Science and Culture Today | Page 1423 | Discovering Design in Nature

What are the Kansas science standards really about? Kansans will now be able to learn for themselves as three experts will explain why the revised standards were necessary at a series of free symposiums across Kansas. The efforts to mislead Kansas citizens about the state’s new science standards will hopefully be curbed by these symposiums.

“Practically everything opponents have said about these changes is either flat wrong or highly misleading,” said John Calvert, a spokesman for the eight scientist and educators who proposed the changes, and organizer of the symposiums. “Critics falsely claim that ‘the changes remove evolution.’ Wrong! They actually seek to increase the content so that students will be equipped to actually understand the theory.”

Three experts will explain the existing scientific controversies over biological and chemical evolution and how the new Kansas science standards encourage teachers to objectively introduce students to these controversies, as well as showing how the science standards have been systematically misrepresented and why it is important that the public be adequately informed on this issue.

Over at Post-Darwinist, journalist Denyse O’Leary points out another type of misinformation. In this instance it’s a complete misrepresentation of the views of Cardinal Schönborn about evolution, as well as that of the Catholic church.

Briefly, the Catholic Church has come out swinging in recent years AGAINST Darwinism, which is precisely the “evolution” that Rosengarten is talking about.

Here’s what the Pope now distributes on prayer cards hawked all over Rome:

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.

So all over the world, people will remind themselves of anti-Darwinism every day.

We’ve reported about Cardinal Schönborn’s views and previous misrepresentations several times.

In an e-mail O’Leary added:

I usually ignore Panda’s Thumb because it is a blog site where bloggers have near-unlimited license to namecall and say mean-spirited things which contribute nothing to the scientific debate over evolution. However, because Nick Matzke recently defended me there (sort of), I’ll dignify Nick’s latest post on Kansas with a response here. This is despite the fact that Nick’s Kansas post perpetuates the old conspiracy theory that the Kansas Science Standards (KSS) are all about teaching ID, and does so while making numerous snide and irrelevant ad hominem-type comments. This post will be the first in a two-part series. Nick opens by complaining about Discovery Institute’s current activities in Kansas. Talk about irony! Recently, his employer, the Oakland, California-based National Read More ›

Discovery Institute’s “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” education campaign is intended to defend the excellent science standards adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education and to counter the campaign of misinformation by groups like Kansas Citizens for Science (KCFS), which are wildly distorting what the Kansas science standards actually say and do.

Most importantly, the “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” campaign seeks to correct three big falsehoods being spread by opponents of the Kansas science standards:

Falsehood #1: The Kansas science standards include intelligent design.

Contrary to claims by opponents, the Kansas science standards do not include intelligent design. In spreading this falsehood, opponents of the standards ignore the following clear statement by the Kansas Board of Education in the standards: “We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design….” (emphasis added) Which part of “do not include Intelligent Design” can’t opponents of the standards understand?

“Should public schools censor scientific evidence just because it challenges Darwin’s theory of evolution?” asks Robert Crowther, director of communications for Discovery Institute a non-partisan public policy center. “Of course not. Teachers should present all the scientific evidence, including both the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory, and this is exactly what the Kansas state science standards call for.”

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Sign the Petition and Stand Up for Science at www.standupforscience.com

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At the behest of Kansas teachers and parents Discovery Institute in July will launch the www.standupforscience.com website to help defend Kansas’ science standards. At the website people who support teaching both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution will be able to sign a petition supporting the state’s science standards.

There is a concerted effort underway in Kansas to censor science and undermine the strong science standards adopted there last year. In 2005 the Kansas state board of education (KSBOE) courageously voted to adopt science standards that require students to learn all about evolution, including both the scientific evidence and for and against the theory. That’s it. The Board didn’t require any alternative theories be taught, just the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution. However there are a number of groups both inside and outside of Kansas that are seeking to stifle discussion in Kansas classrooms of anything critical of Darwinian evolution. Chief among them is “Kansas Citizens for Science” (KCFS). Not content with simply complaining about the Kansas science Read More ›

Yesterday, Cornelius Hunter critiqued at IDtheFuture some of Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller’s theologically-charged arguments for evolution during the Kitzmiller trial. Miller is a widely promoted theistic evolutionist, and thus served as the plaintiffs leadoff expert witness for biology, evolution, and theistic evolutionism during the Kitzmiller trial. Judge Jones apparently found Miller’s existence so compelling that the Judge ruled that evolution and “belief in the existence of a supreme being” are compatible, and ruled that any belief otherwise is “utterly false.” Yet significant portions of Miller’s testimony about the anti-religious descriptions of evolution contained in his textbooks were factually challenged (i.e. wrong). On the second day of the Kitzmiller trial, Miller was confronted about theologically charged statements about evolution Read More ›

Pete Chadwell, a graphic artist in Bend, Oregon understands what so many Darwinists don’t: students are being short changed in their science education when they learn only half the story about evolution. Teaching students both the scientific strengths and weaknesses is good education, good science, and good for students. Darwin himself would support this approach to teaching evolution. As Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” And as science teacher John Scopes said some 80 or so years ago, “If you limit a teacher to only one side of anything, the whole country will eventually have only one Read More ›

Discovery senior fellow, technology guru and conservative economist George Gilder has a major essay in the new issue of National Review, titled “Evolution and Me: Darwinian Theory has Become an All-Purpose Obstacle to Thought Rather than an Enabler of Scientific Advance.” (subscription required)

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Recently Discovery President Bruce Chapman sat down for an interview with Discovery senior fellow, author, and technology guru George Gilder. The subject: evolution and intelligent design. Listen to a clip of the interview on the ID The Future Podcast.(MP3 format, 53MB, download only, no streaming)

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Gilder’s piece offers a unique and fresh perspective on the issue of materialism vs. design and is a breakthrough description of the case against Darwinism and for intelligent design based largely on information theory and our understanding of information in the age of supercomputing and instant information delivery. It turns out that Darwin’s theory is especially vulnerable to the analysis of life from the hierarchical structure that Gilder says a 21st century understanding of modern physics, mathematics and computer science provide. His penultimate point? “Wherever there is information there is a preceding intelligence.”