Science and Culture Today | Page 1363 | Discovering Design in Nature

The National Research Council’s report — The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems — is a must read. Not for the science — what there is of it can be summed up simply: we have no clue how life began. No, the report is a must read for the insight it offers into the current state of origin of life research:

Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren today has an interesting piece titled “The Limits of Darwinism,” an obvious nod to Michael Behe’s recent book, which is subtitled, “The Search for the Limits of Darwinism.”Warren starts with an interesting questions: In this case, we must ask ourselves why so many people get so excited about an area of science that should not concern them. He finds that it is likely because atheist materialism treats Darwinian evolution as a sort of holy writ that cannot be criticized. Much of the “star chamber” atmosphere, that has accompanied the public invigilation of microbiologists such as Michael J. Behe, and other very qualified scientists working on questions of design in natural systems, can only be explained Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series of essential readings we’re highlighting in the evolution-ID debate]

The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories
By Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, Roger L. Olsen
The Philosophical Library of New York, 1984, 228 pages
ISBN 0-929510-02-8

A seminal work for the theory of intelligent design, this book provides a scientific critique of the prevailing paradigmatic theories of chemical evolution. The authors include Discovery fellows Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley, and they conclude that the prebiotic soup from which the first cell supposedly arose is a myth. The Miller-Urey experiments employed an unrealistic gas mixture, and there is no geological evidence for its existence in Earth’s distant past. The “soup” faces a myriad of other problems, such as inevitable rapid destruction at the hands of radiation.

We’ve gotten a couple of e-mails challenging my observation in a recent post that questioning Darwin’s theory in a public school is a federal crime. The reader implied that, because there is no federal statute explicitly censoring criticism of Darwin’s theory in public schools, it wasn’t a federal crime to do so. The issue of censorship in science classes in public schools is worth examining more closely.

Is it a federal crime to question Darwin’s theory in a public school? In some public schools it certainly is. It’s a federal crime to violate a federal court ruling, such as the ruling by federal judge John E. Jones banning criticism of Darwin’s theory in the curriculum of biology classes in Dover, Pennsylvania public schools. Disobeying Judge Jones’ ruling would be a violation of U.S. Code Title 18, Part1, Chapter 21, section 401, which reads:

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