Science and Culture Today | Page 1417 | Discovering Design in Nature

With the approach of Pope Benedict’s informal gathering at his summer palace outside Rome this weekend to discuss Darwinism and intelligent design, an increasing number of public figures have taken to standing up, waving their hands, and saying, “Pope Benedict, please oh please come to such-and-such a conclusion.” It’s all just a little bit silly, but I want to get in on the action. First I want to say that Darwinist Kenneth Miller, a leading hand waver, doesn’t seem to even know what intelligent design is (or at least pretends not to).

The recent Guardian story that the Pope may be about to endorse intelligent design as a scientific theory is way off the mark, I believe. There clearly is more media interest in this weekend’s meeting than the annual reunion of the pope’s former theology students ordinarily would warrant, even given this year’s special topic. But there will be a lively discussion. Various opinions will be heard. And I suppose you can expect a lot of uninformed spin afterwards. But don’t expect some definitive new Vatican declaration on science questions. (Granted, I COULD BE SURPRISED!)

Over at Uncommon Descent, William Dembski has highlighted a video we’ve been watching and talking about here in the Discovery offices for a while now — Pearl Jam’s 1998 “Do The Evolution.” Technically, it’s a brilliant video, animated by award winning artist Todd McFarlane. It takes the viewer through the history of mankind, starting from the origin of the first life.

In a recent book review in Nature, Jerry Coyne had unkind words for a questioner who raised his hand after Coyne gave a talk against intelligent design at the Alaska Bar Association. Coyne wrote: After lecturing this spring to the Alaska Bar Association on the debate over intelligent design and evolution, I was approached at the podium by a young lawyer. The tight-lipped smile, close-cropped hair and maniacal gleam in his eyes told me that he was probably a creationist out for blood. I was not wrong. (Jerry Coyne, “Selling Darwin: Does it matter whether evolution has any commercial applications?,” reviewing The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life by David P. Mindell, in Nature, Vol 442:983-984 (August 31, 2006), emphasis Read More ›

David Berlinski submitted the following letter to Science regarding “Public Acceptance of Evolution” (by Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott, and Shinji Okamoto, in Science, Vol 313: 765-766, 08-11-06). It appears Science chose not to publish it: Alarmed by the fact that “one in three American adults firmly rejects the concept of evolution,” Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott and Shinji Okamoto have suggested that the source of their disbelief may be found in their religious convictions. But when the authors pass from the concept of evolution to a specific evolutionary claim, those religiously-based objections seem to reflect nothing more than skeptical good sense. “Human beings, as we know them,” Miller, Scott and Okamoto write, “developed from earlier species of 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.] Barbara Forrest is a philosopher and was an expert witness against intelligent design in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. Since she has recently posted her take on the Kitzmiller trial here, I have had the pleasure of responding by constructing a ten-part response. The pleasure is mine because of the interesting comments from Forrest, including affirmatively calling ID-proponents labels such as “creationists,” “legal mincemeat,” “jaw-droppingly stupid,” “evangelical Read More ›

If you want to watch John West and I speaking about the Kitzmiller decision on C-SPAN-2’s Book-TV, it is now online in Real Player format, here. Unfortunately, the video is pretty low-resolution, but the audio comes through very well. John West makes an interesting point that since the Kitzmiller decision, Judge Jones has engaged in a number of speaking engagements, including one where he stated that as a judge, he is guided by the belief that “true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible.” Here’s the whole statement as recorded in the transcript of the commencement address: The Founders believed that true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained Read More ›

Seth Cooper and Leonard Brown have published an article entitled, “A Textbook Case of Judicial Activism: How a Pro-ID Publisher Was Denied its Day in Court,” which describes how the publisher of the textbook Of Pandas and People, Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), was denied the right to become a party to the Kitzmiller trial despite the fact that its intellectual property rights were implicated in the lawsuit. As background, the right of a party to “intervene” in a lawsuit is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24 (a): (a) Intervention of Right. Upon timely application anyone shall be permitted to intervene in an action: (1) when a statute of the United States confers an unconditional right to Read More ›

For those with cable or satellite TV reception, the documentary “Darwin’s Deadly Legacy”, airing on various stations across the country this Saturday and Sunday, has kicked up a fuss that should spark public interest and viewership. We have no idea whether the program is well done or not, but we do notice–like “Joy” at TelicThoughts–that Darwinists are displaying an unseemly interest in hiding from the historically undeniable connections that link the eugenics movement that Darwin’s supporters–including family members–organized in the 19th century (followed eagerly by Ernst Haeckel in Germany) to the US eugenics laws of the past century, then Hitler’s murder of handicapped people and “inferior” races, and then the new eugenics movement of our time. CSC Fellow Richard Weikart’s Read More ›

Last week, The Daily of the University of Washington ran two pieces concerning ID. The first was a surprisingly straightforward and neutral news article about UW scientists who had signed the Dissent from Darwin list, while the second was a knee-jerk reaction more typical of an alternative weekly than an award-winning college paper.

In the objective article, news reporter Zack Barnett-Howell did a decent job of presenting different sides of an argument, including differing levels of support for ID from the signatory scientists to the dissent list. (The Dissent from Darwin list is for those skeptical of Darwin’s theory and is not about ID.) This is the most refreshing aspect of Barnett-Howell’s piece, that any reporter in Seattle, student or not, would have the objectivity to allow ID proponents to speak for themselves.