Science and Culture Today | Page 1419 | Discovering Design in Nature

Seth Cooper and Joe Manzari’s article, “ACLU Demands and Dover Designs,” raised fresh questions about the potential for a dismissal of the Kitzmiller case based upon mootness, potentially allowing the Dover Area School Board to avoid a large attorneys’ fees judgment against them by rescinding their intelligent design (ID) policy before Judge Jones issued his decision.

Opponents of intelligent design responded harshly to the AEI article (and my own reporting) by questioning the legal reasoning about mootness. One critic stated that the AEI article, and my commentary, “appear to be utterly ignorant of the voluntary cessation doctrine” and “there was virtually no chance that the case would be mooted.” Yet several Supreme Court cases dealing with mootness and a careful review of the law demonstrate that there was strong case for dismissal if the anti-ID Board had repealed the ID policy prior to the ruling. The argument is hypothetical (one might even say, “moot”!) because the Board ultimately rejected all arguments to repeal the policy, choosing instead to pin its hopes that Judge Jones would rule in favor of a policy they themselves rejected. But even if the odds were small that Judge Jones would have dismissed the case, or that an appellate court would have vacated the judgment on the ground of mootness, the puzzle remains. If there was nothing to be lost by rescinding the policy, would not even a slight chance of success have led a prudent school board to take advantage of the opportunity? Their choice resulted in an absolute guarantee that if the ID policy were struck down, then the Dover Area School District would be obliged to pay $1 million dollars in attorneys’ fees.

This story from England is a month old, but took a while getting over the Pond to my in-box . Dennett and Dawkins say in public what Eugenie Scott says in private. Ruse may actually be sincere (though sincerely wrong), and not a ruse deviser at all. He was morally compromised some time ago when he took to quaffing beer with known “creationists in disguise” (as the ACLU’s favorite judge would call them). Ever since then Ruse has been incapable of sober materialist judgement. Recently in his Seattle debate with Steve Meyer, Peter Ward, too, criticized Dawkins, and with a bit of a snarl, I thought–all happily captured and preserved on tape. Dennett should rise again to the defense of Read More ›

According to a recent news article, in Mississippi, a “New Law Allows for Creationism in the Classroom“. While this sounds like a believable headline, let’s find out if the facts bear it out. According to the article, this is what the law actually says: “No local school board, school superintendent or school principal shall prohibit a public school classroom teacher from discussing and answering questions from individual students on the origin of life.” (“New Law Allows for Creationism in the Classroom“) Hmmm… All I see is a law that permits students to ask any question they want and allows teacher to answer that question. There’s nothing about creationism. There’s not even anything about intelligent design. For all we know, if Read More ›

Kevin Shapiro’s recent Wall Street Journal essay, “Misplaced Sympathies,” appeals to the opinion of a low-level district judge (John Jones of Dover fame), an Ohio school board vote, and a strawman characterization of intelligent design in an effort to convince us that Darwinism is settled truth.

“Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow” John Kelleher has made an egregious misquote of Michael Behe in the Times’ Educational Supplement (TES Teacher, May 5 2006, pages 8-11). The article is “The Inside Story In the beginning: evolution, creationism or intelligent design?” It is the cover story with wording “BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE EVOLUTION OR INTELLIGENT DESIGN?,” and does not appear to be available online, but those who read it report that Kelleher’s article wrongly implies that Michael Behe is an odd sort of creationist that believes the fossil record does not reflect any earth history. Not only does this article completely misrepresent Behe, who accepts an ancient age of the earth and even accepts common descent, but it twists a passage out of Read More ›

A short news article in Molecular Systems Biology is another example of scientists discussing the controversy that doesn’t exist over irreducible complexity. In an article discussing how some molecular biologists increased the selectivity of certain enzymes for their substrates by inducing mutations, they conclude: “Finally, they assumed that the mutations were additive–that the effect on selectivity of combining two mutations could be predicted by adding the effect of each mutation done singly. With this assumption, it was straightforward to predict combinations of single mutations identified as controlling selectivity without decreasing the total productivity. The striking result of this design is that the simple additivity assumption was validated–the authors obtained several triple to quintuple mutants with nearly perfect selectivities for the Read More ›

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.