Science and Culture Today | Page 1371 | Discovering Design in Nature

Today the Florida State Board of Education voted 4-3 to adopt science standards that call evolution “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology.” While it is good that students will learn about evolution, these standards will make for bad science education because they elevate Darwin’s theory to a dogma that cannot be questioned. Even worse, some board members thought that they could rectify the dogmatic tone of the standards by calling evolution a “scientific theory.” Some news articles are even calling this a “compromise.” Those board members were tricked into a false compromise: inserting the word “scientific theory” before the word “evolution” is a meaningless and impotent change that will do absolutely nothing to actually inform students about the scientific Read More ›

http://www.expelledthemovie.comFrom a press release issued by Biola University:

La Mirada, Calif. — Ben Stein, known for his lead role in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day and his Comedy Central show Win Ben Stein’s Money, believes in liberty and truth. In recognition of this, Biola University’s masters in science and religion program will present him with the 2008 Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth on March 27, a month before the release of his major controversial motion picture, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Dogmatic materialist Dr. Steven Novella, assistant professor of neurology at Yale, president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society, and my interlocutor in an ongoing debate on the mind-brain problem, has issued a challenge to me regarding his theory that the mind is caused entirely by matter:

Prove me wrong, Egnor.

A bit of background helps explain Dr. Novella’s pique. In an earlier post arguing for a pure materialist understanding of the mind, Dr. Novella made this astonishing claim:

The materialist hypothesis – that the brain causes consciousness – has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated. Every single question that can be answered scientifically – with observation and evidence – that takes the form: “If the brain causes the mind then…” has been resolved in favor of that hypothesis.

I noted:

A bit of advice: whenever a scientist says of his own theory that “every single prediction has been validated,” you’re being had. No scientific theory has had “every single prediction” validated. All theories accord with evidence in some ways, and are inconsistent in others. Successful scientific theories prevail on the preponderance of the evidence, not validation of “every single prediction.” Real science lacks the precision of ideology.

Dr. Novella replied:

The January 2008 issue of Christianity Today contained a letter from Randy Isaac titled “Providence and Evolution.”

In his critique of Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion? [“The CT Review,” November], Logan Paul Gage fails to distinguish between scientific randomness and metaphysical randomness. By insisting that these two concepts are inextricably linked, Gage concludes that McGrath (and Francis Collins) maintain a position that precludes divine providence. Evolution is not a purely random process,

Ahem: something I never denied. But I interrupt.

In the recently published booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism, the National Academy of Sciences claims that science must be limited to naturalistic explanations:

In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations. (p. 10)

Evolutionists have always been dogmatic about naturalism. They believe that science must, in principle, be absolutely constrained to naturalistic explanations. This is a philosophical position — there is no scientific evidence that could make evolutionists think twice.

Darwin Day is finally here, which means the second annual Darwin Day broadcast is now available online at ID the Future. The video “Proselytzing for Darwin’s God” presents the outrageous story of evolution activists who are inviting theologians into public schools. After years of accusing Darwin’s critics of trying to bring religion into science class, this willingness to undermine the separation of church and state is hypocritical to the core.

Click on image to watch the video.

As schools and museums celebrate the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday today, a new push is being made to inject religion into the nation’s science classrooms.

But it’s not coming from those you might think.

After years of accusing Darwin’s critics of trying to insert religion into biology classes on the sly, leading defenders of evolution are now campaigning to incorporate religion explicitly into classroom lessons on evolution.

Every so often there’s a report about teachers who are under pressure not to teach evolution. With Darwin’s day nearly upon us (have you finished all your shopping?) and the debate over how to teach evolution at a tipping point in Florida, here it comes again.

This article makes many, many assertions without ever giving any real hard data to support the claims that 1) teachers don’t teach evolution, and 2) they skip it because they are afraid.

The closest they come up with are NSTA polls from 2005, which I reported about then. Then, like now, the results are cleverly communicated with misplaced emphasis to imply that teachers are under overwhelming pressure to not teach evolution. It just isn’t so. Here they report that, according to the poll, 31% feel pressured to avoid teaching evolution or to include other theories. What they don’t report is that the vast majority, more than 2-to-1, 69% don’t feel pressured to teach other theories.

Way back when Evolution News & Views was launched in 2005, Rob Crowther pointed out that “there’s nobody else in the blogosphere right now holding the media accountable for how the debate over evolution is reported.” Thankfully, things have changed since then — just take a look at the latest from Salvo Magazine’s blog, “The Media and Evolution,” where Bobby Maddox takes on the latest issue of Wired magazine:

Having just completed Salvo 4 on intelligent design, I have been thinking a lot lately about how evolution is presented to the public by the popular media. Most typically, it comes in the form of off-hand comments in articles or columns on topics that have little or nothing to do with evolution itself. These pieces affirm Darwinism in passing, as though the matter has been fully settled–is as proven as gravity–and only a scientific Neanderthal would disagree.

Atheist-materialist Dr. Steven Novella is confident: all of our experiences and awareness arise from brain matter. There is no soul, no immaterial mind, separate from the brain itself. According to Dr. Novella, a neurologist at Yale, the debate is over, and all that is left to do is to eradicate a few stubborn pockets of resistance to the theory that the mind is merely a secretion of the brain, just as bile is a secretion of the liver. Dr. Novella declares: