Darwinism

Iconic culture commentator Tom Wolfe, author of The Kingdom of Speech told Spanish paper, El Mundo (second after El Pais” ): I started reading a bit and I had more and more the feeling that it was a myth. A myth like Thor and Wotan. The theory of evolution does not meet any of the standards of a new theory because, first, it is not testable. Evolution means you can not see what will happen unless you are going to live for seven million years. It can not be explained, it is completely impossible. If you tried to find facts that are true, evolution would vanish. No new investigations have been opened and it is not a testable theory. I think that if Read More ›

From a paper at Perspectives in Science (October 15, 2016): Science Standards: The foundation of evolution education in the UnitedStates Abstract: Science standards and textbooks have a huge impact on the manner in which evolution is taught in American classrooms. Standards dictate how much time and what points have to be dedicated to the subject in order to prepare students for state-wide assessments, while the textbooks will largely determine how the subject is presented in the classroom. In the United States both standards and textbooks are determined at the state-level through a political process. Currently there is a tremendous amount of pressure arising from anti-evolutionists in the United States to weaken or omit the teaching of evolution despite recommendations from Read More ›

A friend sends this list of freakouts by Darwin’s followers some years ago, about the dangers the ID community poses: — Evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci (“The Varieties of Denialism,” 2002): ID is “bent on literally destroying science as we know it.” Anthropologist Pat Shipman (2005): I have been “prompted to take ID seriously, and this movement scares me. Now I feel like a jogger in the park at night who realizes that she is far too isolated and that the shadows are far too deep. At first I ignored that faint rustling behind me, convincing myself it was just wind in the leaves. Louder noises made me jump and turn around, but I saw nothing. Now I know that I Read More ›

In Public Evolution Summit, Suzan Mazur quotes John Landon at Darwinana.com on the decades-long Darwin debate, now erupting at the Royal Society. One might have expected, given the name of the site, that Landon felt himself in somewhat the same position as the turkey who discovers the true meaning of Thanksgiving… But it is encouraging to hear him say, Watching the Darwin debate go on and on unreasonably with no resolution from scientific or academic bodies allowing the religious right to dominate critique is a strange experience. I am impressed by the inability of most of the public to think clearly on the subject, the failure of the biological community to handle even the most elementary discussion of the problems, Read More ›

For eleven months. From Stoyan Zaimov at Christian Post: The atheist criticism against the movie reached such intensity that the film’s trailer was blocked on YouTube for 11 months because it was flagged by members of the community who were seemingly upset with its representation of what happened. The issue was allegedly the claim that a key conversation, in which Rachel dies for affirming her Christian faith, never took place. The filmmakers are standing by the story, however, and say the conversation in question is found in later statements made by witness Richard Costaldo, who says he was near Scott when the killers opened fire. More. So many people worldwide die for affirming their Christian faith, one wonders to whom it Read More ›

In new book on the Royal Society’s Public Evolution Summit, Oxford’s Denis Noble explains, The reasons I think we are talking about replacement rather than extension are several. The first is that the exclusion of any form of acquired characteristics being inherited was a central feature of the modern synthesis. In other words, to exclude any form of inheritance that was non-Mendelian, that was Lamarckian-like, was an essential part of the modern synthesis. What we are now discovering is that there are mechanisms by which some acquired characteristics can be inherited, and inherited robustly. So it’s a bit odd to describe adding something like to the synthesis ( i.e., extending the synthesis). A more honest statement is that the synthesis Read More ›

Wow. How that one got past “All suits on board for PC over fact” is anyone’s guess. From Alex Murashko at World News Daily: Although producers of “I’m Not Ashamed,” which releases Friday, use the 1999 Columbine High School massacre as a backdrop to the feature story of martyred Rachel Joy Scott, the film doesn’t shy away from the underreported fact that killer Eric Harris was most likely motivated by Darwinism and natural selection. Based on Harris’ own journal, and as depicted in movie clips given exclusively to WND, Harris, along with Dylan Klebold, found justification for their diabolical plans in Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theology. More. Our Barry Arrington was the lawyer for some of the families Read More ›

One must register for the download. of the National Academy of Sciences’ free book on science literacy. A friend notes that on pages 40–41 of the book, Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences,” which discusses the meaning of “scientific literacy” … they discuss whether questions measuring your agreement with evolution should be included in a metric of “science literacy.” They that understanding what evolution says is enough to demarcate science literacy. “One important change to the items that Miller popularized occurred in the 2010 version of Indicators when the National Science Board decided to reduce the battery of knowledge questions used to track factual knowledge from 11 to 9 items, removing the questions on evolution and the big bang. The Read More ›

