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As some of you know…
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IDers like to portray evolution as being built entirely on an edifice of darwinian natural selection. This caricature of evolutionary biology is not too surprising. Most molecular, cell and developmental biologists subscribe to the same creed, as do many popular science writers. However, it has long been known that purely selective arguments are inadequate to explain many aspects of biological diversity.

Michael Lynch, May 2005

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Paul Nelson highlighted new developments in the Peppered Myth story here. Now Jonathan Wells, a scientist at the Discovery Institute, offers a more detailed analysis in Exhuming the Peppered Mummy. Enjoy!!! A friend of mine tells me that the only things he remembers about evolution from his high school biology course are photos of black and white peppered moths resting on light and dark tree trunks. They were presented as THE classic case of Darwinian evolution in action, explaining how a trait that enhances survival could be acquired through an unguided material process. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, most biology textbooks featured photos of peppered moths (scientific name: Biston betularia) on tree trunks.1 Canadian textbook-writer Bob Ritter Read More ›

Rob Crowther interviews renowned pioneer of technology Walt Ruloff in Expelling Dogma: Executive Producer Walt Ruloff and Expelled(part 1). Ruloff relates how “disruptive technologies” advanced the high-tech industry and how neo-Darwinism is a science stopper because it prevents the evolution of “disruptive technologies”. He expresses the highly negative consequences of neo-Darwinism to the advancement of medical research, advancement of science, and the matriculation of large numbers of scientists through the educational system. Enjoy! I foresaw this. Recall, I was the one who described: How IDers can win the war. Ruloff said it better than I ever could.

[continued from Dr. D.A. Cook’s thread, Where Did Sea Anemones Get Human Genes?]

Michael Behe has certainly given his critics a thrashing at his Amazon weblog. When I saw Mike taking Ken Miller to task for Miller mischaracterizing Lipids as Proteins (a sophomoric mistake by Miller), I knew Mike was slamming the best the Darwinist could muster onto the floor. Behe single handedly defeated Ken Miller, Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, Michael Ruse, and Richard Dawkins, and thus earned the title “Darwin Slayer”.

The NCSE is shamelessly pandering to religious interests to advance their cause, and because I really like the NCSE, I’d like to help them out in their recent campaign to support The Clergy Letter Project.

The Clergy Letter Project is an attempt to recruit religious groups to support Darwin. To that end, let me suggest a symbol which the Clergy Letter Project should adopt to set apart the churches which have formed an alliance with Charles Darwin.

It is the symbol which Darwin himself swore by, and what better way for churches who are part of the clergy project to honor Darwin than by adopting a symbol which Darwin himself was so fond of.

The symbol I suggest is Darwin’s walking stick. Here is what it looks like as reported by the BBC news:
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I highly recommend this from the Discovery Institute: (Free Video) How To Teach the Controversy Legally (DvD Order Details) How To Teach the Controversy Legally

I can only speak for myself, and not the rest of those at UD, but in my opinion, voting against any mandate to teach ID or creation science in the public schools is the right thing to do. As much as I advocate that ID is correct, it is not the time to teach it in the public schools. Creationist Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas School board, agrees.

McLeroy’s position is to be applauded by everyone. He might be the one guy that Darwinists, Creationists, and ID proponents will support with respect to not mandating ID or creation science in the public school.
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[photo of Eugenie Scott from www.ExpelledTheMovie.com serving as one of the Class Officers of The Big Science Academy. She will have a starring role in the best pro-ID movie yet.]

ID is a lineal descendent of William Paley’s Argument from Design (Paley 1803,)

Eugenie Scott
NCSE

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Trailers for the movie Expelled are now on the net. See: www.ExpelledTheMovie.com I was viewed as an intellectual terrorist. Rick Sternberg You can get your Rebel ID attire. It’s much better than those goofy Dawkins uniforms.

From Letter 3154 — Darwin, C. R. to Herschel, J. F. W., 23 May [1861] One cannot look at this Universe with all living productions & man without believing that all has been intelligently designed Charles Darwin, 1861 I think that would make a perfect textbook sticker.

It understandable that scientists make mistakes, but one would hope an entire scientific discipline could get at least one fact right once in a while. My friend Casey Luskin, an attorney and scientist at the Discovery Institute, reports: Paleoanthropologists Disown Homo habilis from Our Direct Family Tree.

In Understanding evolution is crucial to debate Sally Lehrman of the Boston Globe writes:

intelligent design proponents claim that schools should do a better job of explaining evolution. They may very well be right.

Unfortunately, this was the only good line in an otherwise horrible piece of biased tabloid style editorializing by Lehrman, who appears to have gladly become a part of the propaganda machine of the National Center for Selling Evolution (NCSE).

She is indeed correct to say the ID proponents are right. ID proponents are advocating that Darwin’s theory be taught in the way that Charles Darwin would have wanted his theory be taught. It was Darwin who said:

A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question

To that end, a book consistent with Darwin’s wishes, Explore Evolution, was written and promoted by several individuals affiliated with one of the nation’s top-rated think tanks, the Discovery Institute.

Natural selection …is not the fundamental cause of evolution.

Masatoshi Nei

Science continues to destroy Darwinism. A prominent member of the National Academy of Sciences, Masatoshi Nei, trashed neo-Darwinism in the recent peer-reviewed article: The new mutation theory of phenotypic evolution.

Haldane’s dilemma showed mathematically that natural selection could not be the major driving force of evolution. Haldane’s dilemma lead in part to the non-Darwinian theory of molecular evolution known as the “neutral theory of molecular evolution”. Neutral theory asserted natural selection was not the principal driving force of molecular evolution. However, when molecular neutral theory was presented to the world in the 1960’s, it was politically incorrect to assert the obvious consequence of the neutral theory of molecular evolution, namely: morphology, physiology, and practically anything else made of molecules would NOT be principally shaped by natural selection either.

In What are the speed limits of naturalistic evolution?, I pointed out:

And if Haldane’s dilemma were not enough of a blow to Darwinian evolution, in the 1960’s several population geneticists like Motoo Kimura demonstrated mathematically that the overwhelming majority of molecular evolution was non-Darwinian and invisible to natural selection. Lest he be found guilty for blasphemy, Kimura made an obligatory salute to Darwin by saying his non-Darwinian neutral theory “does not deny the role of natural selection in determining the course of adaptive evolution”. That’s right, according to Kimura, adaptive evolution is visible to natural selection while simultaneously molecular evolution is invisible to natural selection. Is such a position logical? No. Is it politically and intellectually expedient? Absolutely!

But now 4 decades later, the inevitable consequence of Haldane’s dilemma and Kimura’s neutral theory may be ending the uneasy truce between neo-Darwinists and neutralists.

Devoid of real arguments, Ken Miller has resorted to unsavory rhetoric and misrepresentations in his attempt to discredit the fine work of biochemist Michael Behe. Behe has finally responded to Miller’s antics at Amazon:

Response to Miller Part I

Response to Miller Part II

Regrettably, that’s Miller’s own special style. He doesn’t just sneer and thump his chest, as some other Darwinists do. He uses less savory tactics, too….
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Call it the principle of malignant reading. He’s been doing it for years with the arguments of Darwin’s Black Box, and he continues it in this review.

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