DonaldM

Now that the moaning and hand-wringing are over, there’s talk of mounting some legal challenges to the new science standards in Texas. At issue aren’t the standards themselves, but the personal motivations of some of the Board members who advocated for these standards.

Now the issue is whether there is enough prima facie evidence to challenge the Constitutionality of the wording now, or wait for the textbook review process in two years.

“They have shown clear religious motivations that certainly raise some questions,” Quinn said. “But if the board requires phony religious arguments in the science textbooks, I can’t imagine somebody won’t challenge it.” Publishers may end up producing a textbook for Texas and other conservative states and a separate version for other states—because under the new guidelines, a Texas textbook “will be poison in states that value education,” [Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network].

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In my earlier post about the Texas Science standards, I noted the hand wringing over the new language by Eugenie Scott, at the NCSE. Well, the moaning continues. An article has appeared in Education Week entitled Retooled Texas Standards Raise Unease Among Science Groups Read More ›

By now most of you are probably aware of the news from Texas and the new science standards there. Apparently, the new standards don’t sit well with Dr. Eugenie Scott and her friends at the NCSE, (National Center for Saving Evolution).

“The final vote was a triumph of ideology and politics over science,” says Dr. Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). “The board majority chose to satisfy creationist constituents and ignore the expertise of highly qualified Texas scientists and scientists across the country.” NCSE presented the board with a petition from 54 scientific and educational societies, urging the board to reject language that misrepresents or undermines the teaching of evolution, which the board likewise ignored.

Although the “strengths and weaknesses” wording that has been part of the standards for over a decade was finally excised–wording that has been used to pressure science textbook publishers to include creationist arguments–a number of amendments put the creationist-inspired wording back in.

One can almost see Dr. Scott wringing her hands as she says this. Read More ›

Richard Dawkins has been back in the U.S.touring college campuses and giving lectures on the Purpose of Purpose. I use this link because it appears that Darwinian Wes Elsberry has done a pretty fair job of taking notes and reporting on Dawkins’s lecture at Michigan State in East Lansing. I did not attend the lecture, but will assume Elsberry’s accuracy in capturing the gist of Dawkins’s lecture. The main theme of the talk is summarized here:

Then Dawkins got to the essential framework of the rest of his talk, making a distinction within purpose between the purpose that comes about as adaptation via natural selection, which he called “archi-purpose”, and the purpose that comes about through the intent of a planning brain, which he called “neo-purpose”. Archi-purpose, then, resembles an intentional purpose, but is not such: the resemblance is an illusion. Neo-purpose, as Dawkins views it, is itself an evolved adaptation.

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Back in January I posted this comment to ask what is science’s “rightful place.” Now it seems we’re getting a clearer picture of the answer as far as the President is concerned. Fox News is reporting that President Obama to issue an executive order on Monday that would lift the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research put in place under President Bush.

Regardless of one’s opinion or position on this issue, there are a couple points of concern with respect to this story. First is this comment Read More ›

A recent poll from England, taken on the eve of Darwin’s 200th birthday celebrations, shows that nearly half of Britons have serious doubts about evolution. And this despite its being the big Year of Darwin and all the hoopla leading up to it and Britain being the home of Darwin and Dawkins and all that. Somehow the message just isn’t getting through.

Here in the United States, a recent Zogby poll indicates a significant increase in the number of people who think the evidence against evolution should be taught. That’s odd considering how often we’ve been told that there is no evidence against evolution and that its as well confirmed as the theory of gravity. Guess that message hasn’t gotten through either. Read More ›

Perhaps you recall the outrageous statements by Dr. Eric Pianka of U. of Texas at Austin. Well, he’s still preaching his wacky “humans are the root of all evil” propaganda and enlisting the aid of some of his unfortunate students. (unfortunate because they’ve fallen under the influence of this nutty professor). Below is a video of some of his latest. The twisted logic and misinformation given here is beyond belief. You could laugh this off if it were just the rantings of some unknown in their basement, but Pianka has managed to grab some national attention, even if negative attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQbzRRu-WpY

A recent bill introduced into the Iowa State Legislature has prompted the defenders of Darwinian Dogma to issue the following statement:

STATEMENT BY IOWA FACULTY ON HF 183: THE EVOLUTION ACADEMIC FREEDOM ACT

We, the undersigned members of institutions of higher learning in Iowa, urge our legislators to reject passage of “The Evolution Academic Freedom Act” (HF 183) introduced by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll). The language of this bill comes primarily from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has conducted lobbying efforts and political activism against the teaching of evolution since 1994.

