Science and Culture Today | Page 1431 | Discovering Design in Nature

Last week Baylor University in Texas denied tenure to noted scholar Francis Beckwith. Beckwith is an impeccable scholar with a distinguished publication record, including a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press. He is also a gentleman in the classic sense of the term, someone who is liked and respected even by his fair-minded opponents.

But Beckwith has a problem: His views are out of sync with the left-wing ideologues who control much of American academia. First, he is a prominent critic of the morality of abortion, and his work on this issue is cited all over the place by other scholars (including in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic). Second, Beckwith has defended the the constitutionality of teaching about intelligent design. Note: He has not advocated the wisdom of teaching ID, nor has he taken sides on the ultimate rightness or wrongness of ID. He has only defended the constitutionality of presenting the debate. (But this is no doubt too much for Darwin dogmatists.)

That a scholar of Beckwith’s stature should be denied tenure at Baylor raises serious questions about the university’s commitment to fairness and academic freedom. This is especially the case since it has been reported that Beckwith’s annual evaluations leading up to the tenure denial were glowing. He is said to have received the rating “exceeds expectations” each year. Apparently he exceeded expectations too much for some members of Baylor’s faculty.

It is frequently claimed by anti-Darwinists that the eugenics movement of 100 years ago was a fluke and not really the product of Darwinian science–even though the science establishment of the time was proud of the Darwinian justification, backed eugenics completely and was ruthlessly dismissive of any other view (sound familiar?). The Nazi embrace of eugenics discredited it for nearly a half century. But it is re-emerging in our time, as Discovery senior fellow Wesley J. Smith has pointed out repeatedly and does again in the Weekly Standard. Slowly, the awareness dawns.

A recent poll reported in “Inside Michigan Politics” found that 76% of Michiganites agree with the following statement: “Biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.“ Only 17% of Michigagonians felt that “Biology teachers should teach only Darwin’s theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.” If that poll question sounds familiar to frequent readers of ENV, that’s because it’s identical to one of the poll questions commissioned by Discovery Institute earlier in 2006 and reported here. But there’s one major difference between this Michigan poll and the prior poll commissioned by Discovery: The Michigan poll is improperly touting a poll question about teaching both scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism Read More ›

The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list continues to grow. Last month we announced the list now had over 500 scientists. Since that time we’ve had nearly another 100 PhD scientists contact and request to be added to the list. The next public update of the list will undoubtedly see it grow to over 600. One recent scientist added to the Dissent list submitted a letter with his request to be on the list. With his permission you can read it here. Dr. William Hart, PhD. Mathematics, is currently an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

In the April, 2006 issue of First Things, Villanova Law professor Robert T. Miller offers an opinion on “Darwin in Dover, PA.” (available online next month) that brings up several points worth highlighting.

Regarding Kitzmiller, Miller only half agrees with Judge Jones, agreeing that ID is not science as he defines it (which I will comment on more later), but disagreeing that ID is religion. To make his case, Miller’s opinion offers two different “senses” of science, one of which ID satisfies, the other of which he claims ID does not satisfy. Overall, the article focuses on the philosophy and nature of science, and devotes only a scant few paragraphs to the legal issues presented in Kitzmiller.

Today’s Washington Times’ carries an interesting interview with Carson Holloway, author of the new book, The Right Darwin: Evolution, Religion and the Future of Democracy. Holloway criticizes efforts to ground morality in Darwinian biology.

Last night, the Board of Trustees of the Lancaster School District in southern California voted unanimously to adopt a “Science Philosophy” policy permitting teachers to present scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution. The policy had been supported by the groups Integrity in Academics and Quality Science Education for All. The new policy states that Darwin’s theory should not be taught as “unalterable fact” and states that “Discussions that question the theory may be appropriate as long as they do not stray from current criteria of scientific fact, hypothesis and theory.” The policy further allows the use of supplemental materials by teachers in teaching about science. “This is an innovative effort by the Lancaster School District to propel science education out of Read More ›

Bob Brustman had an intriguing and thoughtful piece recently in the Harvard University Gazette entitled “Evolving Ideas” which investigates why many people are skeptical of evolution. He starts off describing a simple but ultimately inadequate argument from Richard Lewontin: “If you believe in atomic energy, he said, then you believe in rates of decay. If you believe in rates of decay, then you believe in radiation dating. If you believe in radiation dating, then you believe that we can identify strata of rock from different times. Those strata of rock contain fossil evidence of plants and animals. Different strata of rock contain different types of fossils, yet each fossilized plant or animal had parents. Therefore, at some point, a parent Read More ›