Darwinism

Intelligent Design forum features Dembski & Ruse Jan 12, 2006 By Staff Baptist Press MARIETTA, Ga. (BP)–An upcoming dialogue between a key Intelligent Design proponent and a Darwinian evolutionist from Florida State University reflects the fact that, “Our commitment to truth leads us to believe that we have nothing to fear from public discussion of important topics,” said Robert Stewart, associate professor of philosophy and theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The 7 p.m. Feb. 3 dialogue between ID proponent William Dembski and evolutionist Michael Ruse is the featured event of NOBTS’ two-day Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum, to be held at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga. MORE

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060110_bee_fight.html

Proponents of intelligent design, which holds that a supreme being rather than evolution is responsible for life’s complexities, have long criticized science for not being able to explain some natural phenomena, such as how bees fly.
……….
Proponents of intelligent design, or ID, have tried in recent years to promote the idea of a supreme being by discounting science because it can’t explain everything in nature.

“People in the ID community have said that we don’t even know how bees fly,” Altshuler said. “We were finally able to put this one to rest. We do have the tools to understand bee flight and we can use science to understand the world around us.”

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-blue-mountains-passage-that-made-darwin-wonder/2006/01/10/1136863239665.html

Hubert Yockey, who at the Mere Creation conference in 1996 expressed to me some sympathy for ID and indicated at the time that he was not publicly coming out in favor of ID because he thought he could do the movement more good by working on his own program, has steadily been reversing himself on ID. Note that his love for the other side has not increased either. Here’s his latest. Scientific Reality vs. Intelligent Design’s False Claims—The Problem Is Getting Caught in Behe’s Tar Baby, Not Darwin’s Black Box Nuclear physicist and bioinformatician Dr. Hubert P. Yockey shows why Michael Behe and his ilk are wrong in his books, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life (Cambridge University Read More ›

It appears that Ken Miller is contacting people about how I got the copy of that check for $7000 that Playboy Enterprises made out to Michael Ruse for writing a pro-evolution anti-ID article (go here for an image of the check). He could simply have asked me. Hef is actually a long-time Chicago buddy of mine (he and my Dad were at the UofI in Champaign-Urbana after WWII). Hef showed it to me the last time I was at the Mansion. Read More ›

Adam Wolfson writes a fairly balanced piece on the evolution debate in The Weekly Standard. I take issue with his ending paragraphs saying ID is doomed in public teaching because proponents claim the designer must be God. This conclusion reflects a misunderstanding of ID which is about design detection not designer typecasting and a stereotyping of ID proponents into a mold they all do not fit into. Survival of the Evolution Debate Why Darwin is still a lightning rod. by Adam Wolfson 01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17 WHAT IS IT ABOUT EVEN the slightest dissent from Darwin’s theory of natural selection that drives liberal elites (and even some conservative elites) bonkers? In the 1920s, in the days of the Scopes Read More ›

The problem with this headline is that it’s dated not 1859 but 2005: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10361302 In what other science do its scientists have to do so much cheerleading for their theory?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/12/judge_jones_follows_aclu_ignor.html

http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article.asp?9385

[From an acquaintance:] “Sci-Fi authors have no problem pushing the envelope on physics, chemistry, astrophysics, cosmology, planetology, genetics, nanotech, biotech, neurotechnology, information technology, longevity, robotics, xenology etc. They regularly eat Einstein, or the speed-of-light barrier, for breakfast. But one staple of modern science is consistently taken for granted, never questioned, never paradigm shifted, pushed beyond its current state: the Neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution. In the science-fiction literature, every thing seems to evolve: physics, politics, language, culture, philosophy, fashion, morality, religion, entertainment, transportation, music, psychology, sociology, etc. etc. But there’s one glaring exception: the science and theory of biological evolution! How ironic. The science and theory evolution itself is an axiomatic constant.”

Who made the following predition: “Like the Marxists, the Darwinists are going to wind up as a cult in which few believe this side of Berkeley and Harvard Square.” Phil Johnson did over a decade ago. But these actual words are Pat Buchanan’s and were published today.

Tom Bethell Puts Darwinism on Defense
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted Dec 18, 2005

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10966

Among the most influential men of the 20th century were a pair of 19th century scholars: Charles Darwin and Karl Marx.

Recent years have not been kind to either. Marxism-Leninism, the ideology that welded together and drove the Soviet empire, has been discredited by the horrors it produced and the colossal failure of Marxist theory when put into practice.

Comes now Darwin’s turn. In his 1859 “The Origin of Species” and other works, Darwin posited his thesis that man is not the work of any Creator, but a being that evolved from lower forms of life out of the primordial ooze.

In his “Politically Correct Guide to Science,” Tom Bethell, who Tom Wolfe calls “one of our most brilliant essayists,” has, in 36 pages, gathered and briefly described a few of the difficulties that Darwinists are facing in defending their dogmas against skeptics. Read More ›

[From a colleague:] There is a wonderful critique of Darwinism by the French zoologist Remy Chauvin. It is called Le darwinisme, ou La fin d’un mythe [Darwinism, or The end of a myth] (Editions du Rocher, 1997). It is even better, especially for polemical purposes, than the book by Chandebois, previously discussed on this blog. It includes close discussion of many specific cases, with calm and crushing objections (Kettlewell’s moths do not land on the trunks in nature, but under the leaves; Batesian “mimics” also occur among species, both of which are perfectly palatable to predators; etc., etc.). He also gives many statements of Darwinian reasoning that are so logically faulty and empirically vacuous that they would never be publishable Read More ›

[From a paper by one of my students:] According to Darwin’s theory, humans are separated from the animals only by a matter of degrees, not by categories. This is the working presupposition behind the evolutionary ethics of James Rachels. Thus, there can be no fundamental difference between “evil” committed by rhesus monkeys and that committed by the Great Apes –- Homo sapiens. This is where the reductio meets the ad absurdum. To argue that crimes committed by animals and those committed by humans are equivalent does not comport with reality and it does not jive with our experience. While we do have pet cemeteries, we do not have pet penitentiaries. No one incarcerates a Mantis religiosa for the copulatory consumption Read More ›

Theory of intelligent design making its way into Broward textbooks
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cbook09dec09,0,6134369,print.story

By Chris Kahn
Education Writer

December 9, 2005

Broward County on Thursday narrowed its choices for high school Biology I textbooks to two finalists, both of which have been under scrutiny by Christian conservatives who want to change the way students learn about the origin of life.

Both have edited passages about evolution theory during the past few years after receiving complaints from the Discovery Institute. The think tank sponsors research on intelligent design, which argues life is so complicated, it must have been fashioned by a higher being. One of the books also has added a short section on creationism.

In the end, Broward teachers will have to decide which book works best based on their individual review of the whole textbooks, which include hundreds of pages of lessons, support materials and suggested activities. Read More ›