Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

[Editor’s Note: This is slide 5 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” a response to PBS-NOVA’s online materials for their “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary.]https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Black-Box-Biochemical-Challenge/dp/0684834936 “Darwin was ignorant of the reason for variation within a species,” writes Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe in his book Darwin’s Black Box, “but biochemistry has identified the molecular basis for it.”1 There were other things that Darwin did not know. For example, Darwin assumed that the cell was like a primitive blob of protoplasm that could easily evolve new biological functions. As Behe explains, “To Darwin, then, as to every other scientist of the time, the cell was a black box. … Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: This is slide 4 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” a response to PBS-NOVA’s online materials for their “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary.] As discussed in Slide #1, proponents of Darwinism often employ the “Evolution” Bait-and-Switch, using evidence for small-scale changes and then over-extrapolating to claim that such modest evidence proves Darwin’s grander claims. In fact, this is precisely what PBS does in its online materials for “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.” A PBS web slide asserts, “Evolution happens through natural selection,” and then goes on to discuss small-scale changes in the sizes of beaks in finches on the Galapagos Islands as supporting evidence. Such Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: This is slide 3 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” a response to PBS-NOVA’s online materials for their “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary.] As noted in the Introduction, PBS asserts that the data “unequivocally” support the view that “[e]volution happens through natural selection.” In this dogmatic statement, PBS has again failed to clearly define “evolution.” If by “evolution,” PBS means that we can observe small-scale changes within species, then no one doubts that natural selection plays a role. But in fact, many scientists have questioned whether natural selection acting upon random mutation is sufficient to generate new species or new complex biological features. As evolutionary scientist Robert Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: This is slide 2 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” a response to PBS-NOVA’s online materials for their “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary.] No one doubts that Darwin was a gifted scientist who made careful observations of the natural world. The same could be said for Sir Isaac Newton, an early proponent of intelligent design whose ideas inspired both modern physics and modern science as a whole. Yet despite the long-lasting success of Newton’s ideas, technological advancements in the early 20th century overturned Newtonian physics and replaced them with Einstein’s theories. If history is to be our guide, science must always be open to following the Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: This is slide 1 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” a response to PBS-NOVA’s online materials for their “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary.] PBS confidently instructs us that “evolution happens.” But should that matter? Even Darwin’s scientific critics agree that evolution happens. PBS is introducing equivocation into the discussion by failing to clearly define “evolution.” Some use “evolution” to refer to something as simple as minor changes within individual species that occur over short periods of time (Evolution #1). Others use the same word to mean something much more far-reaching, such as claiming that all living organisms are descended from a single common ancestor (Evolution #2), Read More ›

Some Darwinists are presently making the false assertion that Discovery Institute wanted Judge Jones to rule broadly on whether ID is science in the Kitzmiller case. All this comes in the wake of Judge Jones’ recent admissions regarding the activist nature of the Kitzmiller ruling. The Darwinist response to Judge Jones’s admissions is revealing: Rather than defending the Judge Jones activist behavior in the Kitzmller ruling, Darwinists have implicitly conceded the activism by changing the subject, and attacking us for allegedly encouraging its activism. As is the usual case when ID proponents make a good point, Darwinists try to deflect the issue by changing the subject and launching into personal attacks. This tells you that we have done something right Read More ›

PBS-NOVA’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary has evoked much commentary and response. In fact, we have recently received a flood of e-mails from members of the public who felt that “Judgment Day” was heavily biased and inaccurate, including e-mails from educators and teachers who thanked us for correcting the misinformation promoted by PBS. Other e-mails have not been so nice, showing that sadly, some Darwinists apparently lack the Thanksgiving holiday spirit. Below is a sampling of some of the e-mails we have received recently: One Darwinist wrote us to explain that he is a “science teacher,” showing the type of example that he sets for his students regarding how to discuss controversial scientific and social issues: “May you Read More ›

Federal judges don’t ordinarily travel around the country speaking about their judicial rulings, but Judge Jones is no ordinary federal judge. While promoting the PBS-NOVA special on intelligent design, he recently appeared the Lehrer Newshour, where he made striking admissions that demonstrate the activist nature of the Kitzmiller ruling. Two hallmarks of judicial activism are (1) the tendency to resolve questions outside the scope of the judiciary, which are best left to other branches of government,1 and (2) the intent to make policy and influence parties outside of the case.2 Judge Jones’ own admissions on the Lehrer Newshour demonstrate that both of these criticisms correctly apply to his Kitzmiller ruling. Judge Jones’ Expansive Intrusion into Legislative QuestionsFirst, Judge Jones admitted Read More ›

UPDATE: A tenth PBS blunder is now addressed, where PBS makes the false insinuation that intelligent design is no more scientific than astrology. Scroll down to read more. More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called “Inherit the Wind” that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in “Judgment Day” was corrected by ID proponents long ago. To help readers sift the fact from the fiction, here are links to articles rebutting some of PBS’s most blatant misrepresentations: 1. PBS falsely claims Read More ›

Last summer I reported how theistic evolutionist and biologist Kenneth Miller gave some inaccurate testimony during the Dover trial when he wrongly claiming that the phrase “[e]volution is random and undirected” exists only in the third edition of his textbook. Miller claimed, “[T]hat statement was not in the first edition the book, it was not in the second edition, it was not in the fourth edition.” The problem is that the phrase “[e]volution is random and undirected” was in the first, second, and fourth editions. As I noted, “The facts are very different from Miller’s testimony. All of the first four editions of his ‘elephant’ Biology textbook contain the phrase ‘[e]volution is random and undirected.’” Now, I have recently discovered Read More ›