Once again, when the secular ruling elite of the science establishment can’t make a convincing case on the merits they try to get their conclusions mandated by judicial fiat. US Supreme Court appears divided over global warming

The Center for Inquiry’s new branch office in DC has issued a “Declaration on Science and Secularism” in which they lament the increasing appeal of ID among the unwashed masses. There’s a simple way for this problem to go away: stop stealing the money of the unwashed masses (in the form of taxes) to underwrite an ideologically driven materialistic conception of science; instead, get your money from secular elites like Paul Allen, George Soros, Charles Simonyi, etc. For the text of the Declaration, go here: http://www.cfidc.org/declaration.html.

“You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.” — Who said it and how does it apply to the ID-evolution controversy?

Chromosomal sex determination in the platypus discovered to be a combination of mammal and bird systems. The resemblance to birds is now more than just superficial. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6568

Here are articles that came out just since last night on the challenge to Darwinian orthodoxy in the UK. It looks as though Truth in Science is causing a media storm. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/27/id_blighty http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2006/11/061127_intelligent.shtml http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2006/11/27/6092 http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1958138,00.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/28/ncreation28.xml http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/28/ncreation128.xml http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6187534.stm http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/28/ncreation228.xml http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/10924.html http://www.christiantoday.com/article/intelligent.design.filtering.into.british.schools.as.darwin.debate.intensifies/8526.htm

From Anti-evolutionists raise their profile in Europe in the November 23, 2006 issue of the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
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With Dawkins and his village atheism getting so much attention, it’s only appropriate that THE BRITES is back in business: http://cedros.globat.com/~thebrites.org/index.htm.

Take a look at Ross McKitrick’s recent remarks on the subject of position statements from professional societies: http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/11/23/should-scientific-societies-issue-position-statements-by-ross-mckitrick He argues against the practice of societies issuing position statements. This has direct application to the ID debate and the public statements issued by the AAAS, NAS, AAS, etc. Here are two particularly insightful paragraphs from McKitrick’s post: Official statements celebrate group think and conformity. They effectively demote members who disagree with some or all of the statement to second-class status within their profession, regardless of the quality of their own individual work or their reasons for disagreement. And they create divisions and alienation within the profession. Having issued a party line, it cannot be a surprise that partisanship emerges, with all Read More ›

Steven Pinker has published an interesting op-ed in today’s Harvard Crimson, criticizing the current report of Harvard’s committee on general education. If one could reformulate Pinker’s dogmatic pronouncements as questions to be examined, this would be a good essay. For example, What is faith? Is Earth truly an undistinguished speck in the cosmos, or is there something special about it? How is the paramount value of “reason” affected if the mind and its thoughts are merely products of chemical activity in the brain? Opinion –Less Faith, More Reason Published by The Harvard Crimson On 10/27/2006 4:36:48 AM By STEVEN PINKER … [T]he picture of humanity’s place in nature that has emerged from scientific inquiry has profound consequences for people’s understanding Read More ›

Here is my review of Francis Collins’ The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, New York, 2006), with a look at the other reviews. Collins is a snapshot in time: the Christian scientist reassuring everyone that materialist science is no threat  – on the very eve of the big blowout. Some might think I haven’t been nice enough to him. Well, if nice is all you want … next time ask Mary Poppins to write a review. Introduction Part One:How genome mapper Collins became a Christian Collins owes his conversion to C.S. Lewis, but he typifies the petering out of Lewis’ legacy. Too many people have relied on Lewis and too few have followed in his Read More ›

With Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et al. on a rampage against religion, its worth putting the sins of atheism in perspective:

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

By Dinesh D’Souza

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. – In recent months, a spate of atheist books have
argued that religion represents, as “End of Faith” author Sam Harris puts
it, “the most potent source of human conflict, past and present.”

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. “The Crusades
slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the
torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did
bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries.”

In his bestseller “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins contends that most of
the world’s recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in
Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality
of religion’s murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed
to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The
best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials.
How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually,
fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail
against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years
ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be
about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in
jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower
at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls
produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of
creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph
Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no
Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants
murdered more than 100 million people. Read More ›

Baylor University, which in the past has figured large in the debate over ID (see here), continues to struggle with its Christian identity. Check out the following blog entry by Hunter Baker, and especially comment #5: http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/2124.

Why Are They So Angry? Granville Sewell There are a lot of articles out there on the web intended to refute my writings on Intelligent Design, but if there is one that isn’t full of anger and personal insults, I haven’t located it yet. Other ID proponents have experienced similar reactions to their writings, and must have also wondered, why are they so angry? I think we all know that the source of this anger is not, as our critics claim, a fear that drawing the obvious conclusions from the scientific evidence for design in Nature threatens the foundations of science. It is clear to me that we will never reach many of these people by simply uncovering more evidence, Read More ›

In this UD thread, Mentok brought up something that, it seems to me, is quintessentially behind the ID versus materialism controversy: Is there, ultimately, any purpose or meaning behind anything, especially our lives?

With thanks to William Lane Craig, the author of Ecclesiastes, and Carl Sagan, I offer the following:

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Check this out: The Strange Case of Dr. Darwinist and Mr. Creationist What a hoot! This guy is as dumb as the guy who robs a liquor store and leaves his ID behind. Inspector Clouseau would be proud to have such a proficient protégé. With clumsy enemies like this, who needs friends?