A friend notes that Doug Futuyma’s abstract for the upcoming Royal Society Public Evolution Summit is now available. Based on the predictable and disappointing verbiage, the friend fears that the meeting will fizzle: Abstract: The evolutionary synthesis today: extend or amend? Evolutionary theory has been extended almost continually since the Evolutionary Synthesis, but the principal tenets of the Synthesis have been strongly supported, the single most important exception being the greater importance accorded genetic drift, especially in molecular evolution. The calls for an extended synthesis today are largely a continuation of this process. Some elements of the EES movement, such as the role of niche construction, are welcome emphases on long recognised but perhaps under-studied processes. The union of population genetic theory Read More ›

From Truth Will Set You Free (18) in response to Pindi (16) — Pindi @ 16: Saying that the theory of Darwinian evolution is in free fall has nothing to do with the state of ID, or whether William Dembski is breaking ranks from the ID movement. News: Dembski isn’t “breaking ranks from the ID movement” and has never said he was. He just wanted to do something with his life for a while other than scrap with tax- or Templeton-funded Darwin trolls. You bought ‘em, you pay for ‘em. Darwinian evolution is in free fall because it is not supported by empirical science. Lots of speculation and philosophizing, but no empirical evidence to prove that natural selection working on Read More ›

Some of us worried that it would be a fizzle, but maybe not. Do Darwin faithful own evolution or does evidence matter even if thy did not sponsor it? Does it make any difference if they can’t plausibly explain it? We’ll see. From Suzan Mazur’s new book on the Royal Society’s Public Evolution Summit: It seems a long time in coming for those of us watching from the sidelines. But on November 7-9, 26 distinguished scientists will meet with a public audience of nearly 300 (including other distinguished scientists) at London’s Royal Society — the world’s oldest scientific organization—to present and discuss evidence for evolution paradigm shift and hopefully send the selfish gene, once and for all, into literary history. The expectation Read More ›

From Jonathan Witt at Evolution News & Views: If you’re driving along and notice that a bright philosopher has just mangled beyond recognition the argument of another bright philosopher, a tap on the brakes and a bit of careful rubbernecking is in order. If you then notice that the one who has done the mangling is Darwinist Michael Ruse, and what he mangled is an argument by eminent philosopher Thomas Nagel against Darwinism, then it’s worth pulling over and taking an even closer look. More. I remember Ruse from the days when he taught in Canada, a cheery old Darwinist (I once interviewed him) who – to his credit – never disguised his genial contempt for the rubes, boobs, hicks, Read More ›

Yes, yes, you say, gentle reader. Tell that to Darwin’s followers. Well it is too bad about Darwin’s followers. The rethinking evolution meet at the Royal Society in the fall, however disappointing at first, is only the beginning of th end. Darwinism worked so well as a dogma, foisted on school systems at public expense and defended by educrat lobbies. Over the last decade ad a half, I have sifted through countless media releases announcing either that researchers had once again proven Darwinism or come up with a casuistical explanation for why it is true anyway. That sort of thing happens when a field is not really a history but a cult. But as this post at Creation-Evolution Headlines demonstrates, Read More ›

Suzan Mazur writes to say that her new book, on the Royal Society rethinking evolution is now available: “The test case for organized science’s ability to deal empirically with evolution.” – Microbiologist James Shapiro (commenting on the Royal Society public evolution summit) Suzan Mazur is the author of three previous books: The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry, The Origin of Life Circus: A How To Make Life Extravaganza, and The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing ‘the Hegemony of the Culture of Darwin’. Her reports have appeared in the Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, Newsday, Archaeology, Astrobiology, Connoisseur, Omni, Huffington Post, Progressive Review, CounterPunch, Scoop Media and other publications, as well as on PBS, CBC and MBC. She has been Read More ›

Lee Spetner, author of The Evolution Revolution, responds to a Darwin-in-the-schools lobbyist at Evolution News & Views : In his review, David Levin seems to have set out to perform a hatchet job, and this required dispensing with truth. Before going into that, however, I must describe briefly the major point of my book, which he neglected to address. One would expect a review of a book to include a discussion of its major point. Perhaps he didn’t understand it or else he felt unable to refute it. Either way, he ignored it. The major point of the book is that current evolutionary theory is a failure. It is a failure because it has never been shown that the probabilities Read More ›