Science and Culture Today | Page 1418 | Discovering Design in Nature

What do you get when you declare intelligent design unconstitutional? You get your photo on the cover of Time Magazine and get called one of the top 100 most influential people! In an article by science writer Matt Ridley (the one who said, “Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative”…except, I might add, for when people aren’t social, trustworthy, or cooperative), he says that Judge Jones “proved to be the answer to Darwinians’ prayers”: “Jones, 50, the grandson of a golf-course developer of Welsh ancestry, whose previous claims to fame were a failed attempt to privatize Pennsylvania’s state liquor stores as chairman of the Liquor Control Board–and banning Read More ›

The new journalistic standard that politically incorrect views do not need to be represented, let alone reported fairly, was on full display on today’s NPR Morning Edition coverage of a teachers convention in California where a class was taught on how to teach evolution. Reporter Gloria Hillard did a fine job of hyping what was, in fact, a small gathering and allowing evolutionist Prof. Ken Miller plenty of time to define the issue of intelligent design.If you want to know the opposition view, go to the Answers in Genesis creationist website for further information on the topic, he suggested. Wasn’t that nice of him? There was no attempt whatever to have a contrary point of view heard. Usually NPR at Read More ›

We like Bruce Ramsey, editorial writer for the Seattle Times, and we often agree with his columns. And we are grateful that the Times sponsored the recent and definitive debate on intelligent design between philosopher of science and geologist Steve Meyer and astrobiologist Peter G. Ward. Ramsey, who attended The Talk of the Times debate at Townhall and is a fan of Ward — he cites Ward’s books in this morning’s column — was wrong, however, in suggesting that Meyer’s formulations are merely “clever”.

But don’t take our word for it. WATCH the debate yourself on Thursday at 8 p.m on TVW in the Seattle area and check schedules for other times elsewhere. We hope it will be made available for a downlink later, too.

You can now listen to Steve Meyer’s winning debate with Darwinist Peter Ward. And, if you’re in the Northwest you can watch the debate on TVW Thursday, May 4 at 8pm. Reporters and columnists especially should listen to this as a real debate by scientists on the science of Darwinian evolution is almost as rare as life in the universe.

With the rise in public desire for information about intelligent design and the overall debate over how to teach evolution it is no surprise that we’re seeing more classes on intelligent design at colleges, albeit usually in philosophy as opposed to science. Much attention has been given to the future course on ID recently announced at Cornell. But, Knox College is just now finishing a course on the subject. From the media report it’s a little hard to tell what the actual content of the course was. But according to the professor Martin Roth students seemed to appreciate the chance to learn about ID. “All of the students are now very much aware that the issue is far more complicated Read More ›

Dr. George Coyne, the University of Arizona astronomer and Jesuit priest who is also head of the Vatican Observatory has been speaking to whatever Darwinist group will have him on the topic of why intelligent design “belittles God” and should be opposed by Catholics, who, indeed, should welcome Darwin’s theory in all its glory. Coyne has infinite Christian charity and patience for Darwinists who diss God, but none at all for his co-religionists who doubt Darwin.

A news article last week in the National Catholic Register that merely reported Coyne’s provocative views sparked a spate of letters this week (April 30-May 6 issue–not yet available online) rebuking Dr. Coyne for misrepresenting ID (among other things he called it “a fundamentalist movement”) and for attacking Cardinal Schoenborn of Austria. The cardinal, of course, has emphasized the Church’s longstanding commitment to the reality of design in nature and has pointed out the folly of full-blown Darwinism. At the end of the extensive letters column the editors make clear that they were not endorsing Coyne’s views. In fact, they state, “Our editorial position…is very close to that of the Discovery Institute.”

Human Events Online has published a wonderful little essay by Greg Frankey explaining how liberal organizations like the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are working to keep any mention of intelligent design out of public school classes of any stripe, let alone science classes. In arguing so he shows how the teaching of evolution itself is nothing more than dogma, and points to some of the more pressing problems with the whole theory. As counterintuitive as it seems that a species could develop new physical traits simply because such a mutation might be advantageous (can we all learn to fly or to breathe underwater if we just wish to long enough?), it simply defies credulity Read More ›

Last night, the Seattle Times Talk of the Times at Town Hall Seattle featured a debate over evolution and intelligent design between CSC Director Stephen Meyer and US paleontologist Peter Ward. The event was sold out with 800+ in attendance for what turned out to be a really good debate.

David Postman of the Seattle Times did a fine job as the moderator of the debate. If you saw my post yesterday about Postman’s front page article in yesterday’s Times you know that I had some misgivings about his being the moderator. However, I have to congratulate him for his objectivity and balance, and his overall good job in keeping the debate both substantive and enlightening.

Tonight, Seattle Times reporter David Postman will moderate a debate over intelligent design and evolution between CSC Director Stephen Meyer and UW Paleontologist Peter Ward. If Postman’s article in the Times today is any guide, Meyer has his work cut out for him trying to correct and educate the moderator, as well as having to refute the typical mischaracterizations and misplaced attacks he’ll likely hear from Ward.

The fact is that Postman came in to our offices and spent a fair amount of time interviewing Bruce Chapman, and separately going over the science of intelligent design (which is virtually ignored in Postman’s piece — funny for a discussion about a science issue) with Meyer.
Yet his piece is full of errors of fact.

“Intelligent design argues that life is so biologically complex, there must be some kind of supernatural designer involved. The concept, however, leaves the designer unnamed.”

This one sentence is doubly wrong. No, ID is not an argument from ignorance. And, no, ID doesn’t claim that the intelligent cause has to be supernatural. (Postman apparently so strongly believes this fallacy that he repeats it later in the story, a second time: “gaps that can only be explained by the presence of a supernatural designer.”)