Science and Culture Today | Page 1349 | Discovering Design in Nature

Ken Miller was recently quoted in a campus news article saying, “We have the fossils. … We win.” Professor Miller’s logical fallacy was pointed out years ago by those who attempted to clarify reasoning in paleontology, systematics, and evolutionary biology, and it led some scientists (like Colin Patterson) to the conclusion that a paleontological pattern may support or falsify an evolutionary hypothesis, but it can never absolutely prove one (i.e. fossils can’t make Darwinism positively “win”). As a result, some scientists (e.g., Brower, 2000) proposed a strict separation between paleontology and systematics on the one hand, and evolutionary theory on the other. Unfortunately, this clear-thinking approach has been largely abandoned or ignored by most paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. Those who Read More ›

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In a bold move, the little-known group Florida Citizens for Science are excommunicating all scientists who raise any concerns about neo-Darwinism from the “scientific community.”

In an Orlando Sentinel story about the adoption of new science standards, Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science and newly anointed spokesperson for the worldwide “scientific community,” had this to say about the scientific problems with neo-Darwinism:

“It’s a PR issue,” he said. “And it’s a religious issue. In the scientific community, it’s not an issue.”(emphasis mine)

Here are members of the scientific community to whom it is an issue, and who I am sure will be surprised to be so unceremoniously booted from the “scientific community”:

Micheal Behe has a three-part post titled Kenneth R. Miller and the Problem of Evil (part 1, part 2, part 3)on his Amazon author’s page in which he makes a pretty bold assertion about one of his loudest critics: Kenneth Miller is an intelligent design proponent. Behe is serious, adding that “with respect to design, he and I differ only on degree, not on principle.”Behe’s posts come as a response to a second, needless to say negative, review of his new book The Edge of Evolution by Miller in the Catholic magazine Commonweal. Despite Darwinist’s efforts to affect a sort of crib death by attacking the book relentlessly, The Edge of Evolution is doing well in terms of sales to Read More ›

Sometimes you run across something so head-shakingly wrong that you have to ask yourself, where did they come up with that? Take this editorial today in the Arizona Daily Wildcat for example. Upon hearing the basis for the new movie “Expelled,” student columnist Taylor Kessinger actually calls for more academic persecution to rain down upon ID proponents:

On the other hand, does science discriminate against proponents of intelligent design? Well, sure, but only in the same sense that a university discriminates against bad students or the stock market discriminates against people who make poor financial decisions.

If anything, the problem is that there isn’t enough discrimination against this idea. (emphasis added)

In Part 1, I discussed the fact that the Council of Europe (CoE) has recently adopted a resolution alleging that intelligent design (ID) is “a threat to human rights.” The CoE resolutions carry no force of law, but regardless, it’s difficult to keep a straight face that these European politicians would let their dogmatism shine so brilliantly that they would label the questioning of Darwinism as a threat to human rights. As mathematician and Parisian David Berlinski stated, “if this is what a threat to human rights amounts to, count me among its supporters; I’m threatening away with the best of them.” It’s also worth noting that only about 7% of the total members of the CoE’s Parliamentary Assembly voted Read More ›

It’s worth remembering that the struggle for academic freedom is not limited to professors being denied tenure or government scientists facing persecution. It extends to college and high school classrooms, affecting students as well as teachers. Now the people behind “Expelled” have launched a new feature at their website to expose the depth and breadth of this campaign to deny academic freedom to Darwin-doubters: Ever sat in class and had your professor straight up challenge your intelligence for suggesting even the possibility of an intelligent design in the universe? Tired of being labeled merely for questioning aspects of the Darwinian theory of evolution?? Ever been scoffed at or ridiculed in front of your peers? Well, here’s your opportunity to tell Read More ›

Dr. Massimo Pigliucci is a colleague of mine here at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He’s a professor of evolutionary biology and philosophy. I don’t know him personally, but by all reports he is a fine scientist and teacher. He’s written an essay in the McGill Journal of Education about improving science education in light of the controversy between Darwinism and intelligent design. It’s a fascinating essay. Dr. Pigliucci writes well, and he reveals much about Darwinists’ approach to the scientific and educational conflict between intelligent design and Darwinism.

His abstract sums it up:

In Part 1, I recounted how Darwinists are deeply invested in the rhetorical value of the emotional argument that humans and chimps have a 98% – 99% genetic similarity. Anthropologist John Marks reports that sometimes Darwinists even use this statistic to contend that our lives are “meaningless”! To explore this debate, I recently blogged about a Science news article entitled “Relative Differences: The Myth of 1%” that reported that the 1% human/chimp genetic difference statistic was a “myth,” because “studies are showing that [humans and chimps] are not as similar as many tend to believe.” The Science news article reported that improved genome comparison modeling methods indicate that humans and chimps are “6.4%” genetically distinct from one another. Apparently my Read More ›

From a technical scientific perspective, the degree of genetic similarity between humans and chimps seems to be of questionable relevance when one is trying to determine whether two species share a Darwinian past. After all, designers regularly re-use parts that work, especially programming components, so there’s no reason to presume that mere genetic similarity necessarily implies common descent over common design. Moreover, even if such genetic similarities were to imply common ancestry, they don’t demonstrate a plausible stepwise Darwinian evolutionary pathway. Nonetheless, on a rhetorical level, the claim that humans and chimps are 99% the same is a powerful emotional argument aiding those seeking to evangelize for Darwinism. For example, last year a cover story of Time magazine proclaimed: “chimps Read More ›