2008

Here are two emails I received, one from the Academic Freedom Consortium, which backs the recent Louisiana legislation allowing public school teachers to present material critical of Darwinian evolution, another from the skeptic society (Center for Inquiry), saying it’s all a ruse for sneaking religion into the science curriculum and therefore violates the First Amendment.

Please forward this information to our supporters. In Ohio, the Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan was repealed partly because the state board of education received 14,000 emails opposing to it. The other side, as you can see below, wants to do the same here. Fortunate, Gov. Jindal has his head screwed on straight and Louisiana is not Ohio. Still, it will strengthen his hand if he sees our support.

FROM THE GOOD GUYS:
—– Original Message —–

From: AcademicFreedomPetition.com
To: ajm@InternationalScientificProjects.org
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 7:00 PM
Subject: Tell Governor Jindal To Sign Academic Freedom Legislation

——————————————————————————–

Tell Governor Jindal You Support Academic Freedom

Click here and send Governor Jindal a message of support and let him know Louisiana should lead the way to academic freedom and freedom of scientific inquiry by signing the LSEA into law. Read More ›

Core ID and ID-compatible hypotheses have various predictions. For example, there’s the confirmed predictions related to junk DNA and genetic nature of the platypus, the predictions about designer drugs, long-term preservation mechanisms for conserving information that is not currently implemented, and retroviruses being capable of being used to implement designed changes. At this time the scientific research we have so far does not provide conclusive positive evidence for some of these predictions, although there are tantalizing glimpses that such predictions may become known to be true. There’s also some types of observed changes that happen so rapidly and repeatedly that they would seem to defy being within the domain of strictly Darwinian processes. But such research is just beginning. (And Ken Miller claims that ID cannot make predictions and research cannot occur…)

But then there’s the predictions specific to ID-compatible hypotheses such as front-loading.
Read More ›

An anthology that I started ten years ago is, with the help of two good friends and colleagues, finally out. It is titled The Patristic Understanding of Creation: An Anthology of Writings from the Church Fathers on Creation and Design and can be ordered here. For the table of contents, go here. This is the first book from my own imprint, Erasmus Press (www.erasmuspress.net). The plan is to publish books, journals, and curriculum materials through it — despise not the day of small beginnings! Here is the cover illustration. Further down is the preface.

PREFACE

This anthology might have been published in 1998. Instead, it now appears in 2008, ten years later. For many books, ten years is an eternity and spells the difference between a book that is current or passé. Fortunately, the writings of the Church Fathers are of perennial interest. Going back to Roman and Byzantine times, these writings are basic to Christian theology and have set the standard for how Christians understand creation.

The need for this anthology has persisted – and indeed grown more urgent – in the years since it was first conceived. In the summer of 1998, the journal Origins & Design published a dialogue featuring Jonathan Wells, John Mark Reynolds, and Howard Van Till (available online at www.arn.org/odesign/od191/od191.htm). Van Till, in the mid-1990s, had published a number of articles arguing for creation’s “functional integrity,” by which he meant that God, in creation, had given the world all the capacities it needs to organize and transform itself.

Van Till’s bogey, throughout these discussions, was what he called “extra-natural assembly” – that God subsequent to creation needed to intervene for nature to accomplish things that, left to herself, nature could never do. For Van Till, a world requiring extranatural assembly is unworthy of the deity. More worthy, according to him, is for God to create a world that is “fully gifted” with all the capacities it might ever need to accomplish God’s purposes. Van Till portrays a God who creates a world that, once created, requires further intervention as a miser: such a Creator ungenerously withholds from the world capacities that it might usefully have possessed to carry out its business (which Van Till calls its “formational economy”). Read More ›

Unraveling these crop circles constitutes a design inference that doesn’t just tell us that something was designed but also tells us something about the knowledge of the designer: SOURCE: go here.

I’ve known Karl Giberson over a decade. In the early days, he was a respectful critic of ID. That now seems to have changed with the publication of his most recent book, Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (go here for the Amazon listing). The subtitle is curious. Ordinarily one believes in a religion and attains competence in a field of scientific inquiry (does it matter if I believe that quarks really exist? isn’t it enough that I can apply the standard model?). Giberson’s subtitle inverts our ordinary epistemic attitudes (was it intentional?). The title is more interesting still — Saving Darwin. Why should anyone want to save Darwin? Aren’t his ideas strong enough so Read More ›

Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, which was already as well established as the theory of gravity, has taken a big leap forward. According to the New Scientist (see Dave Scot’s post earlier today), E.Coli bacteria have evolved the ability to digest citrate, after only 44,000 generations. “It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait,” says New Scientist reporter Bob Holmes. Biologists have known for a long time that the same mechanism that induces drug resistance in bacteria is responsible for the evolution of human brains and human consciousness, but this new experiment is spectacular confirmation of this theory. Now that evolution through natural selection is more Read More ›

Since I don’t believe in angels, devils, and things of that nature understand that the devil in the title is a metaphor for positive atheists. I wanted to point out that as soon as the atheists have vanquished the more blatant god bothering creationists from post-modern western civilization they’re going to go after the so-called theistic evolutionists. If any one of the theistic evolutionists thinks that the likes of Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, or their ilk are going to be happy working side by side with serious theists of any stripe then they have another think coming. I wrote in a comment that theistic evolutionists are spineless appeasers. So too are the positive atheists who embrace them. It won’t last. Read More ›

In New Scientist we find the following article: Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait. This is in reference to the E. coli culture in Richard Lenski’s lab that after 20 years and 44,000 generations became able to digest the citrate in their agar. Nevermind that E. coli can normally digest citrate in anaerobic conditions and that being able to digest citrate in aerobic conditions is a very common ability in many different bacterial species. Also nevermind that aerobic citrate metabolism has been reported in E. coli Read More ›

There’s an interesting story in today’s Washington Times (go here) on Louisiana’s new science policy (shortly to be signed into law by Governor Jindal) advocating that both strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory be taught in the public school science curriculum. The other side (ACLU, NCSE, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, etc.) are claiming that such a “strengths and weaknesses” or “teach the controversy” approach to teaching evolution is a thinly veiled attempt to bring religion into the classroom. After all, so they claim, there is no legitimate controversy over evolutionary theory (it’s as well established as gravity!), so those who would question it can only do so because they are creationists wanting to inject religion into Read More ›

In the month of June we have: Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (Hardcover) by Karl Giberson, released June 10, 2008. Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul (Hardcover) by Ken Miller, released June 12, 2008. Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World by Reverend Michael Dowd (pictured above), released June 19, 2008.

I watched Miller on the Colbert Report last night. Then I saw this comic. Interesting parallels…

Michael Ruse writes: “Ken Miller’s new book, Only a Theory, Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, is everything we have come to expect from him — informed, witty, and above all deeply serious about matters of concern to us all. He takes so-called intelligent design theory apart, piece by piece, showing it for the sham that it is. In its stead, Miller makes a very strong argument for the truth and beauty of evolutionary thinking and begs that we not keep this wonderful science from our children.” “He takes so-called intelligent design theory apart…” I presume he does this in the same manner that he unspun the bacterial flagellum, with unsupported speculation that doesn’t withstand even the most simplistic Read More ›

I am currently transcribing Canadian civil rights lawyer and journalist Ezra Levant‘s talk at a lunch at the Canadian Bar Association offices. In Canada’s increasingly illiberal regime, Levant has been charged with “hate crime” for publishing the Danish “Mohammed” cartoons.

Among the innovations he addresses is “pre-crime” – first introduced in Tom Cruise’s Minority Report, and fundamental, I suspect, to the materialist justice systems that will govern us if it is really true that Darwin loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives. It means that you can only plead guilty once you are charged.

You cannot fail to be guilty because the crime you are accused of has not yet occurred but the system says it must occur.

In Canada, it is the law now. Here is how the law works, in Ezra’s words:

It is illegal to publish anything that is

“likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt. So [Canadian commentator Mark] Steyn is charged with this and I am charged with it.”

Let’s go through that for a second, as lawyers, and look at the words.

likely to expose That’s future tense.

Not “that you did expose them” but likely

I loved Tom Cruise’s movie, Minority Report where he played a police officer in the future where they had psychics thinking that crimes would happen. Just before the crime happened, the police swooped in and arrested the guy and said, “You were gonna kill him but we stopped ya! You’re charged with a pre-crime.”

With a pre-crime … Well, how do you plead when you are charged with a pre-crime?

[ … ]

And so when I was charged under Alberta’s Section 3, … I pled guilty.

Just think of the many applications for pre-crime in your neck of the woods.

For more, go here.

Also, just up at Mindful Hack:

Real Buddhism scholar to “neural Buddhists”: The Buddha does not infinitely morph and would never drop two grand for “meditation gear” Read More ›

Ken Miller compares ID proponents to “welfare queens” (go here) and Karl Giberson denounces ID proponents for “smearing” theistic evolutionists, citing this blog (go here).

Besides displaying desperation, these people have no evident sense of irony. Miller has for years been dipping his hand into the public till, which continues to underwrite sales of his textbooks.* And Giberson, in defending Miller and Francis Collins, seems to forget that they are ones charging ID proponents with threating America’s soul and future (go here).

So, it’s okay to for theoevos to cast ID in apocalyptic terms, but it’s not okay for IDers to call them on it. Give me a break. As Denyse O’Leary has put it, theistic evolution is a solution to a problem that no longer exists. Bankruptcy is hard. Get used to the pain.

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*Here are some quotes from seven of Miller’s biology textbooks, textbooks underwritten with your tax dollars. As you read these quotes, ask yourself where is the “theo” in Miller’s “theoevo.” Read More ›

From Mike Behe’s Amazon blog an article on Kenneth Miller’s book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul

Once More With Feeling
11:11 AM PDT, June 16, 2008

Dear Readers,
Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, has written a new book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, in which he defends Darwinism, attacks intelligent design, and makes a case for theistic evolution (defined as something like “God used Darwinian evolution to make life”). In all this, it’s pretty much a re-run of his previous book published over a decade ago, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. So if you read that book, you’ll have a very good idea of what 90% of the new book concerns. For people who think that a mousetrap is not irreducibly complex because parts of it can be used as a paperweight or tie clip, and so would be easy to evolve by chance, Miller is their man. Despite the doubts of many — perhaps most — evolutionary biologists of the power of the Darwinian mechanism, to Miller’s easy imagination evolving any complex system by chance plus selection is a piece of cake, and intermediates are to be found behind every door. A purer devotee of Darwinian wishful thinking would be hard to find.

Read More ›