Good day, my name is JoeG and I would like to get something out in the open and hopefully have it become fully understood by everyone. For decades I have been debating against evolutionism and for decades I have been told that my position is “anti-evolution.” I found that strange because my position allows for a change in allele frequency over time, i.e. evolution. It also allows for natural selection, ie evolution. Speciation is OK too, i.e. evolution. Offspring are different from their parents meaning my position also allows for descent with modification, i.e. evolution. The whole point of my opponents seems to be a strawman: they want to be able to “refute” my position by showing that allele frequencies Read More ›

As well he shouldn’t be. An op-ed in the Deep Statesville Intelligence claims, Given how natural selection works, it’s entirely possible that an aversion to evolutionary explanations is in itself a product of evolution. In a hostile environment, wouldn’t a belief in selfdetermination be adaptive? But no matter, the point is that anti-evolutionary bias makes rational discussion of the human race far more difficult … The fact that political opinion is rooted to some degree in our genes and biology means that both liberalism and conservatism may be adaptive traits that got passed down through thousands of human generations because they helped us survive. But another trait that is clearly adaptive is our ability to get along. Political arguments may Read More ›

Frank Turek tackles intelligent design: One wonders if we could do with more biologists who just looked at the facts of nature without Darwinglasses on. It is certainly a different, more complex picture. Hat tip: Ken Francis See also: Frank Turek: Why does the Bible not talk about dinosaurs?

ID proponents have many times noted that at BioLogos, both management figures and columnists have distorted and deformed the facts about ID theory and the Discovery Institute.  But perhaps even more damaging to the accurate public perception of ID are the comments which fill the BioLogos discussion boards.  The negative comments about ID coming from BioLogos readers are not only more numerous than those which appear in actual BioLogos articles, but also more unrestrained and extreme, and generally speaking (because the BioLogos boards are frequented overwhelmingly by people who are anti-ID), they go unchallenged.  I here discuss a recent case, from this BioLogos page: https://discourse.biologos.org/t/its-good-that-dr-gauger-is-keeping-busy-keeping-america-straight-on-intelligent-design/38775/6 I will focus on this passage from one “Ronald_Myers”: One thing Gauger does not address Read More ›

From Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True: Templeton wastes $ 630,791 on “biology” research, finally making its anti-evolution agenda explicit The John Templeton Foundation has announced yet another big grant for “biology” research, except that its principal investigators are a theologian (Christopher Southgate) as well as a biologist (Niles Lehman). Click on the screenshot to go to the announcement. As you see, the grant, which just started, will last 32 months, and eat up over half a million dollars: … Relax, people, it is not your tax money anyhow. In other words, because the Templeton foundation doesn’t like competition (although of course Sir John made his money as a mutual fund manager) or nonteleological—i.e., naturalistic—explanations, they have to attack Read More ›

One of the main pages on my new blog has a brief account of my journey towards accepting ID. I’ve taken a few different stances on the biological origins question in the past so it’s been a bumpy ride for me. This article is mainly autobiographical, but it gives me a chance to lay my cards on the table so I don’t have assumptions made about me and so readers know roughly where I’m coming from. Here’s a snippet: So, how and why did I become an intelligent design advocate? It’s a long(ish) story… I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and, with the exception of a period of ephemeral teenage agnosticism, I have Read More ›

From Creation-Evolution Headlines: If David Johnson is right, politicians put up with conservative efforts to put up anti-evolution bills only to appease their religious constituents. Johnson, a postdoc at Rice University, looked into the outcomes of “anti-evolution curricular challenges” in various states. According to PhysOrg, only 25% of bills under consideration passed out of committee, and only two states–Louisiana and Tennessee – succeeded in getting laws passed. More. And all hell broke loose after people weren’t forced to just spout Darwin. Right? No? Remember that the next time you hear from the Ivy League. See also: The Ivy League’s Pants in Knot Follow UD News at Twitter!

A friend writes re a 2014 Johns Hopkins book, Creationism in Europe, “It’s nice to know you’re wanted:” For decades, the creationist movement was primarily fixed in the United States. Then, in the 1970s, American creationists found their ideas welcomed abroad, first in Australia and New Zealand, then in Korea, India, South Africa, Brazil, and elsewhere—including Europe, where creationism plays an expanding role in public debates about science policy and school curricula. In this, the first comprehensive history of creationism in Europe, leading historians, philosophers, and scientists narrate the rise of—and response to—scientific creationism, creation science, intelligent design, and organized anti-evolutionism in countries and religions throughout Europe. The book provides a unique map of creationism in Europe, plotting the surprising Read More ›

People who hold the view that “there is a non-scientific source of knowledge about the natural world, such as divine revelation or the historical teachings of a church, that trumps all other claims to knowledge,” are a menace to science. That’s the claim made by mathematician Jason Rosenhouse, in his latest post over at his Evolution Blog. Science, avers Rosenhouse, is not just a collection of facts; it’s “an attitude, one that says that all theories must be tested against facts and that evidence must be followed wherever it leads.” In an earlier 2009 post, Rosenhouse criticizes the claim that “science is not the only way of knowing,” and forthrightly declares: “The ways of knowing that are unique to religion, Read More ›

What on earth does the title of a famous Good Friday Sermon have to do with the ID controversy? (Even, come Easter Sunday morning . . . ) A lot. Sadly. As I was reading and thinking about Dr Torley’s latest amazing UD series and some of UD’s ever so fascinating comments [one of the best features of UD is comments], I was led to look at the Dr Townes story, and related matters. One of the findings is how Dr Townes, a Nobel Prize holder for physics, turns out to be a cosmological design thinker who actually supports intelligent design in an evolutionary framework [i.e. pretty similar to Wallace, co-founder of modern evolutionary theory], but sees ID as anti-evolutionism. Read More ›