Culture

How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?

These were questions posed by Seed Magazine to its readers in its second annual Science Writing Contest. Among the judges were Adam Bly, editor-in-chief and founder of Seed, Chris Mooney, Seed’s Washington correspondent, PZ Myers, Seed columnist and author of Pharyngula, as well as the editors of Seed.

The question of free inquiry within the realms of science, even that which may challenge ‘well established theories’, such as neoDarwinian evolution, has become a hot bed issue. But should it be? I and others say not, since many of the so called ‘minor’ points waiting to be resolved with NDE are actually major foundational principles of its purported evolutionary process, and are therefore subject to modification.

In Thomas Martin’s winning essay, he tends to equate ‘scientific literacy’ with free inquiry, and going a step further, paints a disturbing picture of apparent “evidence blindness”, albeit one that has been advanced by others, both in and out of the science community. Read More ›

Kudos to Anthony Sacramone over at First Things for his hilarious (and insightful) take on the latest self help super-bestseller.  See here.  http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=833  Excerpt:  “After all, who wants to believe that they’re at the whim of chance, accident, or worse—a sovereign God? The idea of being either lost in a Darwinian universe or limited by environment, genetics, and luck is much too disheartening. And the prospect of being in the hands of an unsafe Creator, who sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, is absolutely infantilizing.”

Early this year I described how Richard Dawkins interviewed Alister McGrath for the BBC production THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL and then decided to leave him on the cutting room floor (go here). That interview is available at Google Video here. In watching it, ask yourself if it would have made for a less biased program if Dawkins had dropped Ted Haggard and substituted Alister McGrath.

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.

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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Just when you thought things couldn’t get any sillier, now Sam Harris, author of “Letter to a Christian Nation” publishes a letter in Nature calling all good scientists to oppose religion at every turn. Unfortunately for Sam, the letter is frought with inaccuracies and mischaracterizations that would make PiZza Myers proud. He even goes so far as to scold Nature for not taking a hard enough line against this pernicious evil.

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The audacity of the secular humanists never ceases to amaze. Their upcoming conference titled “The Secular Society and Its Enemies” is an ill-conceived rip-off of Karl Popper’s THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES. Had they read and understood Popper, they would realize that they are the enemies to which he was referring. I encourage readers of this blog in the New York area to attend this conference — doing so will immeasurably enrich your education and show you what we’re up against:

David Klinghoffer, author of the new book Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandments at Our Peril (Doubleday), gives a disconcerting interview in National Review Online about life in Seattle. Here’s a sample: Lopez: What’s the point of a First Commandment protest rally? Klinghoffer: Oh, I attended one, though it wasn’t spoken of explicitly. It was a rally for Richard Dawkins, the atheist Darwinist bestseller guy, at Seattle’s town hall. The First Commandment — “I am the Lord your God…” — really sticks in the craw of materialists like Dawkins, much more so than any other of the Ten Commandments. Everyone was bundled in flannel and they were applauding him for applauding them for being such a bunch of Read More ›

I just attended a briefing in Seattle about a film aimed at the US presidential election campaign, defending intelligent design, starring Ben Stein: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It details the cases of Rick Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Caroline Crocker. For more go to the Post-Darwinist.

Biologist John Lynch seems to think there is surprising silence over Behe’s book. I speculated that his perception is due to the fact that there are so many pro-ID or ID-sympathetic books and activities out there now. In addition to the activities of the ID community, there is renewed activity in the creationist community. There are at least two creation museums opening in 2007 — one in the USA and one in Canada!

It was through Uncommon Descent that important pro-ID books have gotten some promotion like ReMine’s Biotic Message and Sanford’s Genetic Entropy, or Barrow and Tipler’s Anthropic Cosmological Principle. I will hopefully post in detail on ReMine’s Biotic Message and Davies The Mind of God. It should be noted Barrow and Davies won an almost combined 3 million dollars in the form of Templeton Prizes for their (perhaps unwitting) ID-sympathetic works. Some of the best ID literature is in places you’d least expect!

