Science and Culture Today | Page 1378 | Discovering Design in Nature

Darwinists often tell us that scientific views which challenge Darwin should be banned from classrooms or scientific discussion because they are outside the “consensus” of the scientific community. Darwinists love to make this appeal to authority because it is a very effective form of peer pressure which appeals to our respect for science and the conformist tendencies in society. Yet they rarely define the meaning of “consensus,” and they also ignore the fact that true respect for science implies that we should never accept something merely because it’s the “consensus.” Simply put, that’s because the consensus can be wrong, and we should accept something only because of the evidence. As Stephen Jay Gould and other scientists warned the U.S. Supreme Read More ›

University of Wisconsin philosopher Elliott Sober has published an article in Quarterly Review of Biology entitled, “What is Wrong With Intelligent Design?” It seems that mainstream biology journals are more than willing to publish articles attacking intelligent design (ID) while choosing not to include any companion piece supporting ID. Regardless, from Sober’s article it would appear that very little is wrong with ID because he ultimately fails to disclose the predictions of the theory. He starts by defining ID fairly well in a vague sense, stating “mini-ID is that … complex adaptations that organisms display (e.g., the vertebrate eye) were crafted by an intelligent designer.” He even acknowledges that those who state the designer is supernatural “go beyond mini-ID’s single Read More ›

Over at the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) archives, I’ve posted a review of Sean B. Carroll’s book entitled, “The Evolutionary Gospel According to Sean B. Carroll: A Review of Sean B. Carroll’s The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution” (W.W. Norton, 2006). Below are a few excerpts of the review: To ensure the reader adopts his own view of evolution, Carroll resorts to scare tactics. After a bleak discussion of the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming, Carroll explains that “acceptance of [evolutionary biology’s] facts” is not “a matter that should be open to political or philosophical debate.” Carroll, who interestingly always capitalizes the term “Nature,” quotes Peter Medawar, saying Read More ›

The Darwin vs. Design conferences will kick off at the Knoxville Convention Center this coming Saturday, March 24th. Here is an updated agenda for the day’s events. If you haven’t registered yet, you can still do so online before Noon EST Wed., March 21. Otherwise, you’ll have to try and purchase tickets the day of the event, but if it’s sold out you’ll be out of luck. It’s better to get those tickets now while you still can. See below for the full schedule.

This is your assignment. You are to read the mind of someone named “Lucy.” Actually, you are to find out where Lucy’s mind came from. You can’t meet Lucy. She’s been dead for 3.2 million years. Your only data will be a fragment of Lucy’s fossilized skull and genetic analysis of some apes, men, and lice.

This isn’t a bad dream. This is an exciting new branch of evolutionary biology, and it’s on the cover of Newsweek magazine. And they’re serious.

Over at ID Plus, Peter Williams has an excellent analysis of Richard Fortey’s article against ID. Fortey’s article was subtitled “Why I hate this intelligent design story. It’s simply IDiotic” and it concludes, “Darwinists are readily labelled. There should be an equivalent term for the proponents of Intelligent Design. May I suggest IDiots.” In “Richard Fortey rants at straw man of ID,” Peter Williams writes in response, “While Darwinists provided their own name, this childishly rude title does not allow the proponents of the ID theory to choose their own name for their theory. Descending to name-calling is not going to help the Darwinist cause shift the appearance of ‘a threatened Establishment’! Rather, it confirms it.” Williams is correct: the Read More ›

Darwinist blogger and computer scientist MarkCC (why don’t they use their real names?) called me a lot of names a couple of days ago. The most profane was that I am a ‘bastion of s***headed ignorance.’ Profanity seems to be a particular problem with the computer-math Darwinists. A dysfunctional clad, perhaps. They’re dysfunctional because, as Aristotle wrote, effective rhetoric has three characteristics: logos, ethos, and pathos. Effective rhetoric appeals to the best in reason, ethics, and emotion. When I’m called unprintable names merely for expressing my skepticism about the relevance of Darwin’s theory to the practice of medicine, I’ve already won the ‘ethos’ and ‘pathos’ skirmishes. I can concentrate on the logos.

I have written in this blog that Darwinism is irrelevant to the practice of medicine. The truth of my assertion is, I think, fairly obvious, except to Darwin fundamentalists. Most of the Darwinists’ comments on my posts have been personal attacks on me, rather than carefully reasoned arguments. The thoughtful arguments that have been put forth are, I think, misguided, as I will discuss in upcoming posts.

The assertion that Darwinism is essential to medicine is usually is based on the argument that one or more of the following areas of science are dependent on Darwin’s theory:

• 1. Comparative medicine, which is the study of the similarity and the differences between humans and other organisms.
• 2. Medical genetics and molecular biology
• 3. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics

In addition, a common Darwinist argument is that the presence on medical school faculties of scientists who study some aspects of evolutionary biology is evidence that evolutionary biology is indispensable to medicine. That argument is flawed, but it does raise an important issue. I’ll address that issue here, and I’ll address the other issues, one by one, in ensuing posts.

Darwinist blogs are infamous for ridiculing those who question the party line until they change their mind, stop posting, or leave. But is this strategy employed by those higher in the Darwin-defense hierarchy? Richard B. Katskee, Assistant Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorney for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller case, illustrates in his article in First Amendment Law Review how this Darwinist tactic of ridicule and name-calling goes all the way to the top. Mr. Katskee attacks those who do not oppose ID as “succumbing to the basic deceit at the heart of intelligent design,” saying they “have been deceived.” He uses language to ridicule ID as uncool and evil, calling it a Read More ›

What is intelligent design and what scientific evidence supports it? How does it differ from Darwin’s theory of evolution? Is there a purpose to the universe? What new scientific facts are turning evolutionary theories upside down? Answers to these and other intriguing science questions are the focus of two special conferences called Darwin vs. Design. The first is in Knoxville, TN at the Knoxville Convention Center, all day Saturday, March 24. The second is April 13-14 at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus in Dallas, TX.
Click here to register now.

Join journalist and New York Times bestselling author Lee Strobel and a panel of scientists at Discovery Institute’s Darwin vs. Design Conference as they explore the evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution and explain the emerging scientific theory of intelligent design.
Conference attendees will interact with intelligent design scientists and experts whose discoveries in cosmology, biology, physics, and DNA present astonishing scientific evidence that is overturning the evolutionary thinking of the past. Conference-goers will hear firsthand the astounding implications these discoveries are having on our society, our politics, and our culture.
Featured speakers include: