Education

Over at ARN, David Tyler has a blog post entitled We must “understand that there is no serious scientific challenge to evolution.” It references an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article was authored by Eugenie Scott and Nicholas Matzke of the National Center for Science Education, an organization whose sole purpose appears to be the promotion of Darwinian orthodoxy in publicly funded education, and the suppression of any and all scientific dissent from any aspect of the “theory,” by any means available.

David Tyler:

Eugenie Scott and Nicholas Matzke, from the National Center for Science Education, offer their analysis of how ID is making “a serious challenge not in the world of science, but in the world of public educational policy.” It is a paper that reworks the NCSE position without contributing any new ideas to the debate.

These authors reveal an unqualified confidence that evolutionary theory has the answers. It is “replete with explanations for complex biological structures.” It “continues to make progress in explaining such fascinating structures”. They assert that there is “no serious scientific challenge to evolution.” Underpinning theory are “fertile and unifying evolutionary principles.”

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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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Did anyone happen to notice Time’s cover story for April 2? It seems there is a small movement to teach the Bible in public high schools as literature. Why, you ask would someone attempt to do something so silly? Isn’t this unconstitutional?

” “One can hardly respect the system of education that would leave the student wholly ignorant of the currents of religious thought that move the world society for … which he is being prepared,” Jackson wrote, and warned that putting all references to God off limits would leave public education “in shreds.” ” – Justice Robert Jackson, McCollum v. Board of Education, 1948

” “Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment…” ” – Justice Tom C. Clark, Abington Township School District v. Schempp, 1963 Read More ›

In response to the upcoming Darwin vs. Design seminar at Southern Methodist University April 13th and 14th (featuring Lee Strobel, Steve Meyer, Mike Behe, and Jay Richards — go here), the university is set to issue the following statement in response: Under SMU’s procedures for making appropriate campus facilities available for community events, McFarlin Auditorium has been rented by the Discovery Institute April 13-14 for a program titled “Darwin vs. Design.” SMU policy requires that groups using campus facilities must have a University organization as a co-sponsor. In this case, the Christian Legal Society, a student group in SMU’s Dedman School of Law, is co-sponsoring the event. Although SMU makes its facilities available as a community service, and in support Read More ›

If you’ve been part of the ID debate, none of this is news: Here is the film’s website: www.indoctrinate-u.com.

I just love being eventually proven right but vindication usually doesn’t come to me this quickly. As I was trying to tell Mike Dunford, including my now prophetic-appearing conjecture that manmade CFC-caused ozone depletion is a real global warming culprit, unlike the mythical C02 effect…

Last year, Bromwich’s research group reported in the journal Science that Antarctic snowfall hadn’t increased in the last 50 years. “What we see now is that the temperature regime is broadly similar to what we saw before with snowfall. In the last decade or so, both have gone down.”

–David Bromwich, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Geography, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University

Thanks for playing, Mike. Better luck next time.

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On another forum, ID colleague John Calvert of the Intelligent Design Network posted the following letter concerning the recent actions of the Kansas State Board of Education. With his kind permission I reproduce it here for the edification of UD readers. The behind-the-scenes details are rather disturbing. It is clear to me that the anti-ID crowd is in defensive meltdown mode.

Before reading John’s letter check out Phillip Johnson’s rather prophetic words from Darwin On Trial, first published in 1991:

Darwinian evolution with its blind watchmaker thesis makes me think of a great battleship on the ocean of reality. Its sides are heavily armored with philosophical barriers to criticism, and its decks are stacked with big rhetorical guns ready to intimidate any would-be attackers. In appearance, it is as impregnable as the Soviet Union seemed to be only a few years ago. But the ship has sprung a metaphysical leak, and the more perceptive of the ship’s officers have begun to sense that all the ship’s firepower cannot save it if the leak is not plugged.

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Go here and you’ll be able to download a “Comparison Document” that shows how the new Kansas Science Standards deviate from the old. The change that particularly struck me was the following: Old characterization of science: “scientific knowledge describes and explains the natural world.” New characterization of science: “scientific knowledge describes and explains the physical world in terms of matter, energy, and forces.” Besides defining intelligent design out of existence, this new definition defines what have traditionally been regarded as distinctly human traits, such as free will and consciousness, which science studies, also out of existence. It’s all to the good that the scientific materialists have introduced this ideologically charged definition of science, perhaps not for the Kansas students who Read More ›

Until today, I’ve been keeping quiet about this developing story about Marcus Ross, a creationist PhD graduate from Rhode Island University. I wanted to protect him from media scrutiny until the news story finally broke.

Now that the NY Times has reported it, I may as well publicly extend my congratulations to Marcus Ross. He serves as a role model for how ID proponents and even young earth creationists can matriculate through Darwinist controlled institutions.
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Cosmic rays blamed for global warming

The amount of warming predicted by theoretical modeling of CO2 in the atmosphere is several times more than what has actually been measured. This is indicative of deep flaws in the theory or the measurements. Here’s an alternative theory that accounts for the measured amount of warming instead the hysterical hand-waving theoretical predictions we are being deluged with by the sensationalist mainstream media, environmentalist whackos, and vested interests in the scientific community.

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Someone in California has created a website dedicated to potential cancer wonder-drug DCA (dichloroacetate). Pass the word. The DCA Site – Updating You on DCA and Cancer

I’ve enjoyed following the ID debate in the UK, and especially David Anderson’s BCSE Revealed blog. The BCSE is the British Centre for Science Education, whose role in the UK appears to be analogous to that of the NCSE in the US.

David recently posted the comment below the fold concerning BCSE’s portrayal of him, his blog, and fundamentalists. I particularly enjoyed the sewer rat comment.
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Thanks to so many people making so much racket on the internet this potential wonder-drug is finally getting noticed. Let’s keep up the pressure. New Cure for Cancer: Truth or Dare? by Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, American Cancer Society, for ABC News There is the medical equivalent of a tsunami wave building out there, only we don’t know where this one is going to land. It is called DCA, and we at the American Cancer Society are suddenly receiving requests for information about something few if any of us had heard about as a cancer treatment until this past week. Read the rest at the link and also visit Dr. Len’s Cancer blog.

Great informative article by Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball.

Excerpts follow. Read the whole article at Canada Free Press.

This is what happens when good science goes bad. It’s the same story with orthodox evolution theory.

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Australian ID critic Robyn Williams recently interviewed Melbourne neuroscientist John Reid, who is also a self-proclaimed expert in overpopulation and how to deal with it. Eric Pianka was the talk of this blog last year for recommending Ebola as the instrument of choice for reducing the world’s population by 90 percent (use UD’s search feature on his name). It seems that Eric and John need to pool their talents. In case you haven’t met, Eric, meet John; John, meet Eric. There, I’ve done my good deed for the day.

For a taste of where John Reid is going, consider:

[H]umanity has been all too compliant with the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The precepts of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam represent the quintessential perversion of the human mind. They must be abandoned and the notion of the sanctity of human life must be subjugated to the greater sanctity of all life on Earth.

Here is the full transcript: Read More ›