Uncommon Descent will from time to time point out other books like Tipler’s Physics of Christianity and now this (unwitting) ID-sympathetic book by renowned scientist Owen Gingerich: God’s Universe

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Have you noticed that heroes are often scoundrels too (at least in the movies)? Can we say Rhett Butler or Han Solo?

Recall this romantic scene from The Empire Strikes Back:

Scoundrel I like the sound of that

Han: Hey! Your worship, I’m only trying to help.
Leia: Would you please stop calling me that?

Han: Sure…Leia.
Leia: You make it so difficult sometimes.

Han: I do. I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. C’mon admit it, sometimes you think I’m alright.
Leia: Occasionally, maybe, when you aren’t acting like a scoundrel.

Han: Scoundrel? Scoundrel…I like the sound of that. Read More ›

Has Charles Darwin got a new bulldog? In an interview with Alison St. John, who is hosting the Tom Fudge talk show on KPBS in San Diego, Randy Olson once again gives his classic spiel touting ‘Flock of Dodos’, which Alison depicts as a “delightful odyssey”, and which Randy heartily agrees. Go here for the interview. In comparing his quest to humorously, but factually chronicling the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution controversy, Randy cites both science and his work as ‘story telling’ (no argument there, with regards Darwinian theory), but inserts the caveat that the works of scientists, “are constrained by this ugly little thing called the truth”. ‘Flock of Dodos’ circumvents this constraint, in my opinion. As he’s done in Read More ›

During a recent GOP debate among presidential candidates a moderator asked the field of ten to answer whether they believed in evolution by the raising of hands. How can one possibly answer this without a more rigorous definition of evolution? Three candidates Tancredo, Huckabee, and Brownback raised their hands indicating they didn’t believe in evolution. The only way to answer this ambiguous question was by gross political calculation of whether raising a hand would gain or lose more votes. Evolution of what and how? I believe in the evolution of life the same way I believe in the evolution of computers. It’s obvious both evolved in a stepwise fashion from simple beginnings but just as obvious is that neither could Read More ›

This is for ForTheKids (FTK) to discuss separation of church and state. An important topic IMO. I deleted her opening separation comment on the DCA Update II thread as well as responses because I wanted that thread to remain topical. Our blog software has no option for relocating comments. FTK has been so gracious to me on her blog when I go off topic I felt bad about it so here’s the venue. I’ll open it with links to a couple relevant articles I wrote last year, some verbatim quotes of relevant constitutional amendments, and some historical facts regarding use of the phrase by founders and the US Supreme Court: Read More ›

One of New York’s foremost brain surgeons, Dr. Michael Egnor, has repeatedly pointed out why Darwinism is irrelevant to modern medicine. See: Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?.

And it turns out, Michael Egnor’s claims are being supported by an uncomfortable admission by Catriona J. MacCallum, the Senior Editor at PLoS Biology. In the recent editorial Does Medicine without Evolution Make Sense? MacCallum writes:

Charles Darwin, perhaps medicine’s most famous dropout, provided the impetus for a subject that figures so rarely in medical education. Indeed, even the iconic textbook example of evolution “antibiotic resistance” is rarely described as “evolution” in relevant papers published in medical journals. Despite potentially valid reasons for this oversight (e.g., that authors of papers in medical journals would regard the term as too general), it propagates into the popular press when those papers are reported on, feeding the wider perception of evolution’s irrelevance in general, and to medicine in particular

Darwinists claim how important Darwinism is to science, but MacCallum’s editorial makes an embarrassing admission of Darwinism’s irrelevance to medicine. She also reports on the protests from medical students who find themselves forced to study Darwinism for no good reason. In reading the excerpt below, ask yourself, “why is it that a campaign has to be waged to teach Darwinism in science classes.” Do we need campaigns to teach the theory of gravitation or the periodic table?:
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