bait and switch” when I pointed out in my book that Darwinism is “only one part of [the] larger story” of “materialistic reductionism” even while also arguing that “the work of Charles Darwin ultimately supplied the empirical basis for a robust materialism finally to take hold.” But if there is any “bait and switch” going on it is by Arnhart, not me.

The opponents of Intelligent Design have recently been trying to slither out of a logical dilemma they have created for themselves. Their problem is that they make two mutually exclusive claims: First that ID is not science, and, second, that ID makes false claims.

The primary reason opponents say that ID is not science is because it doesn’t make falsifiable claims. But if it doesn’t make falsifiable claims, then it can’t be said to have made claims that have been found false. Yet this is exactly what they charge.
Opponents of ID have done logical contortions of extraordinary dexterity to get out of this dilemma, but they only seem to land themselves in further contradiction. This contradictory attack on ID is on full display in Judge John Jones arguments in Dover vs. Kitzmiller, the decision that has been hailed by ID’s detractors as the end of ID.

We’re pleased at ENV to welcome new contributor Martin Cothran to our team. Martin brings an educator’s fresh perspective to our blog, as you can read for yourself. Martin is a writer and educator who lives in Kentucky. He is the author of several logic and classical rhetoric textbooks, and is the editor of The Classical Teacher magazine. He is a frequent guest on radio and television on issues of public policy, and has spent over 15 years dealing with educational policy questions at the state level.

We’ve just launched a new website, JudgingPBS.com, responding to the online materials for PBS/NOVA’s Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.

JudgingPBS.com features 14 slides of “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” recounting the failures of Darwinism left unmentioned by PBS/NOVA. I’ve included the first installment of the series (the introductory slide) below — but stay tuned for all 14 slides to be posted over the next couple weeks here on Evolution News & Views:

Two years ago this month, defenders of Darwinian evolution gleefully pronounced the death of the scientific theory of intelligent design because of a court ruling by an activist federal judge in Pennsylvania. But if Darwinists truly think intelligent design is dead, why are they continuing to spend so much time trying to kill it? As a regular Evolution News & Views visitor, you have been continually informed of the ways in which leading Darwinists have unleashed an unprecedented wave of persecution, propaganda, and paranoia in an effort to strangle an idea that they insist is already dead. Fortunately, America still thrives on the free exchange of ideas–despite Darwinists’ best efforts to stifle open discussion. That’s why the Center for Science Read More ›

The producers of Expelled are hosting a contest where people submit videos discussing their persecution as a result of challenging Darwin. One of these entries has already been posted on YouTube–the story of Don McDonald, who was forced to pledge allegiance to evolution while working on his sociology Ph.D., or he might not have been permitted to proceed onward with his dissertation. We blogged about his story back in April 2006. Now you can watch the Dr. McDonald’s submission for the Expelled contest on YouTube:

P.Z. Myers recently put up another post supporting censorship of criticism of Darwinism in public education. Democratically elected school board officials in Florida and Texas are moving closer to policies that would include teaching students that some aspects of Darwin’s theory can be questioned scientifically. In other words, they’re proposing that Darwinism can be taught just like any other scientific theory. Florida State School Board Member Linda Taylor put it this way:

I would support teaching evolution, but with all its warts. I think that some of the facts have been questioned by evolutionists themselves. I would want them taught as theories. That’s important. They could be challenged by others and the kids could then be taught critical thinking and they can make their own choices.

Myers calls Ms. Taylor’s opinion “stupid”. He asks: