In “Making Stories Visible The Task for Bioethics Commissions” (Issues in Science and Technology 27/2), Meera Lee Sethi and Adam Briggle explore claims made for science finds – under the banner, “Critical skepticism is always appropriate”: blockquote> Narrative explanations can help us understand difficult scientific issues, but they can also mislead us. Critical skepticism is Read More…
academic freedom
Stomping out independent thought, Campus USA
Caroline Crocker, author of Free to Think, on Darwin trolls harassing students on campus: At a recent conference in Hawaii I was approached by a group of about eight students lamenting about how only one side of the evolution issue is taught in their classrooms and that anyone who suggests that there may be scientific Read More…
She said it: Nancy Pearcey’s thoughtful article on how “Christianity is a Science-starter, not a Science-stopper”
One of the most common objections to design thought is the idea that it is about the improper injection of the alien supernatural into the world of science. (That is itself based on a strawman misrepresentation of design thought, as was addressed here a few days ago.) However, there is an underlying root, a common Read More…
He said it: Prof Lewontin’s strawman “justification” for imposing a priori materialist censorship on origins science
Yesterday, in the P Z Myers quote-mining and distortion thread, I happened to cite Lewontin’s infamous 1997 remark in his NYRB article, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” on a priori imposition of materialist censorship on origins science, which reads in the crucial part: It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel Read More…
Is Amazon now enforcing review standards?
At Cannuckian Yankee’s comment 14 on UD Contest post “Why do people refuse to read books they are attacking?” (now being judged), we learn, There’s a guy on Amazon who’s extremely anti-ID. He comments on or reviews just about every ID book, but it’s quite obvious that he never reads the books. He goes by Read More…
Retraction Watch has noted the math journal’s retraction of its treatment of Granville Sewell
Here. Here’s the paper. PowerPoint here. Here’s the news story. Here’s Sewell’s comments. Uncommon Descent adds its commendation to the editors of Applied Mathematical Letters for doing the right thing: From Retraction Watch:
More on withdrawn article
Three points regarding my withdrawn article, that I don’t believe have been made elsewhere: 1. Although it is fair to call it “ID friendly”, it does not actually mention ID or Darwinism, and does not even conclude that the second law has definitely been violated here, it just makes the rather obvious point that if Read More…
A Second Look at the Second Law
My article “A Second Look at the Second Law,” accepted by Applied Mathematics Letters in January, was, as some of you know, withdrawn at the last moment by the editor, not because of any alleged errors, but because “our editors simply found that it does not consist of the kind of content that we are Read More…
Retractions file: California Academy of Science Journal published Darwin lobbyist Eugenie Scott’s retraction of false claim (2005)
While writing “New York Times reports on Darwinist’s article disowned by philosophy journal,” I got the sense there was a similar case way back when that went unheralded. (Note: Times writer Mark Oppenheimer linked to this blog from his blog, for clarification on the fact that the ID community was not conspiring against Forrest to vindicate Read More…
Brown bag: Darwinists trade broomsticks for calendars in effort to vindicate “no homework” prof
Yes, really. Recently, in a guest edited issue of philosophy journal Synthese, anti-ID Louisiana U prof Barbara Forrest broomsticked – of all people – Baylor prof Frank Beckwith, framed as an ID supporter. And anyone who keeps up with the issues knows he isn’t. The scandal here is that Forrest is supposed to be a Read More…
No, it’s not just ID; it’s pervasive
Debra J. Saunders (“Academic Mission or UCLA Speech Code?”, April 12, 2011) reports, If you think that academia is not the exclusive playground of the academic left, consider the fate of UCLA epidemiologist James Enstrom.