Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Eugenie Scott’s Just Deserts

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES SETTLES LIBEL CLAIM OVER EVOLUTION ARTICLE
Parent’s Claim Sparked by False Article by Leading Darwin Advocate

ROSEVILLE, CA — The California Academy of Sciences has settled with a California parent, Larry Caldwell, who raised a potential libel claim against the organization over its publication of a false and defamatory article authored by Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc. (NCSE) Scott’s article, entitled “In My Backyard: Creationists in California,” appeared in the Spring print and online editions of the Academy’s California Wild magazine. The article had also been accessible through a link on the NCSE’s website. Read More ›

York Daily Record Reports on Dover

Laurie Lebo of the York Daily Record interviewed me about being dropped as an expert witness in the Dover ID case (go here for the story). The Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm which had hired me as an expert witness, did not want the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, which publishes the ID textbook that is under dispute in the Dover case (Of Pandas and People) and for which I am the academic editor, to provide me with additional legal counsel when the ACLU was to depose me on June 13th. I was actually looking forward to being deposed and expect I would have gone along with the Thomas More Law Center, except that Thomas More was going to let Stephen Meyer have additional legal representation. This disparity (Meyer could have separate legal counsel but not me) put me in an impossible situation with my employer FTE — how was I to justfiy to FTE my refusal to let their attorney be present when Thomas More was permitting Discovery to provide additional legal counsel for Stephen Meyer? When I indicated that I would need to have FTE’s counsel at the deposition, the Thomas More Law Center fired me as an expert witness. For your convenience, I include the York Daily Record story here: Read More ›

“Transitional Vertebrate Fossils”

Kathleen Hunt’s Talk.Origins FAQ on transitional vertebrate fossils has been available for years. The URL for that FAQ is http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html. You might enjoy comparing it with Richard Milton’s response at http://www.alternativescience.com/talk-origins-transitions.htm.

Paul McHugh in the Weekly Standard

Many criticized the Darwinists for extrapolating too far, and now the Darwinists confess that actual, observable variation--whether in the barnyard or in nature--demonstrates only the capacity of a species population to vary within limits. Read More ›

Wayne Stayskal’s “Eternity Ward”

A few days ago, I posted an old cartoon by Wayne Stayskal (“The Literal Interpretation of Darwin” — go here). I updated the cartoon slightly by substituting the phrase “intelligent design” for “creation.” Stayskal drew the cartoon back in 1981 at the time of the Arkansas creation trial. Here’s another one of my favorite Stayskal cartoons: Read More ›

San Diego Locals Bash ID

Check out the following item: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20050608-9999-lz1c08intel.html. Have any of these respondents read any of the ID literature?

Timothy Shortell — Enlightened Bigot

Timothy Shortell is an associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College who, on his homepage (go here), states: “I am currently working on a project examining public reaction to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection from his day to our own.” It will be interesting to see what becomes of this project in light of the following remark that he made back in 2001 and which has been in the news recently: Read More ›