Victoria Clark of the “Epoch Times” published an article today on the battle between Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Although she equates ID with Creationism, she does a nice job of highlighting the religious zeal with which hardline Darwinian fundamentalists hold to their “theory”.
Since the term “science” as we use it today is a 19th century invention, and since the older term is “natural philosophy,” I’m happy for high school courses to teach “Natural Philosophy of Design” courses. The following class, then, is at least a step in the right direction. California high school class discusses intelligent design LEBEC, Calif. A small high school outside of Bakersfield has jumped into the national debate about whether “intelligent design” belongs in the classroom. Officials at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec contend that the class, called “Philosophy of Design,” is not being offered as science. The teacher of the course is Sharon Lemburg. She says in the course syllabus — quote — “This class is Read More ›
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/audio. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to download this interview/debate.
The Huxley Memorial Debate held at Oxford Union on 2/14/86 pitted two creationists (Edgar Andrews and A.E. Wilder-Smith) against two evolutionists (Richard Dawkins and John Maynard-Smith). They debated whether “the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution.” For further information and to order an MP3 CD of the debate (3 hrs. and 49 min.) see http://www.tonguesrevisited.com/oxford_union_debate.htm. See also http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2003/cm08_04_rp.PDF. I regard this debate as relevant to ID because A.E. Wilder-Smith employed information-theoretic ideas to argue that intelligence is required to originate biological complexity.
This leads to the WordPress dashboard. All registered users here can use it to facilitate tracking new comments. I didn’t know it existed before a few days ago.
I can’t quite decipher what Jeb Bush is really recommending here except that educators should make the ultimate decision. It seems he is greenlighting classroom discussion of ID in we should encourage the vigorous discussion of varying viewpoints in our classrooms but isn’t explicit about it. Clearly though, the topic of ID has risen to where the governor of yet another large state has come out with a statement mentioning it. This is very encouraging. ID isn’t fading away, it’s growing in stature in the public square. PRESS RELEASE December 30, 2005 Russell Schweiss (850) 488-5394 Statement by Governor Jeb Bush Regarding Sunshine State Standards for Science TALLAHASSEE  “A national debate is ensuing about whether evolution or intelligent design Read More ›
Steve Fuller on the Dover Judgement
This applies to everyone writing articles as well as writing comments. Professor Dembski excepted of course. The topic and purpose of this weblog is to instruct and promote the intelligent design work of Bill Dembski in particular and the ID movement in general. We are trying to convince that world that ID is based on math, science, and logic. While the implications tend to attract religious devotees in large number ID is not about religion. I consider atheism to be a contrarian religion and ID offends them as one might expect of anything that pleases the faithful. If you want a soapbox for your favorite religion (including atheism) go somewhere else. I realize that it’s hard to divorce our innermost Read More ›
Adam Wolfson writes a fairly balanced piece on the evolution debate in The Weekly Standard. I take issue with his ending paragraphs saying ID is doomed in public teaching because proponents claim the designer must be God. This conclusion reflects a misunderstanding of ID which is about design detection not designer typecasting and a stereotyping of ID proponents into a mold they all do not fit into. Survival of the Evolution Debate Why Darwin is still a lightning rod. by Adam Wolfson 01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17 WHAT IS IT ABOUT EVEN the slightest dissent from Darwin’s theory of natural selection that drives liberal elites (and even some conservative elites) bonkers? In the 1920s, in the days of the Scopes Read More ›
Brief History Cobb County, Georgia, adopted new biology texts which for the first time in Cobb County had a section on evolution. Concerned parents voiced their concern to the school board that the evolution section was presented in a manner that left no room for doubt, effectively presenting as fact something the parents did not believe was an accurate history of the evolution of life. The school board voted to put a sticker in the textbook stating that the textbook contained material about the evolution of life and that evolution was a theory, not a fact, and that it should be carefully studied and critically considered. A group of parents sued the school board saying the stickers were a law Read More ›
Check this out!
I saw this parody ad (from Adbusters) years ago when I was a postdoc at Notre Dame and nearly busted a gut. Turns out it’s difficult to track this down on the web. I’ve therefore posted it here for my future reference and your amusement. Read More ›
Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/6perry.html
Perry: Add intelligent design to teaching
Theory has a place in Texas schools, he says; most rivals disagree
By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, January 06, 2006Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who has made outreach to Christian conservatives a theme of his gubernatorial portfolio, thinks Texas public school students should be taught intelligent design along with evolutionary theory, his office said Thursday. Read More ›
I’ve decided to write a series of articles touching upon ID-relevant portions of the seminal book describing the nanotechnology revolution “Engines of Creation” by K. Eric Drexler. The book was originally published in hardcover in 1986 and purchased/read by me that year. This year marks its 20th anniversary and is a good point to take a look at where its predictions on the path and nature of the nanotechnology revolution stand two decades later. It is now in the public domain in hypertext format here: Engines of Creation For this introductory article I want to skip up to the second to last chapter. EOC Chapter 14: The Network of Knowledge Chapter 14 discusses the (at the time: 1986) revolutionary new Read More ›