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A post made 2 weeks ago highlighted how in 1981, Constance Holden wrote in Science that emotions, rather than abundant evidence, often rule the field of paleoanthropology and its claims about human evolution. Yesterday, an article by Charles Matthews in the San Jose Mercury News reiterates that same point. Reviewing a book by Ann Gibbons, Matthews notes: “Gibbons, who reports on human evolution for Science magazine, gives a lucid account of the science involved in finding fossils, establishing how old they are, and ascertaining whether they in fact belong to the ancestors of humankind. She also shows how difficult and sometimes dangerous the work of hunting for 7 million-year-old fossils can be. And that, like most humans, anthropologists are subject Read More ›

Legal commentary mentioning the Kitzmiller decision is now starting to appear in legal journals. In the Spring, 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, one of the most widely circulated law journals, the lead article addresses intelligent design, Kitzmiller, and the establishment clause.

Cristi L. Bowman’s article, “Seeing Government Purpose Through the Objective Observer’s Eyes: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Debates,” is available here.

Most of the article is about establishment clause jurisprudence, and an argument against part of McCreary County v. ACLU. Bowman argues that the government purpose prong of the Lemon test should return to focusing on “actual intent,” rather than trying to evaluate government purpose with an “objective observer.” Kitzmiller and the evolution-intelligent design controversy serve as the article’s setting for how the objective observer standard will play out in future establishment clause cases.

Darwinists claim that their theory is the foundation of all science. Indeed, we are often told that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of it.

In a news article last November, a Stanford biologist claimed he had been guided in his research by Darwinian evolution:

“Researchers at the School of Medicine uncovered obestatin [an appetite-suppressing hormone] by using the principles of evolution to pick clues from data held in the Human Genome Project, as well as the genome sequencing projects for many other organisms, among them yeast, fruit flies and mice. ‘Darwin led us to this new hormone,’ said senior author Aaron Hsueh, an endocrinologist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology.”

The Stanford press release continued:

The contention that biochemist Michael Behe’s intelligent design argument of “irreducible complexity” (IC) is not science was undercut in a recent issue of Science magazine which contains a paper purporting to falsify the theory. If it’s not science, why bother to try to falsify it? Further, the hapless case made against Behe’s theory — as Dr. Behe explains in his detailed response — shows that irreducible complexity is also good science. Unintentionally, this paper in Science puts the lie to the whole line used in the Dover trial against Behe and his theory of irreducible complexity. It will be interesting to see whether Science lets Behe reply to the Thornton paper in its pages.If you can’t find it in Science, Read More ›

Stephen Heller has an article at the Design Forum looking at semantics and asking who it is that owns the term intelligent design. It’s an issue that has a lot of relevance for Heller’s audience since they are all graphic designers. Design Forum is a part of the website of the AIGA, — American Institute of Graphic Arts. In Heller’s world “intelligent design” has a much different meaning than in my world. His concern seems to be that the phrase has different meaning for some people than it does for him and his colleagues.

When I hear a graphic designer comment on intelligent design I know that most likely he’s talking about a graphic image of some sort. Or, these days, making a bad play on words. Of course, this is why we have context.

Washington, DC — Today, I participated in a panel discussion on intelligent design with the Reverend Barry Lynn at the University of Maryland’s Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. In the audience were reporters from newsmedia around the United States including the New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune and many others, as well as some international journalists, who asked questions of myself and Mr. Lynn. The “panel discussion” (do two participants make a “debate” or a “panel”?) was fun and there were many good questions from the reporters. During my opening comments, my primary points were that intelligent design is often described inaccurately by the media, who mischaracterize it by saying that “life is so complex that it couldn’t have Read More ›

Alan Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is describing the proposed Academic Freedom Act in Oklahoma as “code language … to promote a narrow religious agenda.” Lawrence Selden responds: So I raise this question: Is “encourag[ing] critical thinking by exposing students to all sides of the scientific debate about evolution” really just “code language” for “promot[ing] a narrow religious agenda”? It seems to me that looking at the alleged “code language” that is being “injected” into Oklahoma law is the best way to decide. Selden’s full response is here.

(Part I, Version 1.0) By Casey Luskin Copyright © 2006 Casey Luskin. All Rights Reserved. The entire article can be read here AbstractIn Kitzmiller v. Dover, Judge John E. Jones ruled harshly against the scientific validity of intelligent design. Judge Jones ruled that the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum, as argued by intelligent design proponents during the trial, was refuted by the testimony of the plaintiffs’ expert biology witness, Dr. Kenneth Miller. Dr. Miller misconstrued design theorist Michael Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity by presenting and subsequently refuting only a straw-characterization of the argument. Accordingly, Miller claimed that irreducible complexity is refuted if a separate function can be found for any sub-system of an irreducibly complex system, outside of Read More ›