Evolution is as established a scientific theory as any other theory in science. It is misleading to claim that there is any controversy or dissent within the vast majority of the scientific community regarding the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. Since there is no real dissent within the scientific community, then “academic freedom” for alternative theories is simply a mechanism to introduce religious or non-scientific doctrines into our science curriculum.

Similar efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools repeatedly have been found to be unconstitutional, something witnessed most recently in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) in Pennsylvania.

We, therefore, urge our legislators to recognize HF183 as part of a long history of creationist assaults on science education, and reject passage of this bill.

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In todays Wall Street Journal OpionJournal online appears this editorial by NYU’s Gary Marcus.  Marcus is a professor of evolutionary psychology.  In this editorial, he wants to make the case that evolution settles for what works, not necessarily for what is ideal or best.  He then wants to apply this to understanding human behavior, especially as it relates to our economic behavior.  Marcus writes:

All this matters because endeavors like economics and social policy are all built around theories about what human beings are and how they function. We allow consumers access to credit cards, for example, because we assume (despite ample evidence to the contrary) that they will be smart enough to balance their short-term needs as consumers with their long-term capacity to maintain a fiscally sensible reality. Read More ›

Okay, this is a little OT (but only slightly), but sometimes debating with a Darwinist can be like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3HaRFBSq9k

The L.A. Theater Works have been touring the U.S. with a wonderful production of Peter Goodchild’s The Great Tennessee Monkey Monkey Trial. With veteran actors Ed Asner and John Heard as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, respectively, the play’s script is taken directly from the transcripts of the actual trial, so is not a fictional account of the trial as Inherit the Wind was. My daughter and I had the privilege of seeing yesterday at Notre Dame and it is superb in every way. Asner and Heard are perfect as Bryan and Darrow. There are a few tour dates coming up so if this presentation is coming anywhere near where you are, I highly recommend you make the effort Read More ›

Cornelius G. Hunter, known for his books Darwin’s God and Darwin’s Proof as well as Science’s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism, has just put up a new website about Darwian Evolution. Entitled Darwin’s Predictions, this site is “living document” in that Hunter intends to update the information as needed. Read More ›

In his inaugural adress, President Obama stated “We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” What I wish to focus on here is the beginning phrase, “We will restore science to its rightful place…” This is a follow-up to my earlier post on NOMA vs COMA.

What is science’s “rightful place” in our civilization and how do we determine it? Since he didn’t elaborate, its difficult to know precisely what President Obama had in mind when he made the comment, but, based on things he said during the campaign, I suspect part of what he had in mind was lifting the ban on stem cell research, among other things. It is not my purpose here to discuss whether or not that should happen, but to instead deal with the larger question mentioned above: what is science’s rightful place in our civilzation and how is that determined? Read More ›

Most likely most of you will recall the late Stephen J. Gould’s principle of Non-Overlapping Magisteria or NOMA. In sum, Gould espouses the notion that Science and Religion each have their own realms and hence their own respective magisterium and those boundaries need to be respected. NOMA could be stated more tersely as “science is science and religion and religion – one has nothing to do with the other” or something to that effect. In any case, the main idea of NOMA is for Religion and Science to tell each other “get outta my house!”

As a principle, NOMA has its problems, not the least of which is the question of which magisterium dictates the principle itself? If its either Science or Religion, then it is clearly self-refuting. If its something else, Gould doesn’t tell us what that is or why this third magisterium gets to dictate to Science and Religion where the boundaries are and put up the “Stay Out” signs.

In response, a friend of mine has proposed a different principle: COMA which stands for Completely Overlapping Magisteria. (Its tempting to say something like ‘put NOMA in a COMA’…but I’ll refrain. Read More ›

Darwinist Carl Zimmer, who maintains a blog over at the Discover Magazine website recently posted this little diatribe on irreducible complexity.

Oh No! I’ve Seen the Impossible! My Eyes!
Ah, the things you learn from creationists…

If you’ve ever read about intelligent design (a k a “the progeny of creationism”), you’ve probably encountered their favorite buzz words, “irreducible complexity.” If you take a piece out of a complex biological system (like the cascade of blood-clotting proteins) and it fails to work, this is taken as evidence that the system could not have evolved. After all, without all the pieces in place, it couldn’t work.

Scientists have shown over and over again that this is a false argument. At the famous intelligent-design trial in Dover in 2005, Pennsylvania, for example, Brown biologist Ken Miller showed how dolphins and other species are missing various proteins found in our blood-clotting cascade, and they can still clot blood.

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