Science and Culture Today | Page 1404 | Discovering Design in Nature

Travis McSherley, an editor at Breakpoint online, has an insightful author interview with CSC senior fellow Jonathan Witt, co-author of A Meaningful World. Last week, Breakpoint highlighted the importance of A Meaningful World with back to back commentaries on the book (here and here).

The American Museum of Natural History’s propagandistic “Darwin” exhibit has gone on the road. It is now on display in Philadelphia, and in 2008 it will be shown in Japan. As I reported last year, this biased exhibit rewrites the history of Social Darwinism, as well as covering up the museum’s own key role in the eugenics crusade.

I have responded to Wesley Elsberry’s latest character attack upon me offsite, here.

The CATO Institute event with Michael Shermer and our own Senior Fellow, Jonathan Wells, is now available online. Here are a few notes.

Yesterday, longtime ID supporter Chuck Colson gave the first of two BreakPoint radio commentaries praising A Meaningful World by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt. While Mr. Colson is familiar with many of the arguments for design, he was quick to note that A Meaningful World is

about so much more than the narrow concept that many people have of “intelligent design.” Their book’s subtitle helps explain their idea: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. It’s an original and utterly fascinating approach to the subject.

Wiker and Witt have taken the argument for design to another level, posing questions that Darwinism is utterly incapable of answering, as Prison Fellowship Ministries President Mark Earley pointed out in today’s radio commentary:

Darwinists have apparently killed the proposed framework for teaching controversial issues in Ohio–at least for now.

This is an update to my earlier post about the “undercover” activities of New Scientist writer Celeste Biever. According to the blogsite of the Cornell University IDEA Club, The New Scientist has responded to our letter, characterizing the event as unique in Biever’s history and unrepresentative of New Scientist reporting. Notably, unlike some internet Darwinists, the New Scientist did not try to defend its writer’s actions.

This week, seismologists were met with the unfortunate news that North Korea probably tested a nuclear weapon. (For more technical details on the detonation, see here.) The task of seismologists in the free world has been to confirm whether the North Korean government was truthful when they claimed they tested a nuke. Whether they realize it or not, scientists currently working to verify if North Korea has conducted a nuclear test are actually engaging in an exercise in intelligent design. They are trying to distinguish between naturally caused seismic energy and seismic energy which was artificially produced by an explosion caused by intelligence. Such studies are possible because explosions, particularly large ones like nuclear blasts, produce a distinctly different seismic Read More ›

Kudos to Richard Gallagher & Alison McCook from The Scientist for being gutsy enough to do an even-handed piece on President Bush’s record on science, and for asking the question in Gallagher’s editorial, “Is Bush Science’s Nemesis?” in more than the conventional rhetorical fashion. McCook’s piece “Sizing Up Bush on Science” answers with a resounding “no,” or at least no more than past presidents, including Bill Clinton.

This week the Ohio State Board of Education may consider the adoption of a proposed “Framework for Teaching Controversial Issues.” Darwinists are complaining — predictably — that the framework represents another nefarious plot “to orchestrate a religiously motivated attack on the theory of evolution.”

But the Darwinists’ shrill rhetoric has a lot more to do with their own hypocrisy and paranoia than it does with any legitimate fears.