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According to Neo-Darwinism, once the first lusty cell leapt onto the stage of the world, purely impersonal, material processes reigned — a blind watchmaker and less than blind. It was a mindless mechanism. This is quite different from the teleological evolution that some, including the Catholic Church, have considered a possibility. Darwininian evolution possesses no distant goal nor is man the twinkle in the eye of any god.
Read More ›Below are Dr. William Provine’s comments on the recent debate between himself and CSC’s Dr. Stephen Meyer.
Read More ›I agree with Rob Crowther’s summary of the debate. Our debate was indeed between evolution and ID explanations for fossil and living organisms. I thought our debate would be between ID evolution and naturalistic evolution, but Steve Meyer championed many young-earth, anti-evolution doctrines. I was frank about the implications of really believing in naturalistic evolution. Steve Meyer refused to reveal religious assumptions that I think relate to his views about the origin of species.
Paul Pardi has an excellent post on his blog discussing the hysterical rhetoric of many critics of intelligent design (ID). Reading Pardi’s comments, one has to wonder why the most vocal critics of ID are so bitter, angry, and defensive. If the evidence for their views is so overwhelming, why are they so insecure?
In a homily at his installation on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI made his first comment on evolution: 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. It will be interesting to see if the news media will report about this, given their interest in the last Pope’s statement on evolution.
After asking Eugenie Scott to stop spreading falsehoods about him but getting no response, parent Larry Caldwell has filed a libel lawsuit against both Scott and her group, the National Center for Science Education. Below is the text of a press release issued today by Caldwell about the suit:
Read More ›CSC senior fellow David Berlinski recently sent me the following comments about science writer Dr. Susan Blackmore’s adoration of the inevitability of natural selection.
WorldNetDaily has an article about the false smear of California parent Larry Caldwell by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. According to the article, Scott has yet to respond to Caldwell’s request for a retraction: Caldwell asked for a response by 5 p.m. yesterday but has heard nothing from Scott… “It just shows that even after they’ve been told in detail the specific facts, they are not willing to rely on the truth in this debate,” Caldwell said. “It just confirms to me they have a strategy of using misinformation.” As of this morning, the NCSE’s website is still running its link to Scott’s article about Caldwell, which falsely claims that he tried to get his district Read More ›
Apparently I don’t have any reason to be grumpy with the agronomists.
World magazine has a brief essay and interview with historian Richard Weikart on how Germany moved from Darwin to Hitler. The essay begins, “Phillip Johnson, leader of the Intelligent Design movement, writes, “The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed.” The interview concludes with Weikart noting that “Darwinist terminology and concepts are prominent in many of Hitler’s writings and speeches.” In the example Weikart gives, Hitler is explaining the danger of saving and caring for the weak and imperfect: The natural struggle for existence, which only allows the strongest and healthiest to survive, will be replaced by the obvious desire to save at any cost even the Read More ›
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Press Club was the setting today for a Discovery Institute sponsored and hosted debate about evolution and design. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, CSC director, championed the theory of intelligent design while Dr. William Provine, the Charles Alexander Professor of Biology at Cornell University, stood up for evolution. Of the forty or so people in attendance approximately half were journalists, and the rest of the crowd was comprised of a number of high school students, and various parties interested in the ongoing national debate over evolution. The best parts in my mind were the discussion beforehand between Meyer and Provine, and CSC senior fellow Dr. David Berlinski who attended, and our lunchtime discussion after the event Read More ›