Science and Culture Today | Page 1413 | Discovering Design in Nature

The Washington DC Examiner today published a full-page interview with John West and Casey Luskin, two of the authors of Traipsing Into Evolution. After seeing West and Luskin make a presentation about the book in Washington DC Recently, the Examiner decided to interview the authors “to get a better understanding of their arguments against Kitzmiller.” You can read the full interview online, and you can download a PDF of the actual page here. You can purchase the book online at Amazon.com, or order copies by calling 1-800-643-4102. Q Is your main disagreement with Kitzmiller v. Dover over its ultimate rejection of intelligent design (ID)? Or for the way the case exemplified, in your eyes, judicial overreach? A John West: The Read More ›

Last week I explained how Nick Matzke was wrong to argue that the Kansas Science Standards‘ (KSS) mention of irreducible complexity implies that it requires teaching intelligent design (ID). Most of the rest of Mr. Matzke’s post concentrates on the false claim that the Kansas Science Standards’ section on evolution makes claims that come only from ID literature. This argument is only furthering a conspiracy theory which believes that, when the standards read “do not include Intelligent Design,” they really mean, “do include intelligent design.” Under Mr. Matzke’s reasoning, every science teacher in the state of Kansas is supposed to be in on this conspiracy, which would be the only reason for them to know they are supposed to disregard Read More ›

Senator John McCain personally believes in evolution, but he takes a classically liberal view which says that ideas should not be hidden from students — even controversial ideas like intelligent design. Consider this excerpt from a news article on McCain’s take on intelligent design: Mr. McCain, who delivered his prepared remarks in an even, almost perfunctory manner, was at his best in the question and answer session that followed. Responding to a question about a report that he thinks “intelligent design” should be taught in schools, the senator mocked the idea that American young people were so delicate and impressionable that they needed to be sheltered from the concept, which says God had a hand in creation and which has Read More ›

A recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes that a Virginia Commonwealth University biology professor Jim Sparks complained that a biology textbook by Sylvia Mader, “Essentials of Biology (McGraw Hill, 2007) “had leanings toward creationism and short-changed evolution.” Another article described Sparks’ view as claiming the Mader textbook was “biased toward creationism and intelligent design.” But how accurate was Dr. Sparks’ description of the textbook? Consider what the textbook actually says about intelligent design: No wonder most scientists in our country are dismayed when state legislatures or school boards rule that teachers must put forward a variety or “theories” on the origin of life, including one that runs contrary to the mass of data that supports the theory of evolution. Read More ›

Discovery Institute gets a lot of nasty e-mail from name-calling Darwinists. But since the launch of StandUpForScience.com, the amount of nasty e-mailage has gone up about five-fold–something I barely thought possible (this resembles the post-Dover barrage of Darwinist hate-mail). In the past couple weeks I’ve had e-mails from Kansas tell me things like “Patton knew how to handle you fascist bastards,” “Your agenda is clear — secular schools cannot be tolerated, just as your spiritual leader Adolf Hitler said,” and “Religously speaking — GO TO HELL!” (all direct quotes from e-mails I’ve recently received from Kansas). Very interesting! In any case, I have no ill-will whatsoever towards these people, but one recent less-inflammatory but nonetheless name-calling e-mail came from a Read More ›

What are the Kansas science standards really about? Kansans will now be able to learn for themselves as three experts will explain why the revised standards were necessary at a series of free symposiums across Kansas. The efforts to mislead Kansas citizens about the state’s new science standards will hopefully be curbed by these symposiums.

“Practically everything opponents have said about these changes is either flat wrong or highly misleading,” said John Calvert, a spokesman for the eight scientist and educators who proposed the changes, and organizer of the symposiums. “Critics falsely claim that ‘the changes remove evolution.’ Wrong! They actually seek to increase the content so that students will be equipped to actually understand the theory.”

Three experts will explain the existing scientific controversies over biological and chemical evolution and how the new Kansas science standards encourage teachers to objectively introduce students to these controversies, as well as showing how the science standards have been systematically misrepresented and why it is important that the public be adequately informed on this issue.

Over at Post-Darwinist, journalist Denyse O’Leary points out another type of misinformation. In this instance it’s a complete misrepresentation of the views of Cardinal Schönborn about evolution, as well as that of the Catholic church.

Briefly, the Catholic Church has come out swinging in recent years AGAINST Darwinism, which is precisely the “evolution” that Rosengarten is talking about.

Here’s what the Pope now distributes on prayer cards hawked all over Rome:

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.

So all over the world, people will remind themselves of anti-Darwinism every day.

We’ve reported about Cardinal Schönborn’s views and previous misrepresentations several times.

In an e-mail O’Leary added:

I usually ignore Panda’s Thumb because it is a blog site where bloggers have near-unlimited license to namecall and say mean-spirited things which contribute nothing to the scientific debate over evolution. However, because Nick Matzke recently defended me there (sort of), I’ll dignify Nick’s latest post on Kansas with a response here. This is despite the fact that Nick’s Kansas post perpetuates the old conspiracy theory that the Kansas Science Standards (KSS) are all about teaching ID, and does so while making numerous snide and irrelevant ad hominem-type comments. This post will be the first in a two-part series. Nick opens by complaining about Discovery Institute’s current activities in Kansas. Talk about irony! Recently, his employer, the Oakland, California-based National Read More ›

Discovery Institute’s “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” education campaign is intended to defend the excellent science standards adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education and to counter the campaign of misinformation by groups like Kansas Citizens for Science (KCFS), which are wildly distorting what the Kansas science standards actually say and do.

Most importantly, the “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” campaign seeks to correct three big falsehoods being spread by opponents of the Kansas science standards:

Falsehood #1: The Kansas science standards include intelligent design.

Contrary to claims by opponents, the Kansas science standards do not include intelligent design. In spreading this falsehood, opponents of the standards ignore the following clear statement by the Kansas Board of Education in the standards: “We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design….” (emphasis added) Which part of “do not include Intelligent Design” can’t opponents of the standards understand?