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

[Editor’s Note: The three individual installments of this series can be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The final complete article, New England Journal of Medicine Traipses Into the Kitzmiller Decision, can be found here.] On Thursday I posted Part I of my online response to Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom (by George C. Annas, New England Journal of Medicine Volume 354 (21):2277-2281 (May 25, 2006)). Today I post Part II of three total parts. To reiterate, Mr. Annas praises Judge Jones’ ruling as follows: Judge Jones summarized the expert testimony in more than 25 pages, concluding that it demonstrated to him that intelligent design is “an interesting theological argument” but is not Read More ›

Judge John Jones world tour continues on with no sign of the Judge slowing down. This Knight-Ridder story appeared in Kansas today and one wonders if the Judge can be far behind. By his own count he’s done ten speaking gigs just recently, many of them commencement speeches. None in Dover though.

Judge Jones knew full well that the eyes of the world were upon him during the Dover case, and so chose that moment to deliver a “civics lesson.”

Jones said he had no agenda regarding intelligent design but, rather, was taking advantage of the worldwide interest in the case to talk about constitutional issues important to him.
“I’ve found a message that resonates,” he said. “It’s a bit of a civics lesson, but it’s a point that needs to be made: that judges don’t act according to bias or political agenda.”

But, they should act according to evidence and testimony presented, which clearly Jones did not.

[Editor’s Note: The three individual installments of this series can be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The final complete article, New England Journal of Medicine Traipses Into the Kitzmiller Decision, can be found here.] In a New England Journal of Medicine article entitled “Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom,” George J. Annas lavishes the Kitzmiller decision with praise. Ironically, Mr. Annas lauds some statements by Judge Jones which others have viewed as undermining the Judge’s credibility. For instance, Mr. Annas applauds the following proclamation of judicial superiority by Judge Jones: After a six week trial that spanned twenty-one days and included countless hours of detailed expert witness presentation, the court is confident that Read More ›

Columbia, SC — The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee (EOC) will vote Monday, June 12, on whether to give final approval to science standards for biology that require students to summarize how scientists “investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” The standards were approved unanimously by the South Carolina Board of Education on May 31. Four other states (Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and New Mexico) already have science education standards encouraging critical analysis of evolution.

“Darwin’s theory should be taught as a theory open to scientific scrutiny, not as an orthodoxy that cannot be questioned,” said Casey Luskin, Program Officer for Public Policy & Legal Affairs at the Discovery Institute. “South Carolina’s new biology standards, if adopted, will improve science education by encouraging full disclosure of all the relevant scientific evidence, including evidence critical of Darwin’s theory.”

Casey Luskin reported last week about Science magazine’s Constance Holden dubbing Discovery Institute “creationism’s main think tank.”

The current issue of the journal Science gave us further proof that the AAAS has no interest in being a neutral or fair participant in the debate over ID and evolution. In what purports to be a news article, Constance Holden wrote:

It’s “a victory as it throws out the problematic ruling [made by] the trial court,” says Casey Luskin, a lawyer at The Discovery Institute, creationism’s main think tank in Seattle, Washington.
(“Court Revives Georgia Sticker Case,” by Constance Holden, Science Vol 312:1292 (June 2, 2006))

By labeling Discovery Institute “creationism’s main think tank,” Holden engages in blatant editorializing and abandons her role as reporter for that of mouthpiece for ID’s critics.

I contacted Holden and news editor Colin Norman. Only Holden bothered to respond. Here’s our exchange.

Dear editor,

In “The Collapse of Reason,” Cathy Young agrees with leading liberal intellectual Todd Gitlin who believes “the academic left is making itself irrelevant by embracing ideological extremism and trying to purge its ranks of those who are not politically correct.” It’s a shame, then, that Young herself characterizes those who see evidence for intelligent design as religiously motivated right wing nuts, and in her own collapse of reason, provides no evidence for her position.

One of the benefits of real intelligent design is encouragement of reverse engineering to understand how nature works and how to correct problems in nature (disease, for example)–and to provoke new inventions. (Spare us the argument that because you have a trick knee and an appendix you couldn’t have been designed. You should meet my old Taurus; it was designed, too, and it was still a rattletrap.) Some scientists seem to be making the design connection, as this AP story indicates, but as Bill Dembski “cattily” says, they don’t want to own up to what they are doing. Instead of worrying about a bogus “theological clash” with intelligent design scientists (whose theory definition the AP once again mangles), the folks Read More ›

The current issue of the journal Science gave us further proof that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has no interest in being a neutral or fair participant in the debate over ID and evolution. In what purports to be a news article, Constance Holden wrote: “It’s ‘a victory as it throws out the problematic ruling [made by] the trial court,’ says Casey Luskin, a lawyer at The Discovery Institute, creationism’s main think tank in Seattle, Washington.” (“Court Revives Georgia Sticker Case,” by Constance Holden, Science Vol 312:1292 (June 2, 2006)) By labeling Discovery Institute “creationism’s main think tank,” Holden engages in blatant editorializing and abandons her role as reporter for that of mouthpiece for ID’s critics. Read More ›