Denyse O'Leary

Here johnnyb talks about “Intelligent Design and the Education Crisis,” assuring us, “No I’m Not Talking About Evolution Today”. No need, johnnyb. I used to work in educational publishing, and heartily agree with this: Want to start a revolution in education? Start by looking at what motivates kids to love learning. Money can motivate kids to *do* the work, but that’s not what education is. Loving learning is what will make kids educated, whether they go through college or not. None of the standardized tests will tell you if your child loves learning. None of them will say, “this person wants to get to the bottom of things, and won’t stop until he finds it.” But here are some problems: Read More ›

(Of a series of seven) The Washington Post’s Paula Kirby unintentionally forces the first question. Kirby sounds like an utterly conventional legacy media journalist, a woman who would never have an idea that wasn’t trendy. She read a book by Dawkins and then one by Jerry Coyne and, guess what, she knows evolution is true. Period. Responding to Rick Perry’s claimed position on evolution, she explains (“Evolution threatens Christianity,”Washington Post, August 24, 2011) why she stopped being a Christian because of evolution (= Darwinism): But of course evolution poses a problem for Christianity. That’s not to say it poses a problem for all Christians, since many Christians happily accept evolution: they see Genesis 1 as merely a metaphor, and declare Read More ›

In “Where We Stand: No Adam, No Eve, No Gospel”(June 6, 2011), Christianity Today, tells us, editorially speaking, “The historical Adam debate won’t be resolved tomorrow, so stay engaged.” It is hard to see why, from their performance, that anyone should stay engaged in whatever they have to say about that. We first noted their “Just up-from-apes” Adam and Eve story in early June. I was heading into the United States with a biophysicist who is a Christian (and has suffered much hatred on that account), and we talked for some time about the problem of Christian “good works” selling out to materialist theory, a problem that greatly concerned him. I wrote about the CT story, and got a swift Read More ›

Says political theorist John West here: Earlier this summer, Perry’s education commissioner recommended for use supplementary science curricula that fail to offer any critical analysis of Darwinian claims, contrary to the state’s own science standards. At the same time, Perry’s education commissioner allowed his staff to spike the one proposed curriculum that did try to follow the Texas science standards. Presumably, he thinks everyone who supports him is dumb as a post. More on him here. West thinks Bachmann is sincere, by contrast, based on her record in Minnesota. More on her here.

Here’s the contest: “Uncommon Descent contest: List the five books that helped ID most – written by non-ID researchers.” It riffs off an earlier contest: “List the ten most significant ID books of the last 25 years,” judged here. Briefly: Lots of books whose authors are looking for any solution other than ID have actually helped ID, and entrants were asked to pick the five most significant, with explanation. (Apologies, as usual, for judging delay. In part not all my fault – we just underwent a site redesign. And the management team still likes each other. Therefore, the age of miracles is not over. The age of wonders is not done. Proven.) First prize, a copy of The Nature of Nature Read More ›

Anyone who studies design in nature will have heard it a million times, usually from theistic Darwinists: “Identifying design in life forms is risky to faith because once we find out how it really happened, your faith will be diminished. Protect your faith by assuming that God played no direct role.” Yes, but what if

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