American Association for the Advancement of Science

A new paper in the journal Science reports results of a survey of how science teachers cover evolution. Titled “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom,” the paper laments that more teachers aren’t pushing neo-Darwinian evolution in a dogmatic fashion, even attacking one teacher who dared to suggest, “Students should make up their own minds” on evolution. The survey forces teachers to fit into 1 of 3 categories: “Advocates of evolutionary biology,” “Advocates of creationism,” or “Advocate of neither.” According to the survey, 28% of teachers are “Advocates of evolutionary biology,” 13% are “Advocates of creationism,” and a full 60% are “Advocates of neither.” (These are the percentages reported in the survey–odd how they add up to Read More ›

The documentary Expelled keenly observes that scientific ideas begin in the academy, but if they’re to get out to the people, they must pass through a series of barriers and “checkpoints,” which means they can be hindered or stopped at any point along the way. In the film, the first checkpoint is the academy, which polices journals and controls research grants and funding. The second checkpoint is comprised of watchdog groups, like the NCSE, that work hard to organize and kindle opposition against Darwin-skeptics. The next checkpoint is the media, which carefully selects the sources of information it will broadcast to the public on this issue. When all those checkpoints fail, the final checkpoint is the courts. (This idea is Read More ›

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an influential science organization, but lately it has moved beyond science and now apparently aims to influence people in their choices of movies and religion. This week the AAAS issued a press release officially condemning the documentary Expelled as an instance of “profound dishonesty” because it “badly misrepresents the scientific community as intolerant of dissent.” Ironically, the AAAS’s own behavior seems to demonstrate that the scientific community can be “intolerant of dissent”–at least when it comes to Darwinism: in 2002, the AAAS issued a press release condemning intelligent design (ID), Read More ›

A recent issue of the journal Science has an article entitled, “Evolution: Crossing the Divide,” which discusses the “painful transition from creationist to evolutionist” of paleontologist Stephen Godfrey. The article tells of the many difficulties Dr. Godfrey faced when he told his fundamentalist Christian family, which taught him to believe in young earth creationism, that he had become an “evolutionist.” The article portrays Darwin-skeptics as young earth creationists, painting a false dichotomy between religion-based creationism or science-based evolution. To elaborate, the false dichotomy goes something like this: Darwinists obviously say that one can accept evolution and religion, but they force a false dichotomy upon Darwin-skeptics by claiming that if you challenge evolution, then you have abandoned science and your view Read More ›

A great opinion article in Friday’s Tulsa Today reiterates a point I made in an ENV post last week: Darwinists oppose academic freedom legislation because they want to censor scientific evidence which some scientists think challenges biological evolution. In the article, Jonathan Bartlett critiques Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), who opposed the Academic Freedom Bill in Oklahoma: “First, the bill only covers scientific views and scientific information. Therefore, Intelligent Design can only be included if it is scientific. If Intelligent Design isn’t scientific, Leshner has nothing to worry about. If Intelligent Design is scientific, then Leshner is playing politics with science by trying to limit scientific views by law.” Bartlett is absolutely Read More ›

Last September, a blogger with The Scientist used the old Darwinist line that Michael Behe and David W. Snoke’s 2004 article in Protein Science neither supports irreducible complexity nor ID. The blogger did this to challenge my claim that Michael Behe has authored a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal which supports ID. Yet supporting my original claim is an article in the current issue of Science which implies that Behe and Snoke’s arguments are precisely about irreducible complexity, and also ID. In the current issue of Science, Christoph Adami has an article where he concedes that enzyme-substrate interactions can be irreducibly complex (they think they refuted irreducible complexity for one enzyme-substrate system), and that design theorists use this precise Read More ›