Science and Culture Today | Page 1428 | Discovering Design in Nature

Scienceblog writer Josh Rosenau accuses John West of wrongly faulting a 2002 textbook for printing bogus embryo diagrams derived from Ernst Haeckel’s famous faked drawings. Rosenau assures readers: You’ll note that, despite West’s claim that this is “a version of Haeckel’s drawings,” they are actually quite different in their details. These are clearly redrawn photographs of actual embryos, and as such do not bear the taint of any errors Haeckel made, intentionally or otherwise. Trying to smear biologist and filmmaker Randy Olson because West doesn’t understand the subject is hardly honest. Rosenau either didn’t bother to look at the actual comparison images we provided, or he is Olsonizing the issue by deliberately misleading his readers. Click here to see an Read More ›

Note: This is the second of two blog posts responding to the errors and misrepresentations in the film Flock of Dodos. For more information, visit www.hoaxofdodos.com.

In Flock of Dodos, filmmaker Randy Olson tries his best to discredit Discovery Institute (DI), the leading think tank supporting scientists and scholars researching intelligent design (ID). But he only ends up discrediting himself by showing how far he is willing to stretch the truth. This article looks at some of the film’s most egregious errors about DI, starting with its claims about the Institute’s budget.

Inflating DI’s Budget — by over 300%!

According to Flock of Dodos, Discovery Institute has a huge budget for its intelligent design program that dwarfs the resources of evolution’s supporters. “The Discovery Institute is truly the big fish in this picture, with an annual budget of around 5 million dollars,” Olson tells the audience. Later, a woman is shown repeating the same figure. The clear impression left with viewers is that the Institute spends $5 million a year to promote intelligent design.

Not even close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTA5zm9jYDQ

Note: This is the first of two blog posts responding to the errors and misrepresentations in the film Flock of Dodos. This post is co-authored with Casey Luskin. For more information, visit www.hoaxofdodos.com.

Were Ernst Haeckel’s bogus embryo diagrams ever used in modern textbooks to prove evolution? Not according to filmmaker Randy Olson, who in his film Flock of Dodos portrays biologist Jonathan Wells as a fraud for claiming in the book Icons of Evolution (2000) that modern biology textbooks continued to reprint Haeckel-based drawings.

But it turns out that Olson is the one who is promoting a fraud. The diagrams in question were unquestionably used in modern textbooks, and Olson himself knows that fact.

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] The York Dispatch has an article promoting an anti-ID book about the Dover trial by a Darwinist journalist, Edward Humes. Last spring, I was contacted by Mr. Humes, who requested an interview for his book. He immediately tried to convince me he was fair and objective, which is usually a red flag that a reporter isn’t going to be fair or objective. I would directly quote Humes declaring his commitment to a non-partisan journalism, but Read More ›

There is an interesting article in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer about Darwin Day. As the reporter notes, Discovery Institute marks the same occasion with a lecture and discussion on “Darwin Day and the Deification of Charles Darwin.” On Darwin Day we will be broadcasting a short lecture by Dr. John West and Dr. Jonathan Wells about Darwin and his impact on modern science. The 30 minute program will be available at ID The Future and on Youtube. (Check back here on Feb 12 for exact links).

World renowned Darwin defender Richard Dawkins is very firm in his opinions on what does or does not exist. But, now there’s some question about whether he exists. In the Youtube video The Dawkins Delusion Dr. Terry Tommyrot asks: “If there is a Dawkins why hasn’t he shown himself to me?”

As Paul Nelson has recognized, it’s ironic when scientists issue press releases alleging they’ve refuted intelligent design (ID), supposedly resolving a scientific controversy they claim doesn’t even exist. Pro-ID biochemist and Discovery Institute fellow Michael Behe has already responded to a recent paper doing just that. In what appears to be another good example of a retroactive confession of Darwinist ignorance, the press release from the authors acknowledges that “[t]he development of complex features such as new protein structures by the process of evolution is largely elusive.” But I thought Nicholas Matzke of the NCSE had long ago told a reporter that “[t]he origin of genetic information is thoroughly understood.” I guess these Darwinist biochemists see it differently. They nonetheless Read More ›

In Part I of this series, I discussed how Michael Francisco’s post last year had a bumper sticker for people who take the “Judge Jones Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It” approach to intelligent design. Devin James Carpenter, over at Warren Reports blog deserves the bumper sticker due to his many inaccurate statements about intelligent design and his thoroughgoing acceptance of Judge Jones’ Kitzmiller ruling. In this second installment, I will discuss problems with some of Carpenter’s arguments against intelligent design (ID). Misrepresentations of ID Carpenter states that ID “calls into question (on a theological basis) the ability of nature to transform simple biological beings into complex ones.” To claim that ID challenges neo-Darwinism “on a theological basis” Read More ›

Last year, a post from Michael Francisco presented the “Judge Jones Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It” bumper sticker. A recent blog post at Warren Reports Blog employs so much uncritical acceptance of Judge Jones’ ruling (calling it a “scathing decision” and a “hard blow”), gets so many facts wrong, and is so full of contradictions that its author, Devin James Carpenter, deserves to have the bumper sticker awarded to him. This 2-part series will respond to some of Carpenter’s statements. The “Main Issues”Carpenter states: “The main issues in Kitzmiller v. Dover were: the soundness of evolution and ‘intelligent design’ as science, the separation of church and state, and the philosophy of science itself.” Actually, that’s not true. Read More ›