Science and Culture Today | Page 1354 | Discovering Design in Nature

An Associated Press article titled “African fossils paint messy picture of human evolution” explains that common popular conceptions of human evolution are incorrect: “Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man.” Indeed, the inappropriateness of such “straight line” depictions of human evolution was one of Jonathan Wells’ main points in chapter 11 in Icons of Evolution, “From Ape to Human: The Ultimate Icon.” A Harvard biological anthropologist stated the newly reported fossils reveal, “how poorly we understand the transition from being something much more apelike to something more humanlike.” The Associated Press article goes on to explain why Homo habilis can no longer Read More ›

Stealth: the act or action of proceeding furtively, secretly, or imperceptiblyPronunciation: ‘stelthFunction: nounEtymology: Middle English stelthe; akin to Old English stelan to steal Richard Brookhiser’s recent TIME magazine article “Matters of Morality” is just lovely in its description of intelligent design: In 2005 Bush said that both intelligent design (a stealth creationist theory) and evolution ought to be taught in schools. Wow. First of all, ID is not creationism–and no one is more vociferously insistent about this than the major creationist organizations like Answers In Genesis. We’ve heard this charge before. But stealth? Stealth…like black helicopter stealth? I guess we better take all of our pro-ID websites down. Michael Behe better round back up the quarter million copies of Darwin’s Read More ›

I just threw up my hands when I saw that the New York Times Review of Books had assigned Richard Dawkins to review Michael Behe’s excellent new book, The Edge of Evolution. A more temperate soul, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things, takes apart the Times’s decision with greater care.

Pandas Thumb guest contributor Abbie Smith has posted an alleged refutation of Michael Behe. Behe stated in The Edge of Evolution that “in just the past few decades HIV has actually undergone more of certain kinds of mutations than all cells have endured since the beginning of the world.” However, Behe then observed that “those mutations, while medically important, have changed the functioning virus very little. It still has the same number of genes that work in the same way. There is no new molecular machinery.” Smith claims that Behe’s statement is refuted, but her evidence is nothing more than the fact that Human HIV-1 has a gene called Vpu which was present in HIV when it first infected humans, Read More ›

The voices in Mike Dunford’s head have been awfully worried lately. Dunford, a zoology graduate student from Hawaii who ‘”studies evolution,” put up a bizarre post on Panda’s Thumb recently. Dunford is convinced that there are conspiracies going on.

He began his post with lucidity, sensibly acknowledging the truth of Denyse O’Leary’s observation that intelligent design theory is not creationism. Intelligent design is the theory that some aspects of living things are more reasonably explained as the product of intelligent design rather than as the product of random variation. It’s a scientific inference, open to evidence, and it might be right or wrong. Creationism is the belief in the literal truth of the Bible, particularly in the Book of Genesis. It’s a religious inference, and creationists believe it cannot be wrong. Dunford acknowledges the honesty of creationists (as if that were in dispute), but then denies the honesty of those of us who support intelligent design theory. Dunford writes:

Over at ID the Future they’ve just completed a series of six interviews with Dr. Lyle Jensen, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Jensen, a biochemist and pioneer in the field of x-ray crystallography, shares his thoughts on the scope of his work (he was recruited for the Manhattan Project in 1943, recognized by the American Crystallographic Association in 1983 with the Fankuchen Memorial Award in X-Ray Crystallography, and again honored in 2000 with the Martin J. Buerger Award).

Dr. Jensen also explains why he dissents from Darwinism and thinks schools should present both the arguments for and against Darwinian evolution.

Links to the podcasts are below the fold

I recently discussed how the Council of Europe’s “Committee on Culture, Science and Education” proposed “banning” intelligent design (ID) from science classrooms on the grounds that teaching ID may represent a “threat to human rights.” Sadly, that mindset does not exist in Europe alone. In 2005, three Ohio State University (OSU) faculty wrote a letter claiming that a doctoral thesis project by an OSU graduate student, Bryan Leonard, engaged in “unethical human subject experimentation” simply because Leonard taught students about scientific problems with Neo-Darwinism. (See “Professors Defend Ohio Grad Student Under Attack by Darwinists” for details.) Jonathan Wells dicusses this case: Although Leonard had gone through normal procedures and received proper approval to conduct research, OSU professors Brian McEnnis, Steve Read More ›

Dear Chicago Sun-Times Editor:

Thank you for running Steven Pinker’s “In defense of dangerous ideas” (July 15) which recognized the need for the scientific community to embrace its scientific taboos–such as whether the state of the environment has actually improved in the last 50 years or whether men and women may have different innate aptitudes.

Would that Pinker truly supported academic freedom for all scientists. While he is even willing to ask if men have an innate tendency to rape, apparently asking if nature exhibits deliberate design is beyond the pale.

A hallmark of tyranny is when leaders believe they are so correct that they have the right to criminalize dissent. The Council of Europe claims to be a leading “human rights” body in Europe, but last June its “Committee on Culture, Science and Education” issued a report (“Committee Report”) proposing a ban on intelligent design (ID) in science classrooms, suggesting ID may pose a “threat to human rights.” Uncommon Descent has covered this issue in detail, and ARN recently reported that the European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ), an ID-friendly legal group affiliated with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), has written a Memo (“ECLJ Memo”) exposing the Committee Report’s hypocrisy. The ECLJ Memo observes that the Read More ›

A few months ago Nick Matzke of the NCSE was on a podcast giving the usual NCSE line that opposition to evolution is a fundamentally “Protestant” Christian phenomenon. Matzke stated, “I’m not sure if the evolution issue will go away until Biblical inerrancy declines in popularity,” and he expressed his hope that, “maybe in a few hundred years people will get over it.” Mr. Matzke should have attended a recent lecture, “Is Darwinism Kosher?,” given at Discovery Institute by Jonathan Rosenblum, an Orthodox Jewish scholar and popular columnist of The Jerusalem Post. Mr. Rosenblum stated that he is comfortable with the literal meaning of Genesis being a “mystery” or an “analogy,” yet he rejects Neo-Darwinism. Speaking at Discovery Institute to Read More ›