Science and Culture Today | Page 1416 | Discovering Design in Nature

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] In her Kitzmiller account, Barbara Forrest makes the strange argument that “Phillip Johnson had master-minded creationism’s transformation into ‘intelligent design’ after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed creationism in public schools in its 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard ruling.” This conspiracy theory sounds nice because Johnson is a lawyer, but it makes no sense. Paul Nelson’s story about Johnson, which Dr. Forrest cites, picks up with Johnson reading the Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] During the Kitzmiller trial, Barbara Forrest testified at length about the “wedge document,” insinuating that motives can disqualify a view from being scientific. Discovery Institute responded to these arguments long ago. Dr. Forrest recounts her testimony in her Kitzmiller account: My first slide made its significance clear: “[C]ould I have the first slide, please? This is the first page of the Wedge Strategy, and this is the Read More ›

There is a great deal of newsworthy items this week in regards to the debate over evolution and intelligent design. Here are links to a few. Over at the Whitepath.com, muslim science writer Mustafa Akyol takes on — and bests, in my opinion — the NCSE’s Nick Matzke. Check out the ID The Future podcast about academic freedom and the Baylor Tenure Scandal. There’s been much talk about the Pope’s conclave on evolution last weekend. At Darwinia.com, Nemo points out: “The status of science is at risk from the confusions of Darwinists. If they need to be reminded of this by evangelicals, so much the worse for scientists, who should never have let this situation develop from their own obsessive Read More ›

Human Events this week published a review of Jonathan Wells’ new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, by another author from the Politically Incorrect Guide series of books, Tom Bethell. Bethell is a senior editor at the American Spectator, is author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science,” and “The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages.” Bethell writes:

“The story he tells is remarkable. Open-minded readers will surely conclude that the propaganda campaign on behalf of Darwinism has become so furious precisely because the scientific evidence for it is so weak.”

We received this e-mail recently from a friendly engineer. He gave us permission to post his letter but only if we put his name in bold.

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] When assessing whether a person is promoting a scientific theory, the simple answer to the question posed in the title is “no.” Yet in her Kitzmiller testimony, as recounted in the Kitzmiller account Barbara Forrest recently posted at CSICOP, she seems to think the answer is “yes.” Dr. Forrest recounts some of the religious beliefs of intelligent design-proponents, as if this implies that intelligent design (ID) is Read More ›

Ian Fisher of the New York Times Rome bureau had a valuable Saturday story on the discussion at Castel Gandolfo between Pope Benedict XVI and his former theology students (“Professor-Turned-Pope Leads a Seminar on Evolution”). He does err in his description of intelligent design (“life is so complex it requires an active creator”–where do they get these lines?), but he is right, I think, in balancing two probable facets of the Pope’s own thinking: 1) that the problem is not so much evolution, as the way it is applied; and 2) there may really be problems with the science of evolution.

Jonathan Witt understates the significance of his new book, “A Meaningful World,” for the meeting Pope Benedict XVI is holding this weekend at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome. Like George Gilder’s fine treatment of intelligent design in relation to information theory and technology, the new book by Witt and Benjamin Wiker, a Catholic philosopher and science writer, expands the scope of ID and effectively opens it to an examination of genius as evidenced in nature and art, in addition to science. This approach doesn’t negate or replace the scientific claims of ID, obviously, but enlarges the lens for looking at them, so to speak. This makes the topic especially inviting for Thomists and other natural philosophers in the Catholic Church and various other Christian traditions, as well as theists generally

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] In this part of my response to Barbara Forrest, I will assess Dr. Forrest’s usage of quotations from ID proponents supposedly talking about intelligent design in religious terms. Dr. Forrest’s Kitzmiller account discusses what she argued during the Kitzmiller trial about intelligent design: I included the words of two leading ID proponents, Phillip E. Johnson and William Dembski. Under direct examination by Eric Rothschild, I related Johnson’s Read More ›