Science and Culture Today | Page 1350 | Discovering Design in Nature

CSC senior fellow Benjamin Wiker has had an opportunity to interview Oxford philosopher Antony Flew. Flew, an Oxford educated philosopher, held a number of distinguished teaching posts at British universities and had been a prominent atheist throughout the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, he was sort of Richard Dawkins before Dawkins, his name synonymous with staunchly materialistic beliefs. Another CSC senior fellow, Jonathan Witt, first wrote on Flew abandoning his adherence to atheism back in 2004 in the Seattle Times. So this isn’t exactly new news. However, Flew has now published a book explaining in more details his change of mind titled, “There Is A God.” In it he explains his change as a journey into reason.Flew told Read More ›

[Read the full article, “Principled (not Rhetorical) Reasons Why Intelligent Design Doesn’t Identify the Designer,” here.] Mike Gene recently posted on Telic Thoughts responding to professor James F. McGrath, who accuses intelligent design (ID) proponents of being dishonest when they claim that ID does not identify the designer. This professor wrote: “That isn’t an instance of humility, but of strategy, and we all know why the strategy is being used: to wedge ID into science classrooms by disconnecting it from religion.” Similarly, I recently read a law review article co-authored by Barbara Forrest where she asserts with Stephen Gey and Matthew Brauer that “an intelligent designer is simply a subtle reference to God.” (More on problems with this article in Read More ›

Juno Walker at Letters from Vrai has responded to my post Dr. Pigliucci and Fundamentalism in Science Education. Dr Massimo Pigliucci published an essay in The McGill Journal of Education in which he made the absurd claim that effective science education would dissuade students from a belief in Heaven. I pointed out in my post that Heaven wasn’t exactly a proper subject for the scientific method and that the assertion that science education was even applicable to a belief in Heaven was fundamentalism — a kind of atheist fundamentalism. The conflation of methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism — science and atheism — is no more acceptable pedagogy than the conflation of science and creationism. Atheism and creationism are philosophical inferences, and, irrespective of the truth of either faith, neither is consistent with the scientific method. The scientific method — methodological naturalism — is the data-driven study of nature. It’s based on natural, not supernatural, claims. The irony is that the McGill Journal of Education published Dr. Pigliucci’s atheist broadsheet for fundamentalism in science education, but would never publish a creationist broadsheet for fundamentalism in science education.

Walker cites Darwinist philosopher Barbara Forrest to defend the assertion that atheism is a scientifically justifiable inference. Dr. Forrest:

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 ›