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Darwinists sometimes make a highly suspect argument along the lines of, “don’t change evolution education because you’ll divide the community.” Most school districts presently teach only the scientific evidence which supports Darwinian evolution and nothing more on this topic. Does that satisfy the public or divide them? In fact, polls consistently show that Americans want more than just the pro-evolution side of the story taught in schools. A 2005 Harris poll found that 82% of Americans want alternatives to evolution taught. A 2006 Zogby poll corroborated that statistic, finding that a supermajority of Ohio adults want both scientific evidence for and against evolution taught, and 75% of Americans want intelligent design taught alongside evolution. In both polls, under 20% wanted Read More ›

The Florida state legislature has passed legislation that would allow school districts that excell to have unprecedented control over their own schools, textbooks and curriculum.

It’s hardly news to observe that Wikipedia is biased against intelligent design (ID). Michael Egnor recently exposed how Wikipedians removed statements discussing how biological machines can be reverse-engineered, like human machines (an observation which has strong pro-ID implications). Errors persist from the very beginning of Wikipedia’s entry on ID, with very first paragraph stating, “ID’s primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, believe the designer to be the Abrahamic God.” I’m pretty sure that notable ID-friendly scientists like Mike Gene would ardently dispute that statement on many levels. The critics’ viewpoint dominates the ID page, with over 50% of the references presently containing citations to critics (like the ACLU-scripted Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling, the testimony of Read More ›

The American Enterprise Institute will hold a conference on Thursday, May 3 (9:00–11:30 a.m.) titled “Darwinism and Conservatism: Friends or Foes?” (go here to register)

Speakers include Discovery Institute Senior Fellows Dr. John West and George Gilder. And opposing them with the thesis that Darwinism and Conservatism are compatible will be National Review’s John Derbyshire and Larry Arnhart, political theorist of Northern Illinois University.

Shortly after the event occurs, a video webcast will be available on the AEI site here.

From the Event Description:

In March of 2002, the Cobb County School Board adopted a policy requiring stickers to be placed in biology textbooks which committed the apparently unconstitutional crime of stating, “Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” The lawsuit ended last December, when the school district entered into a lose-lose-lose settlement with the ACLU: (1) The district had to pay the ACLU $166,659, (2) The district had to permanently remove the stickers, and (3) The district was permanently enjoined from “making any disclaimers regarding evolution.” I don’t favor using the “evolution is a theory, not a fact” line because it enters semantic Read More ›

Political scientist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Dr. John West has been asked to lecture at Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. on Monday, April 30th at 11a.m. Dr. West’s lecture will be “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: The Disturbing Legacy of America’s Eugenics Crusade.”

For those outside the D.C. area, the lecture will be audiocast live from www.frc.org (click on “Events”)

From the Lecture Summary:

It looks like CSC contributor Michael Egnor is not the only professor of medicine to stick his neck out for intelligent design and face severe personal attack. Dr. John Marshall of The University of Missouri–Columbia lectured this week on his own campus with the title “Intelligent Design: Is It Science or Religion?”

Recently I shared my reading of David Brooks’ recent colum “The Age of Darwin.” The whole thing read like parody to me. I thought for sure that Brooks could not seriously write that, while we are generally post-modern people who are skeptical of metanarratives, we have and should abandon this view because Darwinism is the true metanarrative of life. I thought he was just pointing out the contradiction in academia between postmodern and Darwinian thought.

With thanks to one ENV reader named Oleg, I stand corrected. I had forgotten that Mr. Brooks shared his views on Darwinism in The New Republic in 2005:

Scientists recently discovered what the media is calling a “super-Earth” — a planet which may be able to house liquid water and has properties similar to earth’s own. Before you get ready to buy real estate, you should hear some other aspects of this “super-Earth” which may not be so cozy . . . or even habitable. The following was sent to us by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, whose work has investigated the requirements for habitability in the universe: You are right about the host star being an M dwarf posing problems for habitability. The smallest planet’s eccentricity is comparable to that of Mercury, so it is probably locked into a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance. So, the planet will experience large temperature Read